Criminals as Heroes in Popular Culture, 1st ed. 2020

This book delves into humanity?s compulsive need to valorize criminals. The criminal hero is a seductive figure, and audiences get a rather scopophilic pleasure in watching people behave badly. This book offers an analysis of the varied and vexing definitions of hero, criminal, and criminal heroes both historically and culturally.

This book also examines the global presence, gendered complications, and gentle juxtapositions in criminal hero figures such as: Robin Hood, Breaking Bad, American Gods, American Vandal, Kabir, Plunkett and Macleane, Martha Stewart, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, Ocean?s 11, Ocean?s Eleven, and Let The Bullets Fly. 

Roxie J. James, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of English in the Department of English at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. She specializes in Romantic and Victorian literature, and her research interests include British women's writing and depictions of dirt in Victorian literature and culture.

Kathryn E. Lane, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of English and Department Chairperson at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. Her research interests include Victorian literature and culture, popular culture, and feminist theory. She is the editor of the 2018 book collection Age of the Geek: Depictions of Nerds and Geeks in Popular Media.

Offers a perspective on the growing trend of criminals as heroes in popular media

Examines the current cultural “fascination” with criminals and its broader societal implications

Expands beyond the limited scope of the western to address pirates, gentleman highwaymen, and “bad gender.”