Villians Do It Better (Disney style!)

When people think of childhood – or maybe it’s just me here – they tend to think of one thing above all others: Disney films. I know I spent far more time than I probably should have, curled up in a sofa-pillow fort, bopping my way through most of the animated films when I was a kid.
I’m not going to touch on Pixar or Dreamworks or the live-action Disney films that were so well received; no, I’m going to be talking about the ones most 90s kids grew up with: Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Mulan, The Hunchback of Notre Dam and Pocahontas. The classics-- but with none of the sequels, because those are infamously horrid and I’d rather not waste the energy typing about them.

 Alright, so, why did we all love these films so much? Well, when I was a child, I liked the songs – I’d rewind the tapes and listen to the same song play until someone yelled at me from the other room, because they were sick of hearing it. I remember liking the villains; remember Scar, from the Lion King? I loved that guy.  When I was seven, I’d just watch that movie for him. I couldn’t tell you why (but looking back? It was totally his voice actor and how detailed the character was – the little ticks that made a cartoon lion seem fully fleshed out) but there was something that made me tune in. 
Another thing that drew me in – and this ties in with my love of villains, and songs. It was the fact that I liked being uneasy. I still do. I remember being really young and just staring, wide eyed as the step-mother in Snow White transformed herself into an old crone and everything faded to black with this maniacal cackling ringing in the background.

But it was more than the songs and the baddies – I identified with Belle, the only literate Disney princess that we saw in that era, and I liked the plot of most of the films. I identified with a lot of the characters, now that I think about it, and it was those characters that I’d connected with that dragged me back again and again.

So here’s the part where I usually rip on the topic, since I was a stupid child with terrible taste, usually – see the entry on Cybersix for an exception to this—but honestly? I still put in Mulan or Hercules or the Lion King some weekends when I get bored, and I have plenty of the songs on my iPod. I’m a bit of a dork, in case you needed things spelled out.

But the reason I liked them has changed, or rather, matured. Or so I’d like to think. See, while I used to like The Lion King for the songs and Scar, I like it now because, well, Scar’s still the most awesome lion to ever walk on four legs, but I can also appreciate the fact that the story is (very) loosely based on Hamlet. I liked Mulan because the title character was a girl not afraid to chop off her hair and go play with the boys, and now I like it because it was one of the first Disney films that dealt with gender roles, and what other cultures. I used to like The Hunchback of Notre Dame because of the humour. I like it now because it’s a dark story, and the villain, Frollo, is one of the most complex, tormented, and mentally unsound that has ever been put in a children’s film. Hercules, I will say, however, is one of those films that I grew to pass on, if I had the chance. I mean, it’s still a great film, and I watch it semi-regularly for Meg and Hades (because villains do it better), but the hero is just so bland it makes the scenes with him painful to watch. My reasons for liking Disney films, despite their shortcomings, have matured along with me, I’d like to think, but it’s still always nice to revisit bit of your childhood sometimes – and really, do I need more a justification than that?

So! If you haven’t seen a Disney movie, or watched one recently do yourself a favour and check one out – for the songs, the delightful baddies and the nostalgia value—because my childhood will thank you.