Rogues living by their wits in corrupt societies.

February 7, 2009 6:07 AM

I am looking for recommendations for TV series, movies and books of picaresque tales. Y'know... cheeky underdog rogue sticking it to The Man.

I've been watching Lovejoy again and was wondering if this is a typical example of the genre, or what the range of the genre actually is.

Please give me some examples as starting points so I can begin my exploration. Thanx.

posted by gonzo_ID to media & arts (14 comments total)

Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel rat books might be just what you are looking for.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 6:18 AM on February 7

Roald Dahl wrote a series of short stories (not sure how many) about a couple of poachers that might fit what you are looking for. A few of them are usually included in his short story collections. Not to mention Dahl's Uncle Oswald.
Patricia Highsmith's novels about Tom Ripley might satisfy you as well, though they are somewhat dark. Several good movies have been made from the series that are worth tracking down.
posted by archaic at 6:27 AM on February 7

In the US, there's a show airing now on TNT called Leverage that is part Ocean's Eleven, part A-Team. Seems like it would fit the bill...
posted by Wild_Eep at 6:56 AM on February 7

Of course, there's always Firefly and Serenity, if you've never seen either.
posted by kimota at 7:30 AM on February 7

Kill the Man, a 1999 film starring Luke Wilson. Not a completely 'straight' example.
posted by daveydave at 8:30 AM on February 7

I see the Wikipedia page has some good suggestions itself...

the Adventures of Brisco County Jr. I always found entertaining, and very much along those lines. Definitely not 'high art', but amusing.

seconding much of Roald Dahl's work...many cheeky underdogs there!
posted by miss_scarlett at 8:31 AM on February 7

Books, i think Neal Stephenson's The System of the World Trilogy would qualify, altough you get to see both the rogue and (sort of) the man.. Maybe Zodiac, by the same, too? (Environmentalist-professionnal pain-in-the-ass/asshole, sticking it to big corps and so on).
posted by vivelame at 8:32 AM on February 7

The HBO series Deadwood, perhaps? There are several potentially picaresque characters in that series. Al Swearengen - brothel and bar owner - most certainly cheeky. Al is more like an overlord than an underdog in the early episodes of the series, but does become the underdog in the last season. A better example might be Trixie, one Al's employees, his part time lover, sworn enemy, etc. If violence is antithetical to picaresque, then Deadwood is not a good example. But it's a fantastic series, nonetheless.
posted by eirelander at 9:56 AM on February 7

...I have been reading the description of "picaresque" and trying to figure out whether Kino's Journey fits. Kino is a traveler to many strange lands, many where the society is corrupt and/or the inhabitants are oppressed, and many of the stories are satirical in nature...but I'm not sure if Kino is so much a cheeky underdog rogue as an outsider who tries to be objective. She's something of a wiseacre, but it's pretty subtle.

Anyway, here's an example (shorter episode never included on the english DVDs) so you can decide for yourself.
posted by anthy at 11:16 AM on February 7

This show might fit the bill Life on Mars.

The hero is the odd man out and has to navigate a culture of corruption, but without getting ostracized. His problem solving is pretty creative and outside of the box so he can maintain the balance.
posted by Vaike at 11:44 AM on February 7

Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar stories are what immediately come to mind for me: swords & sorcery, a couple of rogues stealing, fighting, and wenching their way through a pseudo-medieval world. They're quite old, so they might read as dated or (where later books have followed in their footsteps) derivative, but I like 'em. A related genre is the “roving barbarian / swordsman” kind of story (Tanith Lee, Robert E Howard, etc.).

William Gibson's Sprawl books are full of “high-tech lowlife”. Again, they suffer a bit from being read in the context of the later explosion of cyberpunk. For a slightly more recent take, there's Daniel Keys Moran's Emerald Eyes and The Long Run (there's another sequel or two but I didn't like them as much). Neil Stephenson is another in this line— I didn't really get into his Baroque Cycle books, but Snow Crash is still a fun read. (If you read it keep in mind it's not taking itself all that seriously.) Anything by Stephenson will have some element of clever-person-outwitting-the-world in it.

In anime, there's Lupin III (which is loosely based on the 1800s books by Maurice LeBlanc; fun to read in translation). These are 1970s zany caper/heist shows. The best is the movie-length Castle of Cagliostro by Miyazaki, but the television episodes are OK too. (If you like anime at all: Cowboy Bebop isn't exactly picaresque, but it might tickle the same fancy and I think it's an excellent series.)
posted by hattifattener at 12:00 PM on February 7

(Er, instead of “loosely based”, maybe I should say “vaguely inspired by” — the anime Lupin is supposedly Arsène's great-grandson, I think, but other than that the connection is mostly just that they're the same kind of plot.)
posted by hattifattener at 12:03 PM on February 7

I'd say The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch fits your description perfectly. The setting is hard to explain; it's based off of Venice, but it's also a mix between gothic fantasy and... something else. The title characters are bandits/thieves who get joy out of planning elaborate heists, and in doing so defying both the city's regular watchmen as well as the "Don of thieves", who is paying off the city's watchmen to ignore his wards.

Excellent book - most underrated piece I've come across in a while. Very witty/clever and well spun plot.
posted by Phire at 7:15 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]

If you don't mind old/ foreign works, this is a translated copy of two classic Spanish picaresque works from the 16th and 17th centuries, Lazarillo de Tormes and El buscón. Neither of the protagonists really "sticks it to the man" ultimately, as they both spend most of the story just struggling to survive, but there are lots of puns, scams, and scatological humor along the way. Both works are short: Lazarillo is maybe less than 60 pages, Buscón maybe 150. The author of El buscón is known for his caustic wit.
posted by queseyo at 9:08 PM on February 7