User:EllieB15/Villain

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Villains in animated works, such as Disney movies, often embody stereotypes in a more direct and harmful way than live-action villains, according to scholars on the subject. Their character design is commonly based on caricatures of racist, anti-semitic, and/or homophobic stereotypes with over-exaggerated features. In addition, female animated villains are often portrayed in ways that feed into misogynistic ideas and traditional gender roles. Subject matter experts often discuss how involving these stereotypes in the creation of villains can be detrimental to marginalized communities, as it creates a link between minority groups and evil, in turn dehumanizing them. With children and adolescents as the target group for animated films, this media can damage the development of perception of gender and sexuality, as it depicts stereotypes that embrace skewed social concepts.

Misogynistic Stereotypes
In animated works, it has been observed that the villains frequently fall into two categories: women who exhibit societally undesirable traits, or men displaying feminine traits. In the case of men with feminine traits, this stems from both a homophobic and misogynistic point of view which is further discussed below.

As for female villains who are portrayed with "displeasing" characteristics, not only are they crafted to look unattractive, but their motivations for becoming evil are rooted in very trivial matters. Debra Bradley's survey on Disney films discovered that 28% of female villains, such as the evil queen and Lady Tremaine, are influenced by jealousy/vanity whereas only 4% of male villains are driven by these same factors. Rather the men, such as Hades and Captain Hook, have motives grounded in wealth and power, giving in to masculine stereotypes and signifying an attachment to the patriarchy.

Additionally, in animation there is a history of mothers and grandmothers being posed as the villains of many stories. Neil Gaiman's Coraline presents this phenomenon through the idea of the other-mother. In Coraline, the Other Mother is a loving, caring parent who welcomes Coraline to a new life, helping in the face of troubles back home. By glorifying this other mother, the story paints Coraline's real mother as negligent, in turn causing her to be the villain of the story. Disney films also take on the motherly stereotypes in their villains. Mother Gothel from Disney's Tangled is an example of this. She is motivated by greed and a desire for power and youth that she steals from Rapunzel's magic hair. Both these examples place evil in motherhood and create villains out of motherly figures which negatively targets female parents.

Other female villains are portrayed as hyper-sexual and powerful beings that are used to juxtapose the beauty or physical characteristics of the heroine; for example, the Lady Tremaine and stepsisters in Cinderella. The underrepresentation of realistic women in animated media perpetuate toxic masculinity due to the lack of accurate media portrayals. Male villains also hold several traits that are characteristically feminine. Characters like Jafar (Aladdin) and Hades (Hercules) have features such as shaded eyelids and accentuated facial features, similar to those typically associated with femininity.

Homophobic Stereotypes
There are a few ways animated villains showcase homophobic stereotypes. One such way is the stereotype of effeminate men, sometimes referred to by subject experts as "sissy villains," where their mannerisms represent stereotypes relating to gay men. Another example is the depiction of masculine women, which emulates drag queens or butch lesbians. This homophobia in animated villains can be seen clearly through Ursula of The Little Mermaid. Ursula is closely modeled after the famous drag queen "Divine" with her heavy makeup, hair styled in a mohawk, and her nails painted bright red. Her goal throughout the film is to become queen and disrupt the coupling of Ariel and Prince Eric, both of which connect villainy to drag queens, suggesting that there is inherent evil in those who do drag.

Disney films also showcase heterosexual couples as the happily ever after love story in nearly all movies. There is a lack of examples of homosexual relationships, which furthers queer-coding within the animated film industry and continually provides a very limited perspective on sexuality and gender to impressionable young kids who consume this media.

Anti-semitic Stereotypes
Further expand on this idea: Mother Gothel is also representative of anti-semitic stereotypes. She is portrayed with dark curly hair and a hooked nose, two things that have historically been used in anti-semitic caricatures of Jewish women.