Exploring the appeal of villainous characters in film-induced tourism: perceived charismatic leadership and justice sensitivity

ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02747-6 OPEN Exploring the appeal of villainous characters in filminduced tourism: perceived charismatic leadership and justice sensitivity 1234567890():,; Rui Yao1 & Jian Yang 1✉ Film-induced tourism is considered a valuable marketing tool, especially crucial for the recovery of post-pandemic tourism. The rapid growth of digital streaming platforms has enabled film and television works to reach global audiences and impact viewers on a broader scale. Scholars and tourism operators increasingly recognise film characters’ pivotal role in global film-induced tourism. While film-induced tourism is generally believed to impact the image of tourist destinations positively, existing research has predominantly focused on the decent characters portrayed in films. However, the allure of captivating audiences is not confined solely to decent characters. According to narrative studies in film and television, villainous characters with extraordinary skills often have a stronger appeal to viewers than decent ones. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore a rarely discussed topic: how villainous characters enhance the attractiveness of tourist destinations. This interdisciplinary research principally integrates character arc theory and reception aesthetics from film studies, emotion contagion theory from marketing research, and place attachment theory from tourism studies. Accordingly, this study examines the perceived charismatic leadership of villainous characters and its impact on film tourists’ emotion contagion, place attachment and visit intention. The study distributed questionnaires to 532 audiences who watched the Chinese police and crime drama titled, The Knockdown (狂飙), and who acquainted themselves with the villainous character Gao Qiqiang (高启强). Structured equation modelling showed that villainous characters with charismatic leadership can significantly impact the intention of film tourists. Specifically, perceived charismatic leadership directly influenced emotions of pleasure, arousal and admiration. Place attachment existed as a whole or partial mediator of the three emotions and visit intention. Moreover, the audience’s justice sensitivity negatively moderated the positive relationship between perceived charismatic leadership and emotions. Finally, the study provides insights and suggestions for film tourism marketers and screenwriters. 1 School of Journalism and Communication, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China. ✉email: HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | (2024)11:267 | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02747-6 1 ARTICLE F HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02747-6 Introduction or post-epidemic tourism recovery, tourism marketing has long recognised the value of film tourism as the latter is essentially a potential niche market that has been perceived to be more resilient than any other types of tourism during a crisis (Avraham 2021; Sousa et al. 2021). Due to the rapid development of digital streaming platforms, temporal and spatial constraints of traditional screened media comsumption are shattered, globalising the influence of film and TV content (Martínez-Sánchez et al. 2021). Consequently, film stories and characters have become vital in global tourism marketing. Rather than merely increasing destination exposure, films can engage the viewer in a deeper emotional connection with the location by empathising with the storyline and characters (Oshriyeh and Capriello 2022). Film characters can be utilised as tourist attractions, destination mascots and celebrity endorsements (Teng and Chen, 2020; Xu et al. 2022; Florido-Benítez 2023; Zhou et al. 2023). This series of studies on mascots and celebrity-related theories focuses primarily on decent characters, such as super cute cartoons, doctors, soldiers, superheroes and saviours (Kim 2011; Yen and Croy 2013; Kim and Kim 2017; Xu et al. 2022; Florido-Benítez 2023). The success rate of decent characters in promoting film tourism is expected to be higher, whereas villain characters are viewed with scepticism (Pratt 2015). Although many tourist destinations have interestingly become popular because of villainous characters, such as gangsters in the film Monga (2009), Count Orlok in the film Nosferatu (1922) in reallife scenarios (Chen and Mele 2017; Liu et al. 2020), discussion scarcely focuses on how villainous characters enhance the appeal of tourism destinations, which is the main objective of this study. Emotional contagion is a unique experience for the audience of audiovisual narratives and a critical conversion process from being stimulated by film characters to generating an intention to travel to a destination (Coplan 2011; Podoshen 2013; Wu and Lai 2021). Psychology, film and media studies constitute vital sources of research pertaining to emotional contagion, often intertwined with marketing and consumer research to create a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon (Podoshen, 2013). Considering destination marketers’ limited control over film location portrayals, tourism operators must grasp how different film genres affect tourists’ emotional responses (Tasci 2009; FloridoBenítez 2023). Hence, exploring the specific factors that prompt emotional contagion among the audience towards villainous characters is essential. Character arc theory proposed by McKee (1997) suggested that charismatic antagonists possess a high level of intelligence, charm and emotional depth, bringing them up to par with the protagonists (Lyons 2021). The perceived charismatic leadership of celebrities can produce emotional contagion, but whether film villains can create the same emotional contagion has not been empirically verified (Cherulnik et al. 2001; Lee and Theokary 2021). Aesthetic reception theory also emphasises that personal experience will affect their aesthetic judgement and interpretation of film images (Jauss and Benzinger 1970); whether justice sensitivity will influence the emotion towards evil characters remains unknown. Moreover, although recent tourism research has identified the development of place attachment and behavioural intentions as a result of emotional contagion and has cautioned that different emotions have distinct effects on place attachment and behavioural intentions (Ratcliffe and Korpela 2017; Xu and Tan 2019), current researches have not directly measured the different emotions that viewers feel towards a character and compare the effects of different emotions on psychological and behavioural responses. Addressing the identified research gaps and based on emotional contagion theory and the stimuli-organism-response (SOR) 2 model, this study has the following primary purposes: (a) to determine how perceived charismatic leadership of a villainous character, as a stimulus to the audience, influences emotions; (b) to examine whether justice sensitivity moderates the positive emotions generated by per (...truncated)