Radical Love: The Rise of the Kind Lead

Over the last few decades as film and television have evolved, audiences have largely come to expect certain qualities from their leading protagonists: bravery, intelligence, ambition, wit, even a slightly rebellious nature. However, as global, real-life media has invaded more and more of our everyday lives, the things which previously felt solidly black-and-white have instead entered a sort of grayscale realm. Perhaps as a result of this shift, the main characters in popular film, television, and books have begun to enter that grayscale as well.

For a large majority of the most popular media, there is one character trait that has often been viewed as unnecessary at best and, at worst, inconvenient for the driving protagonist of a story to have: kindness. Or, perhaps more appropriately, gentleness. After all, Han Solo certainly had a level of compassion for his friends, but he wasn’t exactly defined by a soft touch. And this isn’t just true of anti-heroes, either. Even straightforward for-the-good-of-humanity protagonists have been forgiven or even praised for sacrificing their gentler side for the sake of their bravery, skills, and snarky one-liners. Sarah Connor, Katniss Everdeen, Iron Man. We seem to enjoy a lead who is ‘above’ the pesky practicalities of worrying about someone else’s feelings or doing something through the proper channels.

But that desire seems to be changing. Instead of living vicariously through someone who has enough wit, charm, and skill to forego gentle humility, we seem to be longing for a different kind of fulfillment from our main characters. Kindness, gentleness, self-control: these fruits of the Spirit which are so central to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount are now taking center stage. To examine this shift, how it affects the lead characters we know and love, and what it could mean for popular media in the future, let’s take a look at two recent television hits which expertly exemplify this shift: Ted Lasso and Death by Lightning.

Ted Lasso: Kindness is within our control

At first glance, the scope of the hit British-American series Ted Lasso appears to be relatively limited. A simple American football coach from the US is engaged to lead a struggling British soccer team to better results. Sweet and endearing, it’s a classic underdog sports tale to place on the shelf along with the likes of Miracle Match and Coach Carter. However, there is a key scene that is noticeably missing from Ted Lasso which belies the show’s true spirit. Rather than standing out on the field in front of his dejected team, pumping them full of high-spirited and demanding motivation, the title character of this series opts for a different approach.

He asks about his players’ personal lives, he checks in on their progress both on and off the pitch. He even has frequent heart-to-hearts with various members of the club management. As viewers dig deeper and deeper into the story of this small team, they may begin to realize that any obstacle the characters face is not due to the malicious intent of someone else. Even if a storyline seems to begin that way—talented upstart Jamie Tart’s aggression toward veteran player Roy Kent, for example—it is quickly shown that anything that appears to be hostility or antagonism is actually the working out of that person’s human failings, fears, or core insecurities.

“Well, so what?” we may start by asking ourselves. “So what if that person is acting out of an insecurity or past hurt, they still did something wrong and they can’t be allowed to get away with it or to do it again.” But Ted Lasso, with its own sense of gentleness and understanding towards the viewers’ very human need to feel justified, quietly refutes that approach. Ted, played by Jason Sudeikis, shows his players—and us, as fly-on-the-wall spectators—that the only way to deal with these very real, everyday setbacks is by engaging the only thing that is actually within our control: our kindness and our gentleness.

In contrast to the ‘fight fire with fire’ protagonists which have graced both the silver and small screen for the last few decades, Ted’s lifestyle is firmly rooted in turning the other cheek. And he shows—not effortlessly, but in a way that seems realistic and achievable—that the choice not to escalate on someone else’s tension is truly the only viable way to bring everyone involved back onto the best path. And what’s more? He truly believes that each person is deserving of the time and effort it takes to do that. Ted Lasso is a protagonist for the modern age, one who values people and their journeys and who takes the hard road of gentleness in a world which has taught us that a soft touch is all but synonymous with failure.

Death by Lightning: Kindness in Extremity

Watching Ted Lasso, we may be tempted to think that gentleness and kindness are all well and good when the stakes are low. Sure, we can try to be accommodating and compassionate when our neighbor lets their dog poop on our lawn or when someone cuts us off in traffic. But what about when our job is at stake or our child is being bullied in school, surely we are perfectly justified in dropping the kindness ‘act’ in those circumstances?

Death by Lighting, the recent hit Netflix show which follows American President James Garfield, begs to differ. Much like Ted Lasso, the show seeks to quietly lead by example and yet makes an even more outrageous claim—that we can be kind, gentle, and in control even when lives and nations are at stake. While the show perhaps simplifies some of the issues of the past to resonate with modern audiences, the character of James Garfield, played by Michael Shannon, is an incredible demonstration of what our modern heroes should look like. The show recognizes that many, if not all, of us have forgotten the vital first step in Teddy Roosevelt’s famous foreign policy approach: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” So, through Garfield’s desire to keep his promises, to act with gentleness and honor to his children, and to believe the best in everyone around him, we are reminded to walk alongside him in his journey to the White House and to—first and foremost—lower our voices.

We would be remiss not to examine, if only briefly, Charles Guiteau, the other side of Garfield’s coin who is presented in parallel to him throughout the series. It is highly likely that, had the show introduced us to this character at the end of the series when his actions finally come to fruition, we would quite simply hate him. After all, his acts result in terrible grief and in lasting ill effects for the United States as a whole. However, that is not how we meet Charles Guiteau, played masterfully by Matthew McFadyen as a striving, impressionable, opportunistic individual with a desperation to show loyalty to someone or something and to receive it in return. Instead, we journey alongside him as we do with Garfield in his setbacks, pain, miscommunications, and in his difficulty with finding even a small corner of the world in which to exist.

James Garfield, as the lead character in the series, has more reason to hate Guiteau than anyone else. And yet it is as if, with one look, Garfield has seen everything that brought Guiteau to such extremity and understood that rage, retribution, and escalation have no place in that conversation. Instead, he continues his policy of kindness and gentleness until the very end, striving to make the happiness in his life resound louder than the tragedy. He shows us that how we react to the cruelty of others will ultimately define us, not them. 

And he pays the price for that decision. In contrast to a “means justify the ends” protagonist who is willing to break everything around them in order to achieve their ends, Garfield shows a Christ-like motivation to be the only one to pay the cost. Rather than allow the hatred and pettiness of what ultimately finishes him to continue beyond his own life, he chooses to end that story and start a new one. One of humility, forgiveness, understanding, and grace. One that values the least of these and has the guts to live that out until the end.

So, what does this new brand of lead character tell us about the desires of the modern audience and about where media might be headed in the future? Well firstly, it shows a deep shift in priorities. It seems that many of us have grown weary of watching characters act on instinct with no concern for the repercussions. Instead, these new characters show that there is now a demand for role models who can make an omelette without breaking eggs—and who can show us how to do the same. This shift will likely work in combination with a new emphasis on understanding people’s experiences, backgrounds, and personal adversities, such as in shows like Ludwig, the BBC series which follows a lead character who struggles to relate to those who are different from him but who eventually strives to be a source of light, kindness, and justice to them anyway.

This trend is a good thing. Perhaps it shows that we, as humans, have decided that Jesus’ emphasis on the softer attributes of forgiveness, gentleness, peace, and patience wasn’t an accident, after all. And that maybe, in order to help us choose that path, we have to choose characters who model it for us, too.