{"id":2673077,"date":"2026-09-30T09:17:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigneast-of-eden-villain-is-a-netflix-hero-because-she-has-no-sexual-mores\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T09:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:28:14","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigneast-of-eden-villain-is-a-netflix-hero-because-she-has-no-sexual-mores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigneast-of-eden-villain-is-a-netflix-hero-because-she-has-no-sexual-mores\/","title":{"rendered":"East Of Eden\u00a0Villain Is A Netflix Hero Because She Has No Sexual Mores"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigneast-of-eden-villain-is-a-netflix-hero-because-she-has-no-sexual-mores%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2673077&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>the article critiques Hollywood&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/here-comes-the-critical-race-theory-gaslighting\/\" title=\"Here Comes The Critical Race Theory Gaslighting\">recent trend<\/a> of portraying conventional villains in a sympathetic light, using the example of Netflix\u2019s upcoming series &#8220;East of Eden,&#8221; where actress Florence Pugh discusses her role as Cathy Ames. Pugh emphasizes her goal to make viewers sympathize with Cathy, a character originally depicted by Steinbeck as utterly evil and embodying pure malevolence, especially through sexual sadism. The author argues that this reinterpretation undermines Steinbeck\u2019s message that some evil is absolute and should not be excused. In the novel, Cathy is portrayed as a fundamentally wicked figure, born with a &#8220;malformed soul&#8221; and associated with Satan, with her evil rooted in destructive and sexual impulses. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/instead-of-debates-with-rigged-moderators-trump-should-challenge-biden-to-lincoln-douglas-contests\/\" title=\"Instead of engaging in debates with biased moderators, Trump could propose Lincoln-Douglas contests to challenge Biden directly\">article criticizes<\/a> the tendency to normalize or romanticize sexual deviance, which aligns with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lindsay-clancy-effect-child-2-pronounced-dead-mother-hospitalized-in-domestic-related-homicide-in-sleepy-suburb\/\" title=\"Lindsay Clancy Effect? Child, 2, Pronounced Dead, Mother Hospitalized in &#039;Domestic-Related Homicide&#039; in Sleepy Suburb\">contemporary cultural shifts<\/a> that reframe evil and vice as merely choice lifestyles or trauma responses. It concludes that true literature maintains a clear distinction between good and evil and that Hollywood\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >current approach risks diluting<\/a> that moral clarity.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Hollywood wants you to \u201cfall in love\u201d with one of the most evil characters ever conceived by the human imagination. <\/p>\n<p>In a recent viral <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheAtlantic\/status\/2101060827801686287\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">clip<\/a> from an interview with The Atlantic, actress Florence Pugh sits in a gray-and-white collared dress against a dark backdrop, glaring intently at her interviewer as she describes her experience portraying the villainous Cathy Ames in Netflix\u2019s upcoming <em>East of Eden<\/em> series. But \u201cvillainous\u201d is not quite the name of Netflix\u2019s game.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The new series \u201cEast of Eden\u201d doesn\u2019t try to make the character Cathy Ames \u201ca monster,\u201d Florence Pugh says. It was \u201cmy job to try and get you guys to sympathize and maybe fall in love with her a little bit,\u201d Pugh adds.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YN8Rjzs1aY\">https:\/\/t.co\/YN8Rjzs1aY<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/TAF26?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TAF26<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RjNDnqI3kJ\">pic.twitter.com\/RjNDnqI3kJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheAtlantic\/status\/2101060827801686287?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 18, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Writer Zoe Kazan, Pugh explains, \u201cwasn\u2019t interested in making [Cathy] just a monster. She was interested in understanding her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fans of Steinbeck\u2019s beloved novel were rightfully outraged.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis new Hollywood trend of \u2018every villain is sympathetic\u2019 is the worst,\u201d wrote one commenter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid she even read the book?\u201d asked another.<\/p>\n<p>But to Pugh, Kazan\u2019s reinterpretation of Steinbeck\u2019s antagonist was \u201cthrilling.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s my job,\u201d she added, \u201cto try and get you guys to sympathize and maybe fall in love with [Cathy] a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The video, which gained over 1.6 million views on X, raked in fewer than 400 likes. The message is clear: no one wants a sympathetic Cathy \u2014 and for good reason. Cathy is not supposed to be sympathetic. Cathy is supposed to be evil.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s true that Hollywood hasn\u2019t had a phenomenal recent track record when it comes to book-to-movie adaptations. Emerald Fennell\u2019s <em>\u201cWuthering Heights\u201d<\/em> transformed Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s monumental Gothic novel into a bizarre BDSM fantasy, Nolan\u2019s <em>Odyssey<\/em> left fans divided over the film\u2019s portrayal of its eponymous hero (and some questionable casting choices), and absolutely no one asked for a <em>Harry Potter<\/em> remake on HBO. But Zoe Kazan\u2019s <em>East of Eden<\/em> commits a far more egregious sin: it undermines the book\u2019s understanding of good and evil.<\/p>\n<p>At the start of the novel\u2019s eighth chapter, our narrator \u2014 a fictional stand-in for Steinbeck himself \u2014 introduces Cathy in the following terms: \u201cI believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents.\u201d Cathy, he tells us, \u201cwas not like other people, never was from birth.\u201d She was born with a \u201cmalformed soul.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is no question that Cathy is written to be vile and subhuman. \u201cThere was a time,\u201d the narrator continues, \u201cwhen a girl like Cathy would have been called possessed by the devil.\u201d Indeed, in a letter to a family friend, Steinbeck revealed that Cathy is supposed to be \u201crepresentative of Satan.\u201d And while Cathy Ames is undoubtedly evil through and through, she\u2019s more specifically defined by a particular dimension of evil \u2014 what Steinbeck calls \u201cthe most disturbing impulse humans have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Sex.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When Cathy is just 10 years old, her mother finds her in a carriage house with two teenage boys. She\u2019s lying on the floor \u201cnaked to the waist\u201d with her \u201cskirts pulled up\u201d and her wrists tied with a \u201cheavy rope.\u201d The boys insist that Cathy had paid them each to be there and that she had tied her hands herself. Cathy simply refuses to talk, feigning trauma.<\/p>\n<p>We are not told whom to believe, but the implication, of course, is that 10-year-old Cathy has just framed the boys for rape.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s true that Cathy\u2019s most unforgivable sin is perhaps the murder of her own parents, but her most characteristic sins, which give her \u201cpower over nearly anyone,\u201d are unquestionably sexual in nature \u2014 and not just sexual but sexually sadistic.<\/p>\n<p>There has been suspiciously little written about Cathy\u2019s sexual perversions; in fact, a quick Google search for \u201cCathy Ames sadist\u201d pulls up only a few TikTok videos and my own <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/pensandpoison\/status\/2102961137557934170\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tweet<\/a> from last week. One can surmise that contemporary readers are largely unfazed by this aspect of Cathy\u2019s character because it\u2019s become so normalized in our culture: we almost <em>expect<\/em> Cathy, a prostitute and brothel keeper, to assume the role of a dominatrix, and, indeed, when Cathy later takes over Faye\u2019s brothel, she turns it into a sort of sadistic wasteland, where men bathe in their own blood drawn by \u201clittle knotted whips\u201d and beg to be abused. When Faye later learns what Cathy does to her men, she bursts out screaming.<\/p>\n<p>This is <em>East of Eden\u2019s<\/em> primary manifestation of evil, and that is why the creators of the show simply <em>cannot understand<\/em> that Cathy Ames is not supposed to be \u201cmorally ambiguous\u201d or even \u201csympathetic,\u201d but purely and unequivocally evil: as a society, we are no longer disturbed by sexual deviance; having rebranded \u201cprostitution\u201d as \u201csex work\u201d and \u201csexual sadism\u201d as \u201ckink,\u201d Cathy\u2019s evils are largely lost on us. It is no wonder, then, that Florence Pugh and Zoe Kazan want to portray Cathy sympathetically. In a culture that routinely celebrates \u201csex workers\u201d as enlightened, liberated feminists, Cathy doesn\u2019t seem all that bad.<\/p>\n<p>But Steinbeck knew that evil lurks among us and can manifest in unexpected ways. Yet because our culture has become so uncomfortable with the idea of unadulterated evil, we are tempted to either paint every deviation from normalcy in a positive light or to excuse it outright through some sort of trauma. One can expect Netflix\u2019s upcoming series to play up some of Cathy\u2019s early \u201ctraumas,\u201d portraying her later turn to evil as a natural response to the abuses she endured as a child, but those of us who have read Steinbeck\u2019s masterpiece know that his message is the precise opposite: it doesn\u2019t matter who you are or where you come from. You have the power to choose good over evil.<\/p>\n<p>Cathy chooses evil. So, too, it seems, have the creators of the new Netflix series. But the reason that great literature stays with us today is that it carries a powerful message about how we ought to live our lives. <em>East of Eden<\/em> tells us that not all things are morally ambiguous \u2014 some things are just evil, and they ought not to be excused.<\/p>\n<p>Netflix has already forgotten this message. The rest of us would do well to remember it.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Liza Libes is a writer and the founder of Pens and Poison. She holds degrees in English from Columbia University and writes about literature and culture at <a href=\"\/\/www.pensandpoison.org\/\u201c\">pensandpoison.org.<\/a>    Follow her on X <a href=\"http:\/\/x.com\/pensandpoison\u201c\">@pensandpoison.<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hollywood aims to make evil characters sympathetic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4425,"featured_media":2673078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-29-at-2.32.45-PM-1024x538.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[9792,5158,11857],"class_list":["post-2673077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-drama","tag-netflix","tag-villain"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-29-at-2.32.45-PM-1024x538.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2673077"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2673085,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673077\/revisions\/2673085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2673078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2673077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2673077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2673077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}