April 8: Classic Hollywood villains have over the decades had dark circles under their eyes, warts or multiple facial scars, US researchers said on Wednesday, cautioning that the tendency to depict certain skin conditions in evil contexts may prejudice or mislead the public.

Six of the top 10 villains from the American Film Institute's list of 100 greatest heroes and villains had distinct dermatologic features, the researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch said in a study published in JAMA Dermatology, a journal of the American Medical Association.

Julie Croley and her colleagues assessed the skin features of the top 10 heroes and villains using colour films or colourised versions of old black-and-white films. They found some of the characters shared dermatologic features ranging from hair loss and dark pigmentation under the eyes to wrinkles and face warts. (See chart)

Three of the six villains - the Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938); Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist (1973), and Darth Vader in the Star Wars series - had dark circles under their eyes. Vader and MacNeil also had multiple facial scars.

The researchers said the psychopathic villain Hannibal Lecter "perpetuates the American cinematic tradition of villainous alopecia (hair loss) in The Silence of the Lambs from 1991.

Two other villains - Mr Potter, a greedy businessman from It's a Wonderful Life (1947), and Vader - are also bald.

In modern films, they said, Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series and characters in The Incredible Hulk (2008) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) provide examples of villains with hairless scalps.

Their analysis has found that only two of the top 10 heroes had "dermatologic findings on their faces" - both Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1943) had facial scars.

But the heroes' facial scars are more subtle and shorter than those of villains, they wrote. "Unlike the scars of the villains, those of the heroes are neither created with prosthetic makeup nor commented on during the narrative. In addition, villains each have multiple facial scars whereas heroes each have a single facial scar."

The study shows "Hollywood's tendency to depict skin (disorders) in an evil context, the implications of which extend beyond the theatre", the researchers wrote.

Unfairly targeting skin conditions may contribute to "prejudice" and "misunderstanding of particular disease entities among the general public", they added.

"Bad skin equals bad person in Hollywood," Croley told The Telegraph.

"While the public generally knows that bad skin does not mean bad person in reality, the constant bombardment of negative images of skin disease in film may shape deep-seated opinions that good skin is a reflection of a good person."

The study's results appear to corroborate earlier findings that movie villains are often portrayed with negative attributes. A research study in 2005, for instance, that had quantified the prevalence of smoking in American movies had found that "bad guys" smoke more often than movie heroes.

An Indian dermatologist who was not associated with the Texas study said he was not aware of any study in India that compared the dermatologic conditions of heroes and villains in Bollywood productions.

"I think this would be a fascinating thing to do," said Shyam Verma, a Vadodara-based dermatologist. "A similar study examining villains in Indian cinema might help us understand whether skin features associated with characters portrayed as sinister or dangerous are shared across cultures."

Croley and her study co-authors Vail Reese and Richard Wagner Jr have said classic film villains display a "statistically significant higher incidence" of dermatologic findings than heroes.

"The depiction of skin disease in film contributes to the public's perception of skin disorders through its over-representation of skin disorders in villains," Croley said. "The perception has trickled down to mainstream thought as evidenced by a sentiment of discrimination and negative self image among some people with skin disease."