Bad Boy - Captain Mal

Bad Boys

This is a hard topic. Maybe it’s because I never liked bad boys. I remember them from high school. They wore blue jeans to school (horrors!) and white T-shirts, cigarette packs tucked into their rolled-up sleeves. They hung out in a pack, just outside the school fence. And they SMOKED. They leered at girls and shouted at us as we walked back into school after lunch.

Scary.

As I grew older, I still stayed away from the bad boys. Just call me Goodie-Two-Shoes. But I love reading about them or watching them on TV or movies. Especially when a GTS reforms him. More likely, he already has the character of a good guy. Bad Boy is just a façade.

My favorite bad boy is Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the short-lived TV series Firefly and the movie Serenity. He was a rebel in the war and stayed one by working on the fringes of space. He and his team are scavengers, carrying cargo of dubious legality. Captain Mal seems hardhearted. He’s been beaten down by the Alliance but refuses to stay down. He grouses about his passengers yet, underneath, you know he cares about them.

Finding a way to not only survive but work outside the “system” is Mal’s strength. Another is that he takes responsibility for his crew. One of the hardest episodes for me to watch was when the ship’s life support system fails and he orders the crew to leave in the shuttles to find aid. He stays behind. Alone. Being rescued would be a miracle. My heart ached for him in his loneliness and despair. Yet he had to do the right thing with his crew. He gave them a fighting chance of staying alive.

Self sacrifice. What more could you ask for in a bad boy?