Am I the only one that thinks a show talking about how what a swell guy the devil really is is creepy/weird at best and dangerous at worst?
Have you actually watched it? :-)
Under that concept, the devil indeed can be a likeable character. Because one can certainly take enjoyment as murderers and other such people get punished for their evil deeds.
No. When it first came out I immediately refused to watch it on the basis that it was exactly this creepy and weird thing you mentioned. Make the incarnation of evil into a hero?
Not good. Not good symbolically or psychologically.
No, you are not alone. I hate bad guys being good on TV and the movies. I hate gangster movies when they win. I hate seeing criminals win and profit from their heists and what and such.
Americans today by and large are fine with bad guys profiting from being bad guys. It is a massive shift in our culture that occurred in the early 1970s.
Up until the late 1960s, American audiences would EVER tolerate criminals and bad guys profiting from their crimes and misdeeds. This is why in the first Italian job movie (SPOILER COMING SO DON’T READ ON IF YOU DON’T WANT IT SPOILED)...
In the first Italian Job movie, it looks like their plundered gold is all going to plunge down a mountainside and be forever lost. While in the 2nd Italian job movie, the original thieves prevail and keep their illegal plunder.
Just like in the original Oceans 11, their money burns up in the incinerator and the tiny amount someone put in their pocket, were used charitably for the family of the one guy who wasn’t involved in the heist because he had a heart attack. That is an important piece of the movie for the original audiences — had the dead guy been in on the heist first, it would have made his family accessories and therefore unworthy of charity. But because the guy never actually engaged in any crime, it left those audiences free to feel sympathy for the son of the dead guy so he could afford to go to college or military school or whatever.
Today, audiences are much more accepting of criminals profiting from their crimes.
I try to tell younger people how America is far less moral today than previously, and this is one of my examples. It goes right over their heads. They can’t even understand the underlying point that we used to loathe criminals who “won”. Today, they are so used to the bad guys winning, they can’t see it.
So yeah, to me the Devil has to lose every time. He never won in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer show. He was always stymied some how.