The Disney Villains - Top Ten
Ernest Rister
The esential mystery of goodness is that we seem to expect it to be the
natural state of the world, taken for granted. You never "achieve" good
because this is expected of you.
You can however achieve Evil, and this is why the Villain is almost always
intrinsically more interesting a character than the Hero.
So how do you rank them? To the degree that they've achieved their Evil - how
truly "evil" they reall are. And my votes for the top ten most evil Disney
villains are:
1. THE FAMILIES OF NAZI GERMANY - "Education for Death", through satire and
bold storytelling, damns an entire society in the grips of a great Evil. The
film points the finger not necessarily at Hitler (who makes an appearance as a
sort of Sir Galahad and is shown rescuing a vulnerable, yet plump Germany from
the evil Witch of Democracy) -- the film finds its Evil in the day-to-day
workings of a German Family going along with this madness, even contributing
their own young son to the Fascist Hitler Youth, where he is taught the
virtues of Cruelty and Hatred like a "good little boy". The last shot is of a
long line of young boys, marching off into the horizon, until their
silhouetted forms morph into a disturbing sea of crosses. Sobering and
powerful, and no happy ending.
2. MAN - "Bambi" details a world where man is divorced from nature, outside of
it. His presence - bringing death, devastation, and destruction - is enough to
send the carrion birds into the air, and enough to cause mass panic and
terror. Never shown, Man wreaks an eventual holocaust of destruction and
violence onto the society displayed in BAMBI. Walt felt so strongly about
this, that a long-planned sequence between Bambi and The Great Prince viewing
the charred remains of a hunter was discarded only after the film ran into the
budget wall created by the failures of PINOCCHIO, FANTASIA, and VICTORY
THROUGH AIR POWER. Its my belief that this one film is the source of many of
our current misgivings about the treatment of Nature around the world. There
is a town in the Northeast United States that was on 60 Minutes a few years
back, and is literally overrun with the deer. But the town citizens cannot
achieve a majority vote to allow deer hunting. Why? BAMBI.
3. THE COACHMAN - "Pinocchio" has a villain that even the lecherous Foulfellow
and Gideon are terrified of - a man who rids the world of moral reprobrates
and makes a tidy profit in the process. Several Disney villains practice their
acts with visual glee (Captain Hook is a prime example) but few can do this
and make you soil yourself at the same time. He gives children the opprotunity
to lose their humanity by tempting them to revel in their worst instincts. In
short, he is Satan.
4. THE QUEEN - "Snow White and The Seven Dwarves" has a malevolent force in
its center so powerful, every Disney villain since is judged against her.
Sadistic, disturbed, and so very human, she still inspires goosebumps today at
Disneyland, where you'll find her every now and again peeking out of a tower window.
5. THE PROUD RACE - Like "Grave of the Fireflies", Dumbo asks us to measure
our responsibility to each other, especially those in our extended human
family who are in desperate trouble. Unlike "Fireflies", though, Dumbo
receives help in the face of the indifference to his pain. Both films attack
us psychologically. The drive to nurture and protect young is one of our most
primal instincts, cutting across almost all mammalian life on the planet. When
we see children being denied nurturing, we become extremely unsettled and
angry. In DUMBO, we see a mute child shunned and denied all love because of
his appearance, by his elders no less, by WOMEN no less, who refer to
themselves as a "Proud Race". Few Disney villains achieve deep feelings of
anger, because they are usually never allowed to do any real, lasting harm to
the protagonist. In Dumbo and the film that follows, you become very upset,
for a good reason - a child is being abused.
6. MADAME MEDUSA - Cut out all of the slapstick antics and low comedy in THE
RESCUERS, and you'll find a tale of a little girl in the hands of a woman who
kills with words. An orphan named Penny despairs of ever being "good enough"
to find a loving home. She has come to believe that her loneliness is the
result of her "plain" looks. Medusa knows this. There is probably nothing more
insidious than a person who knows the pain of your own heart, and knows just
how to squeeze it. Medusa, welching on her deal to return Penny after she has
found the Devil's Eye, almost squeals with glee as she purrs, "Adopted? Who
would ever want a homely little girl like you?" Penny - and the audience - is
devastated.
7. LADY TREMAINE - "Cinderella" returns to the primal world of Grimm and finds
another steel-hearted sadist at the center of its story. A mother herself, she
is perverted into Evil by her jealousy of her husband's former wife . The
by-product of that union -- Cinderella - is, in effect, another orphan, albeit
one who would look right at home on a magazine cover with any true-life
princess. Protecting her own offspring like any "good" mother, she forces her
left-over stepchild to become a slave to these incompetent hags, and feels
that this sick form of nurturing is not only neccessary, but satisfying on a
deep level. Like Medusa and Dumbo's gossiping "haybags", one of the few Disney
villains that you actually want to throttle.
8. FROLLO - Mother-killer, genocidal madman, abusive surrogate father,
religious fanatic and sexually-repressed hypocrit, Frollo is to THE HUNCHBACK
OF NOTRE DAME what Salieri was to AMADEUS - the true center and subject of the
film. No points for noting that both films star Tom Hulce as socially inept
prodigies.
9. HUMAN PREJUDICE - The central villain in POCAHONTAS isn't Ratcliffe (whose
interior fantasy is a pathetic display of narcissism and ignorance) - its
misunderstanding brought on by assumptions made by two cultures heading for a
collision. This emotional response to a shared, cultural ignorance almost
causes the death of the film's two protagonists, and this ignorance is shared
by Indian and Englishman alike. "We'll kill ourselves an injun, or maybe two
or three..." is a pretty disturbing song lyric for anyone to sing along with,
but it highlights the true bad guy in POCAHONTAS - prejudice.
10. MICKEY MOUSE - Hard to believe that Mickey himself - by mucking around
with forces he's not capable of controlling - becomes the unwitting villain of
FANTASIA's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", but here, Mickey is a stand-in for man
monkeying around with nature. Mickey's increasingly poor handling of his
newfound powers almost bring about his ultimate destruction, and actually lead
Mickey to pick up an axe and to chop a new-born creation to bits. Produced at
the dawn of the nuclear age, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is a parable that
becomes mre and more relevant with each passing day. If Mickey Mouse can be
his own worst enemy, so can we.
-- Ernest Rister
Mohn O'Rell
She ranks as #1 villain in my book. So gloriously outrageous
and self-absorbed. And when she bolts through that door and
cries, "Anita, dahling!"...ooh, she's scary.
Madame Medusa is a close second. I'm pretty sure she got her
training from Cruella.
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Ernest Rister
I ranked my Villains based upon their actions. If you'll notice, other than
ordering the kidnapping, Cruella really doesn't do anything much in this film
other than shout and scream, and chase our protagonists, and get bonked on the
head. She's entertaining as all Hell, and I had the privilege to meet Betty
Lou before her death last winter, but "fun" wasn't what I was looking at.
Best,
ER
Mohn O'Rell
never rank villains based on their evil actions. After all,
even heroes do bad things sometimes (Robin Hood committed
multiple crimes, for heaven's sake!). You must delve deeper
into the very soul of the villains and examine their deepest
motives. Many Disney villains are really deep-down good
characters doing bad things. The true villains are the ones who
have no redeeming qualities, who will never in anyone's wildest
imaginings be anything other than an evil character.
Cruella De Vil is the most self-absorbed and truly evil Disney
character IMO, with no love for anyone or anything other than
herself. She will never in a million years treat anyone with a
shread of decency, simply because she is evil to the very core
of her soul.
Charles Buchanan
<out...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> Dear Mohn:
>
> I ranked my Villains based upon their actions. If you'll notice, other than
> ordering the kidnapping, Cruella really doesn't do anything much in this film
> other than shout and scream, and chase our protagonists, and get bonked on the
> head. She's entertaining as all Hell, and I had the privilege to meet Betty
> Lou before her death last winter, but "fun" wasn't what I was looking at.
>
> Best,
>
> ER
>
> Mohn O'Rell wrote:
> >
> > I can't believe it. Absolutely no mention of Cruella De Vil!
> > She ranks as #1 villain in my book. So gloriously outrageous
> > and self-absorbed. And when she bolts through that door and
> > cries, "Anita, dahling!"...ooh, she's scary.
> >
> > Madame Medusa is a close second. I'm pretty sure she got her
> > training from Cruella.
To me Cruella is mean, wanting to skin puppies and all, but there are many
other Disney villains who would qualify for the title of "most evil" over
her. Like the Wicked Queen in "Snow White," who in true Lady Macbeth
fashion, doesn't even blink or hesitate when deciding to have Snow
murdered. Or Lady Tremaine, who seems to know exactly what she's doing on
a psychological level when she mistreats Cinderella. My vote for "most
evil" would go to Frollo, because he's real, he's ruthless, and, most
importantly, he thinks he's doing what's good and right. I think that's
why some people didn't like or "get" "Hunchback"--because Frollo wasn't a
made-up villain. People like him did exist and do exist today. You read
about them every day.
--Charles Buchanan
David
| I can't believe it. Absolutely no mention of Cruella De Vil!
| She ranks as #1 villain in my book.
This didn't bug me at all. Personally, the two notable exceptions on this
list were Maleficent and The Horned King. I agree, however, that the Queen
in Snow White and Lady Tremaine are two of the most despicable characters,
especially in the light of what
Charles Buchanan wrote
> Like the Wicked Queen in "Snow White," who in true Lady Macbeth
> fashion, doesn't even blink or hesitate when deciding to have Snow
>murdered. Or Lady Tremaine, who seems to know exactly what she's doing on
> a psychological level when she mistreats Cinderella.
David
Brett
great Disney villainess.
AP Kieswetter.
Ernest Rister
perhaps out of gratitude for being so much fun to watch, I do have a soft spot
for Cruella, hence her absemce from my list.
Regards,
ER
ale...@my-deja.com
medieval hitler. What is he trying to do but
ethnic cleansing, and using religon as a cover.
Not to mention th eway he treats Quasimodo. The
way he twists his mind and makes him feel so
horrible. There is like i said no Disney villain
worse than Frollo.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
kwan...@juno.com
cleansing, using religon as a cover, manipulation of a scoiety? It's
all there. Not to mention child abuse (maybe not physical, we don't
know that) but horrible just the same. the things he does to Quasimodo
are far worse than physical abuse.
ELurio
the Lion.
He started out as a hero, and became as a bigoted, nasty tyrant who's a lousy
parent to boot.
eric l.
brad
<out...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>How do you rank a villain?
>
what about malicfant in sleeping beauty who was mad because she was
not invited to a party