With Disney’s Cruella on the Horizon, Do We Need Another Origin Story?
In today’s internet climate, why are we so invested in the backstories of formerly unforgivable villains?
There’s something quite dissonant about Variety describing Emma Stone’s Cruella as “punk rock.”
Punk rock?
In this house, Variety?
¿Punk rock?
A general sense of dissatisfaction manifested in aggressive counterculture and rebellion is not exactly how I would describe the Disney villain infamous for stealing dogs in the name of high fashion. One wouldn’t consider the skinning of living creatures as anti-establishment unless the establishment we’re trying to demolish is animal rights…or PETA.
The trailer for the upcoming Cruella was almost instantly met with backlash online, with responses ranging from quoting the StarKid musical Twisted (“I only wish to have a coat made out of puppies!”) to many expressing their dissatisfaction over not just another cash-grab remake, but also in the fact that we’re now presented with yet another villain origin story that will be sure to humanize Cruella De Vil, with many fearing its message boiling down to: Perhaps skinning puppies wasn’t that bad after all?
Putting aside slightly obtuse responses like Variety’s, it bears asking: why is our current media so quick to invest in villain origin stories, in redemption arcs, and forced development that tends to downplay the hurt caused by these characters?
That’s not to say this movement is entirely Hollywood’s fault. Online communities enjoy discussing and hypothesizing the backstory, the motives, and untold stories of characters that are deemed evil.
An ironic example: Glenn Close’s own Cruella has a now-famous line in 1996’s 101 Dalmatians which many deem feminist yet when spoken by the villain, seems to perpetuate the notion that feminists are an extreme and, dare I say, unhinged group.
“Marriage. More good women have been lost to marriage than to war, famine, disease, and disaster.”
Thinking of my own experience online, I’d wager the first proper instance of a misunderstood villain was Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though not the first redeemed film villain, I believe Loki was the turning point for Hollywood standards today when it comes to complicated antagonists. When audiences began showing a preference for Thor’s trickster younger brother, the question that surfaced the most was: why?
Was it because Tom Hiddleston is a dreamboat?
Was it because we can’t help but love the redeemable bad boy?
Or was it because, compared to Thor, he represented more feminine-leaning qualities that women in fandom identified with on a deeper scale?
Whatever the myriad of reasons, Hollywood followed suit and since then several on-screen villains have either been forced into redemption arcs or else adapted from previous counterparts into tragically mixed-up people.
We have Elsa from Frozen. Loosely inspired by The Snow Queen, Elsa had been written similar to her original counterpart, namely, as the main antagonist of the film. Yet producer Peter del Vecho claims that “the breakthrough came when we tried to give really human qualities to the Snow Queen. There are times when Elsa does villainous things but because you understand where it comes from […] you can always relate to her.” So rather than follow through with what many considered a far more interesting iteration of Elsa, we were given both the Duke of Weselton as a red herring and Hans as the twist villain.
The following year, in 2014, we were given Maleficent, where the titular character is subjected to the stripping of her wings by King Stefan — an intentional rape metaphor — thus turning to evil in her quest for revenge. Much like Frozen, it’s ignorance and fear that twist the narrative concerning her powers, and both ending suggest that woman help heal other- However, is it a disservice for one of the most iconic villains to undergo a violation at the hands of a man in order to justify her villainy?
In the case of an original character — debatable, as Disney dismantled the extended universe of Star Wars but that’s neither here nor there — we have Kylo Ren in the most recent trilogy. Though the first film portrays an aggressive man who resorts to force and mind-rape against the main protagonists, by the end he becomes Ben Solo once more, finding redemption through the love of Rey and that of his parents in the course of a single scene.
Kylo’s instant turn to the light fails to acknowledge his accountability, for lack of a better word. He’s simply good, without addressing his many killings or even the mental probing he inflicted on Rey in the first film. Perhaps once the war was over he would’ve addressed these issues, yet he *spoilers* dies a martyr and a redeemed Jedi knight.
Funnily enough, all these examples have unambiguous villains of their own, slightly one-dimensional characters who provide the evil that need be conquered in order to make way for the truly “misunderstood” antagonists.
So where do we draw the line?
I wonder if audiences thrive at watching someone hit rock bottom, at the sense of othering a typically unstable person within the comfort of your theater ticket, or a messiah complex that forms from watching such downfalls. Because meanwhile, in today’s very real internet culture, you have people who make mistakes, or who have their mistakes from 10 years ago brought to light, and are submitted to a virtual witch hunt in which the only acceptable route would be to simply disappear from their platforms forever.
Why do we hold on to online, or real, grudges yet desperately defend fictional characters for greed and murder? Where do we draw the line?
In a video essay titled “Why Zuko’s Redemption Arc Succeeds Where Others Fail,” Riley J. Dennis explores three key reasons as to why Prince Zuko’s arc throughout Avatar: The Last Airbender not only works but can also serve as a blueprint for other stories engaging in a redeemable villain. She narrows down his arc to three major points:
1. Zuko’s redemption is not linear; he fails yet consistently grows from each mistake.
2. His story comes full circle to where he started, having learned that what he always yearned for isn’t what he truly wants.
3. He accepts full responsibility for his actions and the resentment that stems from them without getting defensive.
ATLA is and continues to be a success in storytelling because each character comes with their set of layers; no one is 100% in the right or in the wrong, their spitefulness or stubbornness understandable yet never justified, and most characters who mean to do good are shown to put in the work in a tangible way, their mistakes not forgotten but sanded down through actions.
The problem is that, unlike with Zuko, the work of understanding where a misunderstood villain comes from tends to fall not on the villain’s shoulders, but on other characters. It’s other people who have to make the effort to break through the cold, indifferent exterior and touch a specific fiber that makes a villain reconsider their actions, rather than actual introspection and acceptance that their actions, though informed by their circumstances, remain their responsibility to correct.
Back to Cruella, a character known for disliking animals is a hard pill to swallow when tackling her villainous origins. While the trailer depicts a young Cruella prone to mischief and crime, Disney already seems to lean on the “misunderstood” approach with the fur-loving fashionista, from her statement that she “saw the world differently from everyone else” to her quoting Helen Reddy’s “I am woman, hear me roar.”
In the end, Disney’s newest remake will either have two possible outcomes: either Cruella will be depicted as completely evil or they will wind up missing the mark through a misreading of what being misunderstood actually means.
Granted, this is simply my knee-jerk reaction to the trailer. In a few months, we’ll see if Disney had the nuance to depict a truly unforgiving villain.
Mika is a Mexican writer and translator, pretender, pet-lover, and a mess at 1 in the morning. Follow her on Twitter @frequencymika.
