Disney- The Culture of Disney Villains by Caroline

I decided to start this off with a video I found. It's a bit long (about fifteen minutes) but it makes some very good points about femininity in Disney films. It made some very good points, some of which I felt the need to expand on.

Let's begin by taking a look at some of Disney's iconic female villains.

The Evil Queen from Snow White (1937)

Lady Tremaine from Cinderella (1950)

Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmations (1961)

Ursula from The Little Mermaid (1989)

Mother Gothel from Tangled (2010)

All of these characters have several things in common. Not only are they out to ruin things for our beloved antagonist, but they are also middle aged women. Adding to the fact that they are typically homely or conventionally unattractive, they are also older than the protagonist. This links women of an older age to something terrible, possibly giving girls a skewed vision of aging.

As addressed in the video above, female villains are usually perceived as unfeminine- which encourages young girls to believe that women who do not care for themselves or dress in a "feminine" fashion are assisted with evil.

Most of the villains in Disney films are also driven by jealousy. In Tangled, Mother Gothel never let her daughter leave the house seeing as Rapunzel's magical hair kept her young and beautiful. Without it, her (stolen) daughter would certainly thrive and find somebody to love. In Cinderella, the Evil Witch is clearly jealous of Snow White's beauty- this is why she keeps the young woman locked up in her house and doing her work.

This was just a short post that I wanted to do to analyze a few things and get in the mood to really start researching!