![]() She’s an overbearing houseguest, she’s a scheming liar, she’s an impatient boss, she’s flying off the handle. But a character like Cruella? She’s an unpredictable hurricane, you never know what face she’ll show next. They each get the job the film has for them done, but Shan Yu’s effectiveness doesn’t make him any more exciting or memorable. Each character is used in a very different way: Cruella as the protagonists’ direct opponent, Shan Yu as a trigger that puts Mulan on a collision course with ancient China’s gender politics. Does this mean that Mulan is a lesser film? Not at all. Shan Yu lives on the same monotonous note of destructive warfare in every scene in the film, and our interest in that wears out fast. You know what else he is? Totally uninteresting. Speaking in objective terms, Shan Yu might be considered more insidious than Cruella: he murders countless innocents, burns down villages, and generally goes through his plot to destroy China in sadistic high spirits. How can you not love a character who can go from this…Ĭompare her with Shan Yu, the main antagonist in Mulan. It’s not the high-class lady or the unhinged lunatic that makes Cruella so interesting, it’s her perfect combination of the two into a high-class lunatic. Her character could have just as easily been limited to one side or the other, but her impact would have been diminished. Cruella is a great character in part because of how she brings together elements from very different worlds. Promotions for the film have been fierce, with early trailers even calling her “Disney’s greatest villain.” But what is it about some members of Disney’s rouges gallery that makes them stand out more than others? What sets certain miscreants into a category all of their own? What makes a great Disney villain?Ĭruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians is many things. This May, Disney is giving Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty the Wicked treatment as the protagonist of her own film. Whether you prefer your dastardly figures wide-eyed and psychotic or restrained and scheming, we all love us some evildoers, and quality baddies are as much of a Disney tradition as the mouse ears or happily-ever-after. How many times have we sat through some sappy lovey-dovey duet just so we could get to a kickass villain song? If the good guys are the nutritional veggies that hold the story together, villains are the dark cinematic chocolate that makes it all worthwhile. It’s no secret that kids love the bad guys in Disney films – and who can blame them? While the film’s stalwart doofus is getting maneuvered into another obvious trap, the villain is hatching some evil scheme, breaking all the rules, and buahahaing with the best of them.
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