why to you think are certain outlaws/GoldenAge pirates/17c & 18c smugglers romanticised?

[CaptainNoBeardButAParrot]

Obviously this isn't a new question but I was thinking about it and wondering why some outlaws are romanticised (either by period/job/ or identity) and others aren't.

Googling produces some things like this:
https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/movies/why-do-we-romanticize-pirates.html

But for example highwaymen (DickTurpin/horses riding off into the sunset) are also glamorised but these people are just hard core robbers putting individuals in fear of their lives.

Smuggling also seemed more romanticised but maybe that's because of methods/location (beautiful coastlines, secret tunnels) and the goods (tobacco alcohol) being less life threatening than hard drugs of today.

Even today those Hatton Garden robbers were romanticised -there was a cultural sense of because they were older, it would have been 'nice' if they got away with it. They even made a drama about it.

What is it you think that leads certain people or jobs or periods to be romanticised and others to be seen as hard core criminals?

My theory is that it is those where there is a sense of there is nothing too bad if the criminal doesn't get caught - maybe because the rich deserve to have their jewels taken off them in a stage coach or cheating the revenue of rum tax is no bad thing to benefit the working smuggler. It's an incoherent theory though and falls apart quickly.

I think we romanticise "the bad boy" in many ways (TV show You for example).

It doesn't mean much other than a lot of us feel quite constrained in life and there's an allure to people who don't care about societal expectations.

Living vicariously through these characters or people doing things we NEVER would or could.

When we are somewhat removed from the situation/perpetrators we can put aside how we would feel if we were the ones directly impacted.

I doubt most of these people were particularly pleasant but maybe there's always been an element in the thought of the poor about "sticking it to the man". If you're a penniless 18th C ag lab, a highwayman coming from nothing and successfully robbing the rich might be rather an attractive figure. Such people certainly entered folk consciousness.

It's a story isn't it. You are hardly going to make exciting books and films about the local tax accountant, his wife and two well behaved children who go through life with no issues. Possibly the accountant, his dead partner and three ghosts but not their day-to-day life

It would also have been a warning or to encourage people to join the Navy / Merchant Navy, or to travel West to the 'New World' and tales of the exotic things before we had TV, so 'Cowboys and Indians', 'Pirates', 'Highway men', 'running away to join the circus' they were exciting a step away from where people were living and allowed for escapism.

Also tales of these things can be broken up nicely for an exciting story supplement in the newspaper as they used to do.

Billowing shirts, long curly black hair, cool boots, a bit of derring-do...

I think we romanticise "the bad boy" in many ways
aybe there's always been an element in the thought of the poor about "sticking it to the man"

So where is the modern line then? How bad is too bad?

No one has these thoughts about gangs that rip Rolexes off people in the street or target the houses of very wealthy footballers, even if they are on holiday and no violence was involved.
Some of it maybe that in the modern world we see more of it close up (CCTV footage of Rolexes being taken by men dressed in all black with balaclavas that looks terrifying) so we see how frightening it is for the victims whereas more historic stuff seems more 'slow' crime - with horses, boats, candles and boarding boats by swinging on ropes - so it is easier to imagine it as less terrifying for the victims.

It's a story isn't it

That could be a part of it for older stuff. People had no TV or electricity, evening entertainment would be a struggle for stories if you were poor or piano if you were rich. So if people had boring dull lives that were a day to day struggle a pirate story could become exciting and glam.
whereas today everyone can go on a trip down the Amazon if they want to or a holiday in Jamaica.

It doesn't explain why this still sometimes happens for modern crimes though - back to the Hatton Garden robbers.

I think by the time Mr and Mrs Ag Lab heard of the exploits of pirates and highwaymen they'd have been sanitised and the heroism amplified. I'm sure in their own communities there would have been ne'er do wells and they wouldn't have been too bothered about seeing them hanged, especially if they threatened what little they had (although the hangings of infamous pirates and highwaymen were certainly well attended as entertainment, they were different times)

Perhaps even a rich person having their Rolex snatched in Mayfair does seem more real to us than a coach being held up on the road to York 200 miles away. Society is more connected.

The Hatton Garden heist is about a group of older men (admittedly career criminals) and I think this by Duncan Campbell in the Guardian explains the public feeling well

"Much of the early coverage was affectionate. No one had been hurt or threatened. It was a commercial premises, not a private house. Some of the people who had lost their diamonds and gold in the haul tried to explain that they kept their goods there purely for safe keeping and not to hide them from tax authorities, ex-wives or the police."

It was understandably not perceived in the same way as someone breaking into the house of an elderly widow, terrifying her and stealing her engagment ring

Glamorous people and "victimless" crimes, sticking it to the Man. Its why the landlords daughter preferred the Highwayman to Tim the Ostler.

@Ablondiebutagoody

Its why the landlords daughter preferred the Highwayman to Tim the Ostler.

I think that may have been more because his eyes were hollows of madness and his hair like mouldy hay.

I think historical crime is tends to be seen in the context of the extreme exploitation of the poor by the wealthy and the enormous gap between the haves and have nots. Highwaymen stealing a brooch that would feed and house a large family for a year. Smugglers cheating a corrupt government to make money to feed their families etc. Its easier to make criminals in these circumstances sympathetic and the exploitative rich the real villains. Harder with modern crime that takes place against a backdrop of welfare support that means their children aren't starving, and where the victims are often not obscenely wealthy by comparison.

Smugglers back then are no different to people smugglers now. Just deplorable.

I think we tend to romanticise anything we're far enough removed from. I'm pretty sure the people living on the coast that experienced the smuggling gangs back in the 18th century didn't romanticise them.