[Dedicated to the villains from my childhood who truly deserved to win.]
Cruella De Vil
[101 Dalmatians]
Portrayal:
Cruella de Vil’s first name is an obvious blend of “Cruel” and “Evil”. Her last name, quite plainly, is “devil”. She is portrayed as an over the top heiress seeking to skin 99 helpless little dalmatian puppies and use their fur to create one extravagant coat. How treacherous.
Rebuttal:
Okay, first and foremost y’all do not even fuck with PETA like that.
Cruella just wanted a fly ass coat. Excuse her for being a visionary. And yes, she may have stolen 15 dalmatians - but the remaining 84 puppies required to make 1 popping fur coat were acquired through legal transactions. Cruella was a mogul and a high fashion feminist icon. Simply put, she walked so that Miranda Priestly could run.
#WhatFrontal
Meredith Blake
[The Parent Trap]
Portrayal:
Meredith Blake is a 26 year old gold-digger who uses her sexuality to cash in on Nick Parker’s fortune. She swoops in and gets a proposal out of the vineyard owner while his daughter is away at summer camp. When his daughter returns, she and Meredith instantly engage in warfare.
Meredith vows to ship Nick’s daughter away the day they say, “I do.”
Rebuttal:
Meredith Blake is a beautiful, wealthy, publicist out here doing the dayum thang at 26 years old. She happened to find love in a much older, richer man - who claimed to have just one daughter. Yet, somehow, Meredith ends up dealing with Nick Parker’s two bad ass twin daughters.
You mean to tell me, if your fiance’s kids let a lizard lose into your hair, and laughed as it traveled into your mouth… then pushed your bed into the middle of a lake while you were lying upon it in a deep sleep… you wouldn’t get the urge to ship them off to Switzerland?
Mhm. That’s what I thought.
Nick Parker’s lil twins missed out on a phenomenal mentor by beefing with Meredith Blake, if you’re asking me.
Madam CoCo LaBouche
[Rugrats in Paris]
Portrayal:
CoCo LaBouche is a hot-tempered, child-loather who runs the Japanese theme park in Paris, France: EuroReptarland. Her boss, Mr. Yamaguchi, sees her as a potential candidate to step up and run the entire Reptar franchise however he desires a successor who is family oriented with a heart for children - two qualities CoCo lacks. In an act of desperation, she assures him that she is engaged to a man with a child, so Mr. Yamaguchi agrees to discuss the promotion further only after her alleged wedding. Thus leading CoCo to seduce Chaz Finster, marry him, and become stepmother to his son, Chuckie, before the big promotion passes her by.
Rebuttal:
All I see here is a business woman. All she did was attempt to check off the necessary boxes to receive a well-deserved promotion.
Like, what was she really supposed to do? Not trick Chaz into marrying her, and not get a promotion, just so she could be labeled a good guy? And what do a husband or a baby have to do with efficiently running a company? Were Mr. Yamaguchi’s potential male successors pressured into making families of their own as well?! Not likely. You see, I have a dream that one day Rugrats in Paris will be remade (you know, since niggas love reboots so much) and in said hypothetical remake, CoCo LaBouche’s intricate plot will succeed.
And corporate sexism will fail.
Ursula
[The Little Mermaid]
Portrayal:
Ursula is a manipulative, flamboyant, tentacled sea witch living in exile from Atlantis as ordered by King Triton. She isn’t lonely in banishment, she is surrounded by the poor unfortunate souls she’s collected over the years as she waits to exact revenge on Triton. Ursula finally sees an opening when his daughter, Ariel, expresses dissatisfaction with life underwater and an infatuation with a man on land by the name of Prince Eric.
Ursula strikes a deal with her. She takes Ariel’s voice away and gives her legs for three days. She promises to return her voice and make her a human forever only if she can manage a kiss from Eric within those voiceless 72 hours. If Ariel can’t hold up her end of the bargain, she’ll be doomed to Ursula’s garden with the other poor unfortunate souls.
Rebuttal:
[Ursula is kind of like Sallie Mae except she’s way more honest and likeable than Sallie Mae. Sallie Mae is a true villain. Ursula is just a hustler.]
Ariel wasn’t tricked nor bamboozled. She just genuinely thought she could win the heart of a prince by being a real cute stranger. What Ariel signed was a “legal, binding, and completely unbreakable” contract. She willingly exchanged her voice for the unlikely possibility of lungs and legs whilst floating in Ursula’s garden of poor, unfortunate souls and knowing her odds at becoming one of them (LIKELY).
Ariel fell victim to a charismatic saleswoman, it’s truly just that simple. To call Ursula a villain is a reach. She could have killed Ariel on sight. But she didn’t. Ursula could have acted instinctually and recklessly towards Triton, but she didn’t. In fact, she didn’t really get wicked until everybody tried to act like her airtight contract with Ariel was ignorable dust. Ursula was patient. She made silent moves. She thought “big picture”. She cut a fair, square business deal.
[Look at Ariel. Barely reading that shit. I thought we all learned something from Mike Bivins.]
Ms. Agatha Hannigan
[Annie]
Portrayal:
Agatha Hannigan is the sex deprived, alcoholic caretaker of a New York orphanage. She wakes the orphans up in the middle of the night and forces them to scrub the floors until they “shine like the top of the Chrysler building.” She feeds them only hot or cold mush. She silences all laughter. She’s never sober. Amidst her evil ways, she forces the orphans to sing praises to her on cue of a whistle.
Perchance, one of the orphans under her care, Annie, is selected to live with a billionaire named Oliver Warbucks for one week. The two form a sincere bond, and he begins helping Annie in her relentless search for her biological parents. He even goes on the radio to offer a cash reward if they decide to step forward and claim her. Well, Ms. Hannigan is fully aware that Annie’s parents been dead. She gets with two of her felon friends and devises a plan to con Annie into believing they are her real parents so Oliver Warbucks will hand over the cash and she can live out the rest of her days on “Easy Street”.
Rebuttal:
Cleaning the floors is a common household chore.
It’s not like Ms. Hannigan cooked the orphanage’s food. It’s not like she said, “I hate these bad ass kids so much I’m going to force them to eat porridge for life.” She probably had to eat the mush too! The food probably got delivered by the food bank or something but everybody wants to treat Agatha like the bad guy instead of the New York state government.
Annie really only gets in trouble with Ms. Hannigan for unjustifiable shit like running away from the orphanage. She wasn’t supposed to get in trouble for that? Ms. Hannigan was just supposed to let kids run away from the orphanage all willy nilly and lose her whole ass job?
Is Ms. Hannigan really any worse than your momma getting home from work (?) :
She, too, wants silence.
There better not be any dishes in the sink.
She wants you to eat all of your food whether it tastes good or not.
Ms. Hannigan sacrificed being an “ordinary woman with feelings” and dedicated her life to mothering needy little girls. Is she really a “villain” for wanting to make some quick cash and turn her own life around?
Nobody wants to say it, but let’s face it - it’s not like she would have been stealing the thunder of Annie’s real parents if her schemes succeeded. Everyone’s lives would’ve reverted right back to normal. Well … except Ms. Hannigan’s.
She would’ve lived wealthily and happily ever after.
Yzma
[The Emperor’s New Groove]
Portrayal:
Yzma is the old, wrinkly, sinister advisor who has worked in the palace for generations. She’s supposed to advise Emperor Kuzco but she actually makes all of his decisions for him. She doesn’t consult him at all. She even sits on his throne behind his back. Eventually, Kuzco gets the epiphany that Yzma’s been indirectly acting as Emperor aaaannndddd he fires her.
As part of her devious revenge plot, Yzma invites Kuzco over for dinner to falsely assure him there are no hard feelings. In an act of malicious power-hunger, Yzma poisons his drink hoping to kill him and assume the throne. But, as it turns out, her trusty sidekick poured the wrong potion.
She commands her sidekick to finish the job, but wouldn’t ya know it his conscious talks him out of it. Kuzco the Llama is set free, sending Yzma on a wild goose chase for his head.
Rebuttal:
You ever been fired?
If yes, you should see where Yzma is coming from.
If not, put yourself in her shoes.
The defense rest.
fairy godmother
[Shrek II]
Portrayal:
The Fairy Godmother in Shrek II is different from most fairytale godmothers in that she doesn’t do favors from kindness. She doesn’t grant wishes for free. She only cuts beneficial deals. A frog named Harold makes a deal with her to become human and marry the love of his life, Queen Lilian. In exchange, he vows that his daughter, Fiona, will marry her son, Prince Charming so that he can be king one day.
Princess Fiona wasn’t informed of this deal, so she marries an ogre named Shrek instead.
The Fairy Godmother is livid.
Determined to have her son rule the kingdom, The Fairy Godmother blackmails Harold, threatens Shrek, and tricks Fiona into falling in love with Prince Charming.
Rebuttal:
She’s just a mother wanting the best for her son. What mother doesn’t want the best for their son?! She worked and made the right moves so that her son could sit on the throne one day. Fairly. She turned a frog into a king, and got peanuts in return.
Actually…
SHE TURNED A FROG INTO A KING, AND HE TURNED HER INTO A BUBBLE IN RETURN.
And this is why you can’t give men nice things. They act like they’ve forgotten everything you’ve done for them when it’s time for a lil’ reciprocity.
MALEFICENT
[Sleeping Beauty]
Portrayal:
Maleficent is a green skinned, black-horned evil fairy who refers to herself as “The Mistress of All Evil”. When King Stefan invites everyone in the kingdom to his daughter, Aurora’s, christening except Maleficent, she touches down anyway ready to cause hell.
Out of offense, she curses Baby Aurora so that when she turns sixteen, she will prick her finger and die.
Rebuttal: