Villains

"Who's your favorite Disney villain?" is a question I have been asked many times, and in some ways, it is kind of an ironic question. Are we supposed to like the bad guy? A ton of times, yes, we do like the bad guy more than the "good guy." I think this can be for many reasons, as a lot of times the bad guy seems "cooler" and more "unrelatable." However, what exactly makes the bad guy? Because as we discussed in class, sometimes it is not as black and white as it would seem.

In class we discussed what sets apart Disney villains. Usually the color (they are darker), and some kind of "other" quality to them (be it they are super fat or skinny). However, I think the thing that distinguishes the bad guy from the good guy more than anything is perspective. Whoever's  perspective the narrative is told from tends to be the good guy to us. Like, for example, in the television show Arrow, the main guy is a vigilante, killing people. However, we see him as the good guy because the show is told from his perspective. Famously, the musical Wicked turned around the perspective of the Wizard of Oz and told it from the Wicked Witch of the West's point of view.

I watch a lot of the reality television show Survivor, and every season they have to frame the people as "characters", people to root for and people to root against. The ones that are on top, in a power position, tend to be seen by the audience as "evil" whereas the people on the bottom, fighting everyday to stay in the game, tend to be seen as "heroic." I think a lot of times, people that we relate to are the ones that we justify as being good. We see ourselves as hardworking and scrappy (even if we're not) so that is why we relate to these "heroes." In every Disney movie, the good guy has to fight and work hard to defeat the bad guy, and we relate to that scrappiness, and want to see ourselves in that light.