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Post by Ganymede on Jul 9, 2002 23:19:53 GMT -5
Shaxper and I were talking recently and got on the subject of villains and the ways in which they are portrayed. Take Disney, for example. Many of their villains are "dangerously" female (the queen in Snow White, the evil chic in Sleeping Beauty, Cruella Deville, Ursula in The Little Mermaid, etc.), meaning ultra sexual in appearance and aggressive. The male villians, too, often have "dangerously feminine" qualities (Scar in The Lion King, the bad guy in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Jafar in Aladdin, etc.) Obviously, these negative qualities of femininity spring from deep-rooted stereotypes about women- the angel or the monster dichotomy, with the angel being innocent (chaste) and passive and the monster being evil (promiscuous and dangerously seductive) and aggressive (often sexually). It is interesting to see these patterns springing up in supposedly "innocent" kid-friendly entertainment. The male villains become all the more dangerous because of their appropriation of qualities supposedly belonging only to the opposite sex-- their outward "unnaturalness" becomes symbolic of their inward diabolical natures. What do you think about this pattern? I'm sure we could apply it to Shakespeare as well if we tried .
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Post by shaxper on Jul 10, 2002 0:13:47 GMT -5
Herod from Jesus Christ Superstar comes to mind immediatey A very good point. There are, of course, overly masculine villains as well (Clayton from Tarzan, the guy from Atlantis) but this is only a more recent trend. I agree that there is a rather traditional viewpoint still hiding out in modern culture today in which a liberated and sexually aware woman is evil. this all stems from the Renaissance notion that a woman was Death's Head; full of deadly lust and damning carnal thoughts only thinly veiled with a propper outward appearance. Hamlet's advise to Eurich's skull about painting an inch thick is a recognition of his mother's lustful nature; that she is similarly a skull of death covered only in false makup. Hamlet attacks Ophelia similarly for wearing makup, fearing her lustfulness and deathliness as well. While I see this being largely responsible for the evil, sexual women we see on screen, I believe the effeminate male villain archtype stems from a different point of origin. At the close of The Rose Wars, in which most of the mighty powers eligable for the throne had killed each other, The Tudors recognized this lack of competition for the crown and seized it. The Tudors brought in a new, refined age in which education and presentation became the marks of power, in contrast to the archtypical families that had ruled England for nearly five hundred years before that. In the past, power was measured in manly brute force but, in an attempt to secure a highly tenuous hold on the crown, The Tudors strived for peace. In a country who's methology preached that God's will was determined in combat, this peaceful diplomacy with foreign nations was resented, as was the promoting of educated men with no combat skills who would keep the peace over powerful men who might start trouble, either domestically or internationally. As a result, in the historical accounts and plays of the time, cultured and diplomatic were two qualities that were treated with suspicion. In Shakespeare's plays, it is often the most eloquent speaker who can be least trusted. Remember also how Richard II is criticized for his lavish tastes and his compromises with foreign nations. He and Henry IV are both eloquent speakers, and both prove to be villanous to a degree. Hotspur (1 Henry IV) wages his war against Henry IV when the prisoners he captures in combat are to be turned over to an overly dressed messanger from the king who holds his nose because he cannot stand the stench of war. Masculine and feminine are associations that enter the equation in these stereotypes, but I believe the resentfulness towards weak, eloquent, characters who strike surruptitiously rather than outwardly is due more to a resentfulness of the Tudor court than femininity itself.
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