Conclusion Blog Post

Throughout this class, my perception of evil has developed and deepened greatly, both from the readings and my independent research. 

One aspect of evil I never considered was the concept of appearance especially including race, gender, and sexuality as it pertains to evil. The idea of the portrayal of "other" is very important when considering villains and how that subconsciously can change our perceptions of people in our lives. The idea that most villains in Disney have darker skin, are either unhealthy skinny or overweight, break typical gender and sexuality stereotypes is concerning. It shows that Disney believes those traits to be more negative. It scares me that these ideas could be indoctrinating children. I am very excited to continue exploring this idea as it pertains to mental health for my final essay. I also never did consider the villains as being mentally ill which adds an extra layer to the issue.

Additionally, I never so deeply considered the appeal of the evil characters. I personally never really felt that growing up watching the films, but apparently many people find the evil characters more interesting. Because they drive forward the plot, it makes sense. But also, people find them more relatable because they are not perfect. I found this idea fascinating. Also, the idea that villains do not learn from their mistakes was one of my favorite things to consider this semester. They rarely get punished and they just refresh each installment (this applies mostly to TV). These ideas are not as appealing in the villain.

I loved the unit in class about Disney as the villain. I never knew about this idea. The book Team Rodent was eye-opening and hilarious. Some of the stuff Disney has done, like covering up scandals, is crazy and I'm glad we looked at that in class. It makes sense that they would depict villains as non-white, non-cisgender, etc. if they also wouldn't take good care of their employees and sometimes their guests.

I also loved the unit about man as the villain, especially when it was related to Wall-E. I never saw that movie so deeply as I did when we examined it in class and I loved considering the idea that, aside from autopilot (a human-created invention), the entire mess they were in was because of themselves. The deep commentary in that movie about trash, technology, and consumerism is incredible.

The new information I've learned from this class has and will continue to change the way I see villains in films, TV, and books.