this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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[–] Diddlydee@feddit.uk 65 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

She is one of the best movie baddies, and her name is marvellous.

[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 56 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I recently rewatched the original and had forgotten just how well they portray her evil. Even as an adult I was actively repulsed the same way I would be if I met her in real life. Classic Disney definitely had some incredible villain writing.

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[–] markz@suppo.fi 64 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Didn't they make one recently where they tried to spin the villain solely known for turning puppies into purses as good?

[–] theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 44 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yep and they do that by making it not even believably the same character.

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's probably how the real Cruela would tell her backstory, making herself the victim

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 11 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I think the real cruella would be too proud to make a sobstory about how much of a victim she is. She's the kind of narc who would brag and totally own how awful she is because in her mind, she's not doing anything bad and she's the best and coolest person ever.

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[–] Jesus_666@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

They explore an alternate story. Sometimes they do that and explore fun scenarios like "what if Cruella DeVil was a somewhat decent person" or "what if all the heroes lived together and operated a magical ghetto and also brought their enemies back from the dead specifically so they could force them to live in squalor in the ghetto forever". Fun little alternate stories.

[–] Not_Dav3@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sorry, which movie is that second one?

[–] Jesus_666@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The Descendants series. The setting is basically as I described, except of course that the ghetto is heavily romanticized and the squalor mostly amounts to people having a vaguely punk aesthetic (as opposed to the preppy good guy kingdom). They're Disney movies for kids, after all, but they do acknowledge that their own setting is fucked up.

The premise of the story is that someone realizes that the villains had kids in there and that punishing the kids for their parents' misdeeds might possibly be kind of cruel so a few of them are selected to attend school in the good guy kingdom as an experiment. This results in a lot of choreographed song and dance routines, a romance plot, and some semi-self aware criticism of the "villains get punished harshly, heroes live happily ever after" trope.

The first one was pretty decent, the sequels were okay even if they effectively sidelined three of the four protagonists. They also made an animated series, which was a complete dumpster fire.

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[–] viral.vegabond@piefed.social 9 points 1 week ago

Cruella was excellent, in my opinion of course 😁

[–] BurgerBaron@piefed.social 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah and it's pretty good I thought. Shits on the old story but I care not.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Gotta make content for new fascist taking over America. Everybody else will be in the famous American prison system in a short while, no need to make content for them.

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[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 48 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This is something Christi Noem would say about 101 Dalmatians….

[–] ruuster13@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

You miss 101% of the shots you don't take.

[–] MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Just 100 Dalmatians for her

[–] RedFrank24@piefed.social 46 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I wouldn't call her entrepreneurially minded. She fully intended just to make a single coat and keep it herself. If she were intending on making it a business, she should have been setting up a Dalmatian farm with the 101 puppies and then mass produce the coats. Inbreeding health defects don't matter all that much when you're just gonna be skinning any puppies born within weeks.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ah, a player of Dwarf Fortress.

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[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (6 children)

The comic may be a joke, but I feel like this is an issue in diversity.

Take an author who has three characters. They want better representation, so one white character becomes black.

But, it turns out that character gives a third-act betrayal. Now it’s playing up the theme that black people are deceptive and untrustworthy.

Or, they try making the second character a woman. In a key conflict, that character pulls a very stupid move that lets the bad guys get away and results in an exciting chase scene. Now it evokes the idea that women are stupid and ill-suited to detective/enforcement work.

I really want a world where we can safely set up characters for moments of failure, evil, etc, without large crowds either feeling offended, feigning offense, or worse, taking it as validation of their bigotry.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 39 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Weirdly, there's a relevant XKCD that summarizes this really quite well:

[–] BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

when hasnt there been a relevant xkcd 😂

[–] MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't get why it's always assumed that a particular character is intended to represent an entire gender or race.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

One of the ones I remember the most is in the original COD4: Modern Warfare. A blog highlighted so savagely the fact that your squad is sent down to rescue a female chopper pilot who's been downed and wounded. Then, a nuke goes off, killing everyone, suggesting they could have gotten out of the blast radius if they didn't save her - meaning a woman in distress was the death of the whole squad. The blog lambasted Infinity Ward for giving such a horrible treatment to the game's only major female character.

Of course, that's a relatively disingenuous interpretation. That same mission has you rescuing whole squads of pinned soldiers moments before (all men). The chopper pilot gets her great moments of heroism in the process. And it's very likely the writers intended for the squad to be killed by a nuke no matter what happens.

And there have probably been COD games out there with NO notable women in them. So somehow, the move to include one in this particular game struck them as worse than if they'd done nothing at all.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

I really want a world where we can safely set up characters for moments of failure, evil, etc, without large crowds either feeling offended, feigning offense, or worse, taking it as validation of their bigotry.

It's a real Heads-I-Win / Tails-You-Lose game, because the White Male Anti-Hero gets the exact opposite treatment. If you make a Sopranos or a Wolf of Wall Street or a Fight Club, the very obviously corrupt and villainous lead character somehow ends up being this celebrity icon for reactionaries.

The same people complaining that John Boyega and Daisy Ridley ruined Star Wars will come out cheering for Adam Driver while claiming Imperialism is cool now.

Anything that makes a story exciting or different - the ups and downs of the story arc, characters with personal flaws or quirks, foreign settings and distinct cultures, non-English languages, non-CisHet romances - become at once implicit indictments of the out groups and charming complements toward the in-groups.

And a lot of that just boils down to the critics themselves. Far-right media amplifying its megaphone year after year, until we're deaf from their screamed opinions. There's no right answer for a film maker or story writer when the designated state-sanctioned censors and corporate flaks are all patriarchal white nationalists.

[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The movie Tallulah, I watched it completely hungover and one thing I noticed is that there is only 1 guy in the movie and he solves EVERYTHING by just being the only rational person. There's a lot of things happening between all the girls in the movie but there is one angle where it really looks like "girls crazy, man rational"

[–] MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Tallulah

I haven't seen it but I do like Allison Janney. I'll have to check it out.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I really want a world where we can safely set up characters for moments of failure, evil, etc, without large crowds either feeling offended, feigning offense, or worse, taking it as validation of their bigotry.

Yes, the world would be much better without racism, sexism, etc. That's why we resist.

[–] MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I don't know if resistance should be restricting creative freedom to the point where every character MUST be considered a representation of millions of people.

That's less equality and more just a new form of racially-based control.

[–] Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

Yeah this tends to also create the problem a lot of writers fall into when having a more diverse cast where non white cis male characters come off as too perfect. They can't make mistakes, big or small, cause they're worried about the examples you gave (not saying you're implying this). I know I've heard from a lot of people on the topic of representation that they'd loveless perfect representation, but that's a hard thing to walk especially if funds aren't allocated to maybe get a consultant on the team that could help represent that group without it being stereotyped.

[–] joyjoy@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I like how the recent movies had Cruella step on another villain-coded woman to get to the top. 

[–] bampop@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

How else are you going to do another pre-prequel where we find out the villain-coded woman of that movie was herself just a strong female and a product of harsh circumstances?

[–] ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also didn't Cruella employ two career criminals and literally stole the puppies and even complained that there were cops all over the place looking for her and her two stupid henchmen?

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Yeah, sounds like capitalism to me

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[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 week ago

Great movie for describing the reality of "entrepreneurship".

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 8 points 1 week ago

The most shocking thing in this comment section is that there are people here who think the Emma Stome remake was "excellent".

No wonder Hollywood keeps getting away with making slop.

[–] FxomtTheClone@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Fuck them puppies I need morh money

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