Although the article “Transgendered Villains” by Putnam and
the article “Gender Transgression and Villainy in Animated Film” by Li-Vollmer
and La Pointe address many Disney villains, neither described Cruella De Vil
from 101 Dalmatians. I believe Cruella
deserves to be on this list of Disney villains because she furthers the
articles’ claim that Disney villains purposefully violate gender norms and this
deviant behavior makes it more obvious that they are villains. This characterization
can have detrimental effects children and foster homophobic beliefs. To show
how Cruella is another example of this trend, I will use her appearance,
actions, and dislike of animals and show that she too has the potential to
perpetuate homophobic beliefs.
Cruella’s masculine characteristics can be seen through her appearance.
She has a flat chest and no hour glass figure when compared to Anita, the
female protagonist. She also wears a big white furry jacket and has unrealistic
half white and half black colored hair. She also has arched eyebrows and a pronounced
jaw line. In this way, Cruella is similar to Ursula. Both resemble drag queens
rather than women.
Cruella’s voice is much lower than other female characters
and is more like Roger, the male protagonist. She is also the only female in the movie
to smoke. While the main male protagonist smokes a pipe, Cruella smokes a long
cigarette whose smoke is a lime green color. Since the other women in the movie
do not smoke, smoking becomes labeled as an activity only for men. Curella’s
smoking adds to her masculine characterization.
Another anti-feminine trait is that Cruella hates animals.
She wanted to buy the Dalmatian puppies so that she could make coats out of
their skins. This directly contrasts other Disney princesses who often had
animals as their best friends or animals that helped them in various ways. Since
Cruella does not follow the normal gender specific rule that women love
animals, her gender identity becomes more masculinized.
Cruella also has abnormally large feet like Anastasia and
Drizella from Cinderella. This is an exaggeration
of the fact that generally men have larger feet than women. Her large feet add
to her masculine character and contrast Anita’s small feet.
Although I did not notice how Disney portrayed villains in
this way when I was younger, it now is obvious that this is a trend. Female villains
that have masculine traits or male villains that have female characteristics
can be found in the majority of Disney movies. This sends the message that
those in the LGBTQ community are somehow evil or wrong. However, this is far
from what children should be taught. Although in more recent Disney films, such
as Frozen and Moana, villains are not portrayed in this way, it is imperative
that Disney continues to change the way it characterizes evil. It is also
important that Disney movies are studied in order to know what exactly Disney
movies are teaching children. After further scrutinizing Disney movies, it is
often found that Disney is not as innocent as it claims to be.
