The Meaning of Badassery

Badass. By now, a lot of you have heard that term and know that it does not refer to a naughty donkey. It usually refers to a character or person who does crazily awesome things in an insanely awesome way while looking awesome. The word used to have MEANING! But now, I've noticed the word being tossed around so easily, that everyone from the Teletubbies to you could be considered a badass. You used to have to earn that title.

Someone has to take a stand! And by take a stand, I mean write a blog post about it and bitch! Hunker down, as I shall take you to a journey over what it means to be a true badass! (P.S. This is solely my opinion, so don't take everything to heart. But hey, if you didn't care about my opinion, would you be reading this?)

First things first; use of power. Not power itself, but the use of power. If a man with extensive martial arts training uses it to beat up bunnies, he'd probably be an asshole. If, however, he used it to punch Hitler, he'd be a total badass! You see, people often think if you're powerful, you're automatically a badass. But no! They're wrong! Wrong! Wrong! No, it's a matter of your use of it to do awesome things! You can be badass while knowing dick about martial arts or guns; you can be a badass intellectual or maybe even a badass chef!
Oh hell yes!


Of course, SOME people still think you can be a badass with power alone, regardless of the fact that you couldn't catch any baddies to save your life *cough Train Heartnet from Black Cat cough*.

Now, onto the second stage of badassery; looks. Now, originally my argument for this would've been more strict, but due to a compelling argument I had with a person who said badasses don't always need to look tough, I'm a little looser on this rule. We both agreed that there is something to be said about characters who don't look tough, but secretly are...
... But we also both agreed that there's a limit! Just imagine, if you will, that the T-800 from Terminator looked like Wall-E. Yeah, that cute little garbage-disposing robot demolishing biker gangs and chasing Sarah Conner relentlessly. No matter how powerful he is, you wouldn't be able to take him that seriously, would you? WOULD YOU?!Aaaaand my pants have been stained.


Now, there is no denying that badassery comes in all shapes and sizes, from the suave James Bonds to the savage Rambos, but they at least have to have some sort of threat level or coolness in their looks alone. I'm gonna come out and say it; it's a little more difficult for women to pull off than men due to differences in muscle size and sometimes they'll have to sacrifice sex appeal (something the media is almost never willing to do) to look tough, but it can be done! As long as they're cool or threatening, gender differences will not pose as an obstacle.Plus, genderly ambiguous armor doesn't hurt either.


To be the part, you gotta look the apart! Even if you can punch through solid concrete, you can't get away with dressing in a bunny costume.Careful. He's a master of 6 forms of martial arts.


Finally, we come to the last and possible most important aspect of a badass; attitude. The very definition of badass on Wiktionary is, "2.(slang) A person whose extreme attitudes, behavior or appearance are admirable." Yes, being extreme is the basis. More often than not, badass and anti-hero go hand-and-hand due to the lack of a moral code allowing for more awesome things. Badasses can be kind, heroic people, but one thing they'll never be is soft.

As mentioned before, people believe that power is everything when it comes to being a badass. And as I said, they're all stupid and my opinion is nothing short of divine scripture. What sparked this whole idea and realization was when some fellow called this character a badass...

Yes, Train Heartnet from Black Cat. A previous post about the series expresses my rather colorful opinions on the series as a whole, but this needs a special comment. First, look at that guy! Okay, we're not on looks anymore, but still... Okay, about his attitude; he's a bounty hunter who was not ablle to capture a bounty head once. Even with his history as an assassin, he was a pussy assassin who refused to kill women. What kind of assassin is that? A sexist one, I say! Incompetence is one big point taken off the badass-o-meter. He also drinks milk.
Also, he takes too much shit from others; he let a thief blackmail him by treating him to a big dinner and threatening to make him pay for it. A true badass would've pointed the gun at her and said, "I'll pay. But all I have is lead. Sure you want it?" Not to mention, he drinks milk. Finally, he refuses to kill even the worst criminal scum. Too scrict of a moral code takes small points off, but it adds up. Oh and he drinks milk. Seriously, what kind of badass drinks milk?! Name me ONE badass who drinks milk! Go on, do i-... Okay, name two.

So, now you know what makes a badass. At least according to me. Is my opinion nescessarly right? Well, despite what I said, no, it isn't. It's purely subjective. But do remember to use the word with some discrimination or else it will lose it's meaning. Thank you for reading Mr. Cheese's extra-long rant.