Credit: Dangerous Minds / Hamid Mir

As Jimmy Fallon found out when he tousled the barely-existent hair of a fascist on his late-night show in 2016, you have to be very careful how you humanise evil.

Because on the one hand, you get exactly what Fallon was afraid of happening (or so he claims). Which was a bunch of people watching his interview with Pumpkin-Spice Berlusconi and thinking “aw, look at him clowning around with my pal Jimmy, he can’t be that bad, can he?” Turns out he was, and then some. This was entirely the plan, and Fallon is a fool at best and a collaborator at worst for enabling this wannabe dictator for the sake of ratings.

Despite myself, I can’t help but see where Fallon was coming from in wanting to show the human side of a fascist, but not quite for the reasons he was thinking. I’m sure by now he regrets ever letting the pitch get out of the writers’ room, but there is always worth in remembering that the worst people on this planet are human.

Another infamous example of showing the humanity of the world’s worst people came in November 2017, when the files seized by the American military from Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad Compound raid were published for all to see.

It’s still a darkly compelling read nearly a decade after publication, showing the realities of living in deep cover as the world’s most wanted person. However, what really went viral were the 258 gigabytes of computer files found on several different devices scattered around the compound. These might well paint a picture of the man who spent ten years at the very top of the FBI’s most wanted list, not through a deep dive into his plans or his psyche either. Although his personal diaries were found in these files so they were there to be perused.

No, this painted a picture of Bin Laden through his taste in…well, just about everything.

Osama bin Laden and his taste in media

Now, it’s important to note that almost 20 people lived in this compound, so it probably wasn’t solely Bin Laden’s taste on show here. However, the idea of him weeping at Aerith’s death in Final Fantasy VII is both extremely funny and extremely possible because, according to the files found, Bin Laden might well have been a gamer. Part of his files was an extensive collection of video games, including the aforementioned Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil 2, Half-Life 2 and, hilariously, the counter-terrorism simulator Counter-Strike.

That wasn’t all, there were animated films like Antz and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Episodes of animated shows like Jackie Chan Adventures and Tom & Jerry. Even basic Internet content like cat videos, clip art and a downloaded copy of Charlie Bit My Finger. One wonders what those kids think about the prospect of literal Osama bin Laden hooting and hollering at their childhood escapades. Reportedly, there were also mountains of pornographic content which the CIA could neither confirm nor deny, citing copyright issues.

Now, what’s this all for? What does this give one of the most evil men of the 21st century, other than a strange predilection for animated kids’ films? Well, it’s simple. It makes him relatable. It drives home the fact that he’s just like us, and that is a vitally important thing to bear in mind. Because a lot of people will use the fact that a “controversial” (read “evil”) politician is “just like us” as a way of masking their evil. A lot of people will tell you, quite reasonably, that you can’t listen to people humanising monsters because they’re just trying to make them more palatable. I disagree.

I think it’s vitally important to humanise monsters because there isn’t such a thing as monsters. We are all human, capable of the best and worst things in this world. The moment we forget that is the moment the worst of us win.