Growing up we were all taught to believe that characters like Cruella de Vil and Maleficent were the villains. It was a black-and-white, cut-and-dry situation; princesses are good, everyone else is bad. Though, who’s to say villains can’t be the main characters too?
Disney villains have become much more popular simply because people have looked deeper into the characters. Disney has also taken the time to understand the backstories of these characters and thus came the creation of movies like “Maleficent” and “Cruella.”
Maybe growing up is realizing that these villains weren’t the real villains of the story. The release of Cruella and Maleficent gave insight as to who these characters were before their villain arc. And it turns out, they weren’t always evil.
Maleficent was just a poor fairy who was tricked by the man she loved…typical. Maleficent was painted as this villain when all she really wanted was to get her wings back. She just wanted to be herself again, but it cost her.
While the mystical story doesn’t seem relatable to the naked eye, Maleficent’s story of being mistreated and judged because she was different is all too similar to people’s day to day life. Day in and day out people are mistreated because they’re different, and so Maleficent gave a sense of belonging to those who don’t resonate with the picture perfect princesses.
As for Cruella, she was merely an orphan who wanted to make her mother proud by becoming a famous fashion designer. Of course, she came to find out that her lifelong mentor was actually her mother and the one who ordered her adoptive mother’s death. I would become a villain too if that happened to me.
Not to excuse any of these villains’ actions, but these stories provided the reasoning for their wicked downfall. Which is the exact reason people have grown to love these villains; they understand their unfortunate upbringing that led to their cruel facade.
However, these realizations aren’t just coming to people later in life. Movies like Descendants have shown children that even people born from evil can become good. I mean come on Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos make you empathize with the lives of these poor villain kids.
Descendants gave kids the opportunity to realize that people can grow and change, even if they were literally born from evil. This arguably teaches valuable lessons to kids that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ aren’t the only depictions of character. These movies also opened the door for the good guys, and the bad guys to not only coexist, but to become friends.
These ‘villains’ were a part of our childhood just as much as our favorite princes and princesses, but they are only starting to get the love now. Disney creates such magical lives for us to escape into and now these villains are sharing in that magic. Maybe one day villains will also get their happily ever after.
