Word: villainized
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...moralists were licked, the novel triumphant. Then it became transfigured with Uplift-Mesmerism, Mormonism, Bloomerism, above all, Teetotalism and Abolitionism. As villain, the boozer rivaled the seducer, now plying his wenches with animal magnetism and transcendentalism, instead of sighs and potions. Among temperance novelists was Walt Whitman, who confided that he wrote the "rot" with the help of several bottles of port. Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was promptly answered by at least 14 pro-slavery novels, including Aunt Phillis's Cabin. Deep in their weeping willows and haunted groves, early U. S. novelists...
...might all have gone down in a sea of verbiage without the mood of pursuing doom running from scene to scene. For this, the bows may well go to Cameraman Tony Gaudio, whose slanting shadows and subdued photography make the tropic atmosphere more ominous than the leer of any villain...
Escape is also a powerful true bill against Naziism's ruthlessness. The villain of the story, rather than any individual, is the system. Its personification is in the machinelike personality of a Prussian general (Conrad Veidt), the helplessness of a sympathetic Nazi doctor (Philip Dorn...
...freedom"), there are no harangues on fascism in general; and the spectator is relied upon to hate the Nazis out of his own accord. In fact the rescuer of prisoner Nazimova is the uniformed concentration camp doctor, a Nazi and a lovable chap besides. As for the general, villain of the drama, he fills his part with such dignity and dapper looks that he elicits more admiration than hisses...
...judging by Monday night's sprinkled and hesitant laughter. In fact, the whole attitude of the audience today seems far too polite for a playwright used to the bantering of the "pit." The Elizabethan wits must have lambasted Malvolio as enthusiastically as the later 19th Century hissed the villain. His first appearance bedecked with yellow garters probably unloosed a storm of mirth and ridicule. A little more of this boisterousness would be a welcome addition...