Disney Villains and Evil

I want to reflect on how Disney villains have evolved throughout Disney movies from less lifelike to more so. In order to show this evolution, I will contrast Cinderella's evil step mother and Hans from Frozen. 

Cinderella’s evil step mother was unfair and mean to Cinderella from the beginning of the movie. She forced Cinderella to do chores such as feed the animals, scrub the floor, and clean the chimney, while her biological daughters did nothing of the sort. Cinderella was not even allowed to attend the ball like her half-sisters were. The point here is there is a clear distinction between good and evil, and there did not seem to be any good in the evil step mother.

On the other hand, Hans from Frozen was not such a clear-cut villain. In fact, I did not realize he was the villain until the end of the movie. For the first part of the movie, Hans seems like the perfect prince for Anna. They had that wonderful duet at the beginning of the movie, and it appeared they were in love. Additionally, he helped Ana not fall in the water, he took care of the townspeople when the snow storm came, and he supported Ana to go help her sister. However, Hans also betrayed Ana and tried to kill Elsa at the end of the movie. Hans is not a traditional Disney villain of the past because there is a grey area. His good deeds mixed with the evil ones make Hans more complex, believable, and realistic.

Most people in the real world are a mix of good and evil. Through Hans, Frozen provides an example of such a person. However, Cinderella only focuses on the one-sided pure evilness of the stepmother.

As Disney made this transition from less realistic to more lifelike villains, it sends a new message to everyone watching the film, both children and adults, that inspires critical thinking. It makes one realize that no one person is completely evil. As Daniel Forbes mentioned in “The Aesthetic of Evil”, evil is based on perspective. In the real world, evil is not as clear cut as Cinderella and is more comparable to how it is portrayed in Frozen, which better prepares children for the real world. Although my view may be skewed by the ages at which I watched these movies and the ages at which I could detect complex characters, to the best of my memory I believe this evolution has occurred.