Wonder which Disney baddie will get their parents brutally killed off next. Also - be sure to be one of the first 1,000 to get a free 1-month trial of Skillshare Premium! 👉skl.sh/anaisabel07211 ✨
It works as long as they don't touch RL villains. Can only imagine what would happen if certain historical figures got the Maleficent treatment. (shudders)
Sometimes I feel like these sympathies types of villains are almost manipulative, or rather, it’s how they are written that’s manipulative. It’s like people think that just because the villains has a sob story, it means that all of the terrible things they do are now justified, and I feel like the writers know that fans will do this with their favorite villains, so now even past villains always have to have a sob story in order to make us feel bad for them and ignore all of the terrible things they do. Pretty soon, my head cannon for why some sympathetic villains tell their sob story to the hero is actually because in-universe the villain is actually just trying to manipulate the hero so the villain can escape punishment.
@@anotherrandomguy8871 kinda. Although there is a difference in guys like kratos or 2019 joker where they’re def justified at first (one instance just self defense) but as they become less caring and more violent the game/movie doesn’t want you to sympathize with them anymore. Meanwhile in wandavision it was great until they decided to not commit to Wanda straight up being the bad guy and accepting it, they bring in two bad guys that shouldn’t have or didn’t need to be there because for some reason we can’t let the main character be bad or completely in the wrong even tho it’s been done before
I'm in agreement with you. Honestly I'm of the opinion that if Joker ever got a tragic back story and it stuck that he shouldn't be made redeemable for it. In fact, that's why I'd like him to get a tragic back story because he'd be perfect as a person whose been screwed over by the world to the point where he just doesn't give a dam if you feel sorry for him or not.
Actually it’s been confirmed that Judge Doom from who framed Roger Rabbit was the hunter who shot Bambi’s mother so that would be a very dark rabbit hole to go down.
I can't wait to see a Gaston prequel explore how he hates smart women because his mother was killed by a bookshelf, or that Frollo and Hades have huge daddy issues!
I didn't watch Hercules, but Hades was eaten by his father in Greek mythology so I would say there might be some daddy issues, who knows. In mythology he was actually good guy and only god who could keep it in his pants (most of the time).
My issue with most villain origin stories is that they're simply not villain origin stories. They're just alternate Bizarro universes where they're not villains at all. It's fine if writers want to explore "what if X wasn't a bad guy?" (and they've done so successfully before with for example Agent Venom), but don't frame it as a "villain origin story" when you're not gonna make them a villain in the end. I'd argue that Joker is the only actual villain origin story out of these since we do get to see him commit horrific and despicable acts with no way of going back, while in for example Cruella, the worst thing she does is some vandalism against 1 specific person who murdered her adoptive mum. I don't see how you go from wanting revenge for your mum to wanting puppy genocide so you can make a new coat. Cruella was more like the prequel to an origin story since we saw nothing hinting towards her going down a dark path, it mostly just explained how she got the name and why she's so rich.
LOL agreed - she was really only Cruella by name. Other than that she's a completely different character as a far as I'm concerned, and nowhere close to the villainous maniac of the classic animation - or even Glenn Close's portrayals. Totally hit the mark with most writer's intentions; seems like most of them (as with Cruella and Maleficent) are more interested in crafting fanfiction, rather than actual origin stories of these villains. (Which - as you note, isn't inherently bad... but their marketing often misleads us to think otherwise.)
I had no problem with Maleficent being the main character, or even if she was turned heroic (though I wonder why she was still named Maleficent). What I didn't like is that they took the three fairies and turned them into useless comic reliefs that bordered on child abuse.
Precisely, that was my biggest gripe too! Instead Maleficent spends more time raising Aurora than the fairies do, and SHE'S the reason that they're in hiding in the first place!
@@trinaq I just didn't like the change- the fairies are kind of rare beast in fantasy. Three middle age women who like to drink tea and eat cookies, but kind of useless in housework, can direct the future of kingdoms and fights the mistress of evil with magic? Like, I honestly thought they were the main characters in the movie. And can you imagine a Maleficent where it's her, the mistress of evil vs badass fairies ?
Imo, doing anything to "rehabilitate" or "explain" the Joker fundamentally misunderstands what makes the character so good. Heath Ledger's performance perfectly captures the essence of the Joker: perfect chaos, without rhyme or reason, but plenty of laughter.
Phoenix‘s joker still works in the overall joker mythos tho._. With jokers famous line in the killing joke. "Something like that happened to me, you know. I.._ I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes i remember it one way, sometimes another._. If I'm going to have a past, i prefer it to be multiple choice "
Think one of the interesting things with Joker is how many interpretations work with him. From Hamills silly but menacing crime boss, Ledgers almost Faustian force of evil, to New 52s madman weaponizing the mystery surrounding him. I think Joker works better without much backstory but compared to all the other origins, I think this one has a better story compared to mobster splashed with chemicals or struggling comedian stealing from the company he works for being splashed in chemicals.
@@cdubsb3831 I agree that little to no back story is best for the character. Thus why Ledger's portrayal is, imo, the best version (with Hamill's a close second solely due to Hamill's sheer talent)
Same. I don't really interpret it as an origin story, because the Batman's Joker is a nihilistic force of chaos, whereas Phoenix's a bit of a revolutionary/misanthropic one. I always interpreted the new Joker more as a disguised testament to mentally ill's people struggle in society than an origin story in itself (just like The Arrival is as more about the perception language brings us than people trying to translate aliens' languages imo).
I always think of Joker as a sort of proto Joker. Like He’s not THE Joker. Otherwise this mans Batman’s been beating up a geriatric old man all this time.
@@amazingspiderlad That's only in the 1989 Tim Burton Film (Which I grew up with and love), but there are so many versions of the character with potentially different origins.
I feel like Birds of Prey was Harley's sympathetic "origin story." It shows her growing out of the abusive hell that Joker put her through, and ends with her saving a girl's life along with all her friends and allies. I really hope to see more of that version of Harley, but I don't think going BACK in time with her is a good idea.
I've got good news for you! The animated series is exactly this, but MUCH better! Can't wait for the third season, it's my favourite DC project by a country mile.
Same here, I thought Birds of Prey was fun! :D I should've clarified though - I meant an origin story movie that follows her as a sympathetic Harleen Quinzel, way before she met the Joker and descended into "madness" (which, to be clear, I don't think would be a great idea either hahaha).
@@ana-isabel To be fair, in the Batman the Animated Series where she was debuted, her origin story is pretty sympathetic, and the comics have done really good stuff with it (especially the one named "Harleen"), so that's one of the few I'd actually really enjoy.
@@ana-isabel I don't know I think a movie that focuses on Harleen vs the Joker in their therapy sessions, having it play out like a fight where they are both trying to get one over on the other, and have the movie focus around that and I would watch it quite a lot. Think Clarice talking to Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.
The new Loki show also does an amazing job at humanizing a villain, albeit one that already started a redemption arc. There’s also an AMAZING musical called “twisted” that tells Aladdin from Jafar’s perspective, and in it there’s a musical number where some other Disney villains give a quick rundown of their stories from their perspective; it’s great.
I think my issue with these sorts of narratives is that they are less “here, let me offer you additional context on why this character is a delightfully evil character” and more “here is a revisionist history where the villain never was the villain, actually.” I’ve always loved OG Maleficent as a character because she’s just unapologetically evil. She appears at a party and curses a newborn out of spite. Then she toys with a prince because why not. As a young girl, I always felt chills and intrigue when she announced “and now you shall face me, oh prince, and all the powers of hell!” before turning into a dragon that stuck in my nightmares for weeks. Fastforward to L-A Maleficent: she’s a sweet pure soul who was wronged by an power-hungry jerk, all right, but I mean, her death curse wasn’t even a death curse in the iconic “revenge scene.” It went from “she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die” to “she will fall into a death-like sleep.” I mean….what? Where is that evil woman I always enjoyed because she was so strong and commanding in her actions? They don’t even have her transform into her iconic dragon form. Why? Because we have to keep making Maleficent into a good person, don’t worry, there is no evil here. Except….her being evil was what made her fun… Additionally, as you and others have mentioned, to make sure Maleficent is framed as the hero, others have to be rewritten to be more evil or incompetent or both. New Stefan hates fairies, so why did he entrust his daughters to three incompetent fairies other than to give Maleficent more time to play hero and caretaker for Aurora. Why were the three fairies robbed of their moment of softening the death curse to a sleep curse? Because we have to make Maleficent “good.” It’s all so frustrating and not enjoyable to me. I feel like I read weak fan fiction than a villain origin story. I’m sure these kinds of narratives vibe with some people, but they definitely aren’t for me. Thanks for the great video!!
I think I wouldn’t have had such an issue with this take on Maleficent if they didn’t make so many changes in order to make it clear that Maleficent ISN’T evil. Don’t have the sweet angel child be named Maleficent at the beginning of the movie-have her embrace that name after she takes on the powers of hell to exact revenge on Stefan. Have her curse Aurora to death, and have the weaker fairies soften the curse because they cannot break the magic Maleficent has embraced. Let the three fairies still care for Aurora properly. Then, as Aurora grows up, she encounters Maleficent in the forest. Maleficent has cursed Aurora, but her beef was with Stefan-cursing this child hasn’t brought her the satisfaction of revenge she’s been hoping for. And now, she’s spending more time with Aurora and regaining the compassion she used to have. However, her path for revenge has also left her neglecting the Moors /transforming it to match her anger. Maybe have more of a journey where she’s grappling with how she’s hurt people-the three caretaker fairies in particular-other than the one who harmed her while still appreciating her new identity. Just things that I still wonder about years after seeing the movie
I think the "Incel extremist threat" surrounding Joker was exaggerated. Not only were there no actual shootings at theatres showing Joker, there weren't even significant threats. The idea was spread mostly by fear-mongering media sources likely due to the fact that disillusioned men tend to view the Joker as an empowering symbol. It was pretty irresponsible, in my opinion.
Why can't a villain just be evil for the sake of it? It seems that every single one of them need to have a tragic backstory to explain away their more nefarious deeds!
Not sure their backstory explains away their bad acts ... the difference between a hero and a villain is that the hero rises up over the adversities thrown at them, while the villain is swept along with them and chooses to take the easier low path. You don't have to provide the backstory (Heath Ledger's Joker just shows up completely formed to great effect), but in real life no one is bad in their own story ... they all feel justified, even the sociopaths. The conflict is the good guy vs the bad guy, and you need to describe the motivations for the conflict or it's just not that interesting.
i dont even care if they have a reason, but at least let them be bad, it worked in joker, but cruella just doesn't look like the puppy killer she would become in the future
@@Hapsard I disagree. I don't think you need to have explicit motivations for many villains for the conflict to be interesting- especially when the motivations are poorly written. A lot of times mystery can add to the fear and menace of a villain. I say "explicit motivation" because usually there is the inferred motivation that the villain is selfish and is willing to make other people collateral damage to get what they want- power, money, to satisfy their base passions. I feel like this is one thing these types of films ignore- you can be raised without any major trauma and still give into selfish desires and become evil.
because it's more realistic this way. Very rare are people born evil or evil for the sake of evil. There's a motive or a backstory and villains that are always just evil get bland and boring over time. It also teaches us that not everything is black and white and that maybe some real-life villains can be redeemed or how to prevent someone from becoming a villain. Its not really good to go through childhood thinking that some people are just born bad.
Forum posters watching villain movie: "OMG that's TOTALLY me!!" Movie: "They are a bad guy" Forum posters: "omg what no pls 😥" Prequel: "Don't worry there is a good reason why they're bad" Forum posters: "Ye it's totally me 😎"
I think X-Men First Class does a good job at being a villain origin story. We all know what’s going to happen with Erik but by the end it’s a little painful to watch him finally become magneto
It seems pointless to make a villain origin story where you can’t see them as their future self by the end. It’s not like it hasn’t been done properly in many properties, like you pointed out. Like you said, it’s for the money.
One of my favorite Villain Protagonist stories is Cousin Bette by de Balzac. Bette is an ugly, unhappy spinster living in the charity of relatives, whom she loathes. When the man she loves is taken away from her by her young niece, she plots her vengeance by destroying the family with scandal. Bette was abused as a child, while her cousin was pampered, but that still doesn't stop Bette from being monstrous. She takes out her pain in destructive, negative ways by destroying her relatives after the last straw broke the camel's back.
Harley has always been portrayed as sympathetic though. Even in her first appearances we get to learn how she fell in love with the Joker and how he used her as a tool in his villainous schemes. They showed how she's stuck in an abusive one-way relationship, but the Joker manipulates her to stay even after he tried to murder her.
Adding background info and motivations for pop-culture villains wrecks their ‘edge’ and overall malevolent mystique. I agree that they’re reduced to mini-boss status when there is a bigger bad in the story lore
I think Magneto was also written for a long time to be sympathetic? What the nazis and racists (mutantists?) did to him and everyone he loves, well, a valid reason for his actions but doesn't mean its the right actions, thus a villain. But splitting hairs, the overall point of the video is taken. Ty
I thoroughly disagree. He is not evil. Don't get me wrong, he's definitely not a hero, but he's a utterly broken person who feels unseen. He is very much mentally ill and abused in several ways and starts out trying his best to get what help there is. His spiral starts when he gets beat up and then fired. Then he's assaulted, has his only teather to some sort of a social safety net taken away. Then his relationship with his mother is destroyed when her lies and/delusions are revealed. On top of that he realises that he has imagined the only relationship in his life that seemed healthy. Then he discover that he gets seen and applauded for his killing of his assaulters. Something that is arguably self defence gone to far. That's literally the only affirmation he gets that's not in his head. I'm not condoning his actions, but I think a society that threats its most vulnerable like that is the actual evil in the film, and in real life, and the Joker in this context is more of a symptom. As is the riots around him.
@@thehorriblebright IMHO exactly what you describe is kind of problematic, on the terms of how mental illness is framed. I think it sanitizes the reality and makes people think that only people like him (such as mass shooters) are victims of an unfair society and deserve praise and impunity instead of being fairly judged. And at the same time, that the vast majority of people with untreated mental illnesses (due to an unjust society) either have the potential to turn into a heinous villain or are "not really suffering that much because reality is not that unfair to them", when they don't go to such extremes.
@@roj4169 Well that's the sort of thinking that put people in imaginary categories like "good" and "evil". That's bullshit to the end of time. What I'm saying is that a society that treats people like trash should expect dumpster fires on their own frontstep. No one's relived of responsibility for their actions unless they are too mentally ill to be held to that responsibility, which the joker is at the very verge of being in this film even at the start. The attitude of Thomas Wayne is the real evil to me. People like him are why there are violent uprisings and riots. I can very much empathise with Arthur Fleck myself. I've had mental health issues my entire adult life and it's only thanks to the Swedish social safety net and being born into relative privilege that I'm not living on the street or dead. I'm not saying what Fleck does is right in any way, but if you push a vulnerable person enough something will break and if you don't construct your society to adress that, you're going to have bad surprises.
@@ana-isabel Yup. It's all in the framing. Also I do think the 2019 flick was exploiting the ignorance of huge swaths of young men to not recognize Taxi Driver/The King of Comedy, particularly how both of those clear inspirations for Joker were framed as cautionary tales.
I think that audiences nowadays cannot suspend disbelief anymore to accept overall good characters. This trend of elevating villains coincides with with a pattern of bringing down heroes---particularly Batman, whose actual superpower was that he by instinct always did the right thing; for a couple decades now it has been taken as a given that nobody with his resources in his job could be unremittingly benevolent---he must have a paranoid dark side. Actually from that franchise the best example of a villain being turned into a popular protagonist is Harley Quinn, who is on the cover of (it feels like) every DC comic. So now people will accept that a puppy-skinner might have some sort of backstory that somehow explains if not forgives, you know, puppy-skinning.
Yeah I'm really not a fan of the "new" gravel eating psycho Batman you see all over. Batman TAS had the perfect Batman and showed his depth better than most others. He could be harsh when needed, but also knew when to show compassion and could stop villains by just listening to them.
I don't think that people not being able to accept good characters is true. I think the majority just don't want boring, one-note protagonists anymore. Hell, most people don't want boring OneNote antagonists anymore either. And in the case of the three characters being discussed in the video, people liked them as villains because they were villains with flair and personality. And Disney just wanted to capitalize on it and play it safe. I think if maleficent and cruella were not Disney products, we could have gotten a much more interesting movie.
Actually never noticed the parallel of this trend to that of "darker heroes" in recent times - interesting. I do think there's a growing demand for more "morally grey" characters since it seems to commonly be equated with them having "more development" or "substance". I think this is true in plenty of cases and makes for a ton of intrigue (i.e. Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, etc.) but it's a fine balance to strike, and can easily send out a strange or confused message if not pulled off properly. I also definitely agree Maleficent and Cruella could've gotten better movies if not for being "Disney" products; I think their stories would've particularly fared better if they actually embraced evil, rather than turned into inspiring "heroes", by the end of their films. (I mean, the whole point of Cruella's character *is* the whole puppy-skinning bit 😅)
i like insatiable, it keeps making us simpatize with the main character at the same time said character does progressivelly more evil acts every time, it feels like a villain origin story of a great villain
She did from the start. It's literally always been an important part of her story that she's stuck in an abusive and manipulative relationship with the Joker, and it's her love and dedication to him that sent her down the path from being a successful doctor to being a mentally unstable supervillain
I think certain bad and evil characters do work better with a back story, while others are better of being evil for evil sake - depending on the movie and story they serve. Like with the Marvel series. I couldn't imagine the Infinity Saga working as well if they didn't make Thanos' motivation understandable instead of just destruction hungry. Nor could I see myself having loved Homecoming as much if the Vulture wasn't a sympathetic downtrodden dad worthy of saving. Yet, flip side, Hela was delightfully just power hungry, the bad guy in Ironman 1 a money hungry prick and they worked all the better for it. These classic Disney movies work a lot better for me when the villain is just evil, an obstacle to rise to over come and not something needing depth and contemplation. Disclaimer, I haven't seen any of the Disney Villain origins - they just don't have appeal to me. With the Joker, I had the same feeling. After Heath Ledger's incredible performance with his own unreliable origin story...the idea of giving that character a fixed past ran the risk of making arguable the best comic book adapted movie a bit hollow. However, I was intrigued enough to go see Joker, and I think the way they did it worked: a clearly different Joker in a different time, in a different take of the DC Batman 'verse helped dissociate any notion of this being the same Joker as Ledger, or Hamil, Nicholson or ... *shudder* miss guided Leto versions. I never found myself rooting for Phoenix' Joker, more just understanding how he got to where he ended and feeling less "shocked" and appalled by his actions because of his origins. I throw the Disney Villain origins in a similar pile as the unnecessary prequel - explaining the things that went better unsaid. Though, maybe I should give them a go - I am weary after being burnt by Star Wars Solo (ok, I didn't expect greatness after the other movies, but the origin parts of Solo were so cringe worthy as to now being all but deleted from my memory as to avoid harming Han in the original movies)
You hit the nail on the head for why these types of movies make me roll my eyes. To make a great villain that is typically depicted as simply relishing in the fun of being evil sympathetic, you basically have to change everything about who they are as a character, separate them from their classic protagonist counterparts, and replace them with lame new villains for them to clash with.
Great video, the intro had some nice editing. Seemed a little slicker than usual. I do have to wonder if one of these villain origin stories could work without people feeling sympathetic to the character. Personally would love to see an origin story of Lex Luther. Not necessarily any Lex we've seen much like Joker. What I love in the comics is that any universe that doesn't have Superman, Lex Luther is actually a really good person and humanitarian. But the mere existence of Superman offends him to his core and therefore makes him evil. So you could definitely make him a sympathetic character.
Hm, interesting! I admit I don't know much about Lex or the Superman lore, but he'd make a pretty intriguing protagonist if that's the case. (And thanks - the intro was my favourite bit to edit! :p)
It's interesting to see Hollywood delve into these villain backstories. I think it'd be interesting to see the MCU take on a Magneto backstory film. If you want a truly tragic story of society failing leading directly to their villainous deeds, he's a poster boy. To watch the horrors of the Holocaust first hand and then see it happening all over again with Mutants in "present day" (whenever that is) I don't think I've ever been quite so sympathetic to a villain before. I think there's a lot more nuance there than Joker's "society cast me out so I'm going to kill rich people now" which I think is kind of missing the mark a bit, and draws an unfair equivalence between trauma, mental health and violence which can be damaging to people looking for help.
Perfectly put - especially the bit on unfairly equating mental health and trauma to violence. I also definitely agree with Magneto, though I think Marvel's already portrayed this pretty well with the new era of X-Men films (starring Fassbender?). Still, I think his own, solo origin movie would be well worth the watch if done well.
Honestly at this point, if there's new x-men movies, I wanna actually see the x-men doing superhero stuff instead of more of Professor X and Magneto's past
@@amazingspiderlad Yea I hear you there. I would love like a 90s comics aesthetic superhero team just going out doing flashy X-men stuff all bright and actiony. That'd be dope.
@@Clare_Standin honestly I would love it if they combined things from the old and new comics. Have vibes of the 80s-90s comics, and have the x-men actually doing superhero stuff, but also include more recent stuff like Iceman being gay and tell a story that isn't just repeating the dark phoenix saga for a third time. Maybe even the Krakoa storyline.
"so why are they becoming defense attorneys for {definition of a hero}" because they lack selfawareness to understand that by making heros bland they stoped being heros. heros can only be proactive. but they only tell villains as being proactive.
Both Joker and Cruella could have been standalone movies. Cruella's name could have been just changed, but no, Disney can't invent a new character -.- That's a huge risk, it's way too much. Joker could have been an "alternate version" or something. Call it a "variant" even though it's DC not Marvel but you get what I mean. But the internet's infatuation with Joker couldn't allow such thing
Yeah, that's what I'm confused about too - Cruella could've easily been a completely different character. The direction and acting was fine - it's biggest problem was being tied to an incredibly iconic, well-established Disney villain. Yet the only thing she has in common was the name, lol. God forbid they don't recycle existing IP though - how are they ever gonna sell tickets otherwise? /ₛₐᵣ𝒸ₐₛₘ
There’s actually an official DC name for AU stories starring DC characters. It’s called “Elseworlds”. You might as well call the Joker movie as an “Elseworld” story.
the thing I just can't move past in these kinds of films is that so many of them push that "mental illness equals villainy" trope that I just hate, it bothers me more than the cash grab aspect of them tbh. anyway, succession is great from the first second of the intro up until the credits and more people should watch it.
YEP, THIS. 👆 Overused as it is, I don't mind the whole "trauma leading to villainy" trope as long as they don't use it to actually justify their shitty behaviour. It's annoying and sends a terrible message. Also definitely not hot on the whole "villainizing mental illness" trope either. :/ That aside, yes - Succession is fantastic.
The joker movie was almost great but it never really made its mind up what it was trying to say. One minute he was a social outsider slowly being driven to madness and the next minute the film would try to make his actions seem understandable and rational instead of just the result of mental deterioration. Then it would switch to suggesting that none of the story happened anyway and the joker as the narrator was just making it all up. I understand that was sort of the whole point of it but it just felt very unsatisfying to come away from the film having not really learnt anything. Perhaps the joke was on the audience for watching it.
LOL, that last bit. Funny enough I actually hadn't come across the theory that the narrator had been "making it all up" at the end - that's interesting! But yeah, I did feel the messaging was a bit confused. I personally would've preferred the first angle - a simple story of Arthur Fleck gradually losing his sanity sans all the blatant sob story bits. Chronicle (2012) is a film that comes to mind that achieves this pretty well, imo.
Aristotle explains this perspective of humanity. No matter who we are we feel what ever we do we do it for the "good" as we ourselves see it. Even something as simple as making youtube videos can be analyzed for its faults all the while the creator can explain their reasons for doing so in a positive light. In these movies we are reminded of our own nature and perspective. "Surely we arent the bad guy, we have our reasons for X" We love the validation to be just who we think we are.
Cruella was the first movie I saw in theaters in a couple of years actually (the last one being Ant-Man and the Wasp in 2018) so for getting back to watching movies in theaters, it felt like a nice reintroduction. I thought it was a fun watch, and as far as the Disney live action reboots have gone... Well, Cruella has easily been my favorite.
Haha same here! I guess I've been so burnt out (and continuously appalled) by all the other Disney remakes that this one was a pleasant surprise imo. It helped having two fantastic actresses leading it, along with a pretty good director. Just not sure how they're gonna explain the Pongo and Perdita bit lmao
I know diddly about Elden Ring, but this essay had the exact effect I get from a great article about a band or book or a historic event: you get an appreciation of the depth of something, and even if you delve no further into the subject, you can be grateful that "there are good things, too. And aren't they worth" sharing? Thank you.
I honestly think Cruella should've actually killed the dalmatians. (obviously I don't condone this irl just for the plot) It appears as this "twist" and just ends up being a lie, however, it would make the boys going back to this horrible dynamic even less believable. The boys deserved better imo.
Title feels misleading with the inclusion of Joker. Authur Flecks deeds are never portrayed as heroic. His film is literally a descent into his madness, not some underdog story like Maleficent or Cruella.
The big redeeming factor for Joker though (on the part of the writers, not the character) is that the ending leaves us all questioning the validity of the whole film. It is to say: we shouldn't just blindly empathize with anybody who tells us a sad story that tugs at our heartstrings. I compare it with "I am a Killer," on Netflix where they interview people on death row for murder. There's a whole lineup of people who brutally murdered their victims, but we are first presented with their side of the story. And as the evidence trickles in more and more, we are left with making our own choice about whether or not the individual deserves a chance at redemption.
@@speedbumpchump6388 do you feel it was because the writer felt he had to spell out that the Joker is a bad guy to the audience of today who has to be spoon fed everything? Not even necessarily the audience but the "journalists" who love to manufacture outrage like they did with the Joker movie.
I appreciate having this whole villain re-framing unpacked. As someone writing a morally-grey "good intentions but you took it WAY too far" antagonist for my novel, I am getting really tired of this lens put on the villains because the nuance between those two angles seems so lost on studios lately. (And unfortunately on some audiences too.) And it's making me leery about even proceeding with publishing using my original drafts. Ughhhh
Ah yes, it's a careful balance - but achievable! Some of the best comic book/superhero movie villains have achieved this; Killmonger, Thanos, and Magneto to name a few. I think what their material did well was ultimately condemn their extreme "solutions" while acknowledging that their sentiments have merit. After winning audiences over in their own movies, not sure how the "Joker" and "Cruella" sequels are gonna flesh out their eventual life of crime (though I have a feeling they may just nuke the latter's altogether).
@@ana-isabel Entirely agreed! Actually Killmonger is an example that came to mind for me when describing that line of still maintaining that the villain is ultimately in the wrong even if they have admirable goals. I just feel like the villain redemption is being so over done WITHOUT the nuance that I'm worried it's almost seen as a trope in a negative way. Like, around the time Harry Potter was being written, loads of other children's or YA novels were using very black and white morality with villains. And then shortly after a large amount of studios and authors overcorrected and overused the gray morality without nuance. Huh....I wonder if you could prove any causation as to the timeframe of the reverse and overcorrection
Nox from season 1 of Wakfu. I really wonder why I didn't see this mentioned earlier in the comments, but he has one of the best done backstories for a villain in recent times. "If I succeed, no one will care because it will all begin again. If I fail, I don't care if the world survives or not."
Aaaay new video! Think the alternate universe or "elseworlds" take on these villains is a great way to sum up these interpretations. Grew up with the traditional 2-dimensional versions of these characters so it was a lot of fun to see what new writers could do with them after years of the same characterizations. Also really enjoyed the new Loki series if you've had a chance to check it out for another re-framed villain story! Keep up the amazing work once again Ana!!
Ahhh thank you!! :D I've actually just finished the new Loki series, and while it took a while to get going (imo) I'm pretty intrigued for the next season after seeing the finale. I've always thought Loki to be an interesting dimensional villain in the MCU, and I'm glad this series gives us a chance to further explore his character and all the strange stories they can play around with. (Hope to see more absurd concepts like croc-Loki hahaha)
So thesis statement: Maleficent/Cruella are shallow but harmless fun. Joker is deeper and better executed but potentially dangerous. I believe they both have a place in the world of art, but I will say the impact movies like the Joker can have terrifies me infinitely more than predictable, safe popcorn fluff like Maleficent and Cruella.
I actually really like the Maleficent movies. I thought Angelina gave an amazing performance and saw the stealing of her wings as a metaphor for sexual assault and it made me incredibly emotional the first time I saw it. Yeah it's not as edgy and dark as the others but I do think they did a good job with her keeping her villainous confidence and attitude even with the sympathetic backstory. I enjoy the concept of villain backstorys because in real life pretty much no one is just born inherently evil. And I think what made them the way they were in the original movies is a really interesting and entertaining concept.
I think having the dalmatian puppies be siblings actually explains a lot. 100 offspring isn't exactly something you'd expect from a healthy genetic pairing of any dog.
2:50 if you want to see a mostly sympathetic Harley origin, read the comic Harleen by Stjepan Sejic. If an origin movie is ever made, that will be the template.
I like to see it as more of a step away from the Hero/Villain/Victim trichotomy. Okay, she's a Princess in exile, does that mean she's the victim of her Nephew, and has to find a Prince to legitimize her re-taking the throne, or does she go out there, buy some armor (She wasn't thrown out alone, and penniless) and raise an army to go take it back herself like a Queen? (Mathilde, and Queen Margaret of Anjou are but 2 Historical examples.) These roles aren't mutually exclusive. A Victim can grow up to be a Heroine of some, and Villainess of others. I believe that we're finally starting to write more complex characters.
Todd Phillips actually said at the TIFF screening of Joker that there is a point in the film when you SHOULD get off the support train for Arthur Fleck (aka Joker). Even the director and Joaquin Phoenix agree that the Joker is a bad person you shouldn't sympathize with. And the fact that this great psychological drama has become some people's alt right manifesto just frustrates me to no end.
At first blurring the line between hero and villain was fun and cool now it’s boring and everything at this point is a deconstruction so I mean really if you wrote a traditional comic story THAT would be the real deconstruction
Saw a comment mentioning how this is a result of shows like Breaking Bad or the Sopranos, but the thing is, while those shows feature villainous characters as heroes at times, they don’t shy away from having them doing some really horrific stuff, reminding you that they’re still villains. Walter White will be fighting someone worse or more threatening, but he won’t draw the line on poisoning a kid to get what he wants to defeat him. Yes, he was mocked and ridiculed, but it’s never shown as an excuse for what he does afterwards, he’s still Satan by the end. The problem I keep seeing with those types of films, is that the villain is a straight up clean cut hero by the end, just a little more cynical, slightly unlikeable (but in a lovable way) or snarky, but still a hero.
Another enjoyable and well presented video essay on pop culture. I can't recall which actor first pointed out that the villain they played never thought of themselves as a villain, they always believe they are doing the right thing, which is how they were convincing. A lot of the comic book villains and movie villains who are obviously the bad guy are the black hats because it makes it easier to have a bad guy to hate and know which side to cheer for. Even though it wasn't a stand alone movie about the villain, Apocalypse Now was an early example that gave a surprising insight into the viewpoint and motivation of Colonel Kurtz who was doing horrific things in a war, and yet the idea of what is too horrific in a horrific war is something a lot of movie goers hadn't considered before that movie. Thanos was just the Colonel Kurtz of the MCU. Maybe the villain origin movies are becoming popular because the industry has noticed that black hat villains are kind of boring and some of the movie watching public might be just a tad more sophisticated in the evil villain motivation they need. If you look at many recent movies like A Quiet Place or Tomorrow War, they have reverted to the antagonists being predatory creatures rather than intelligent antagonists, maybe because they don't need to justify the actions of the antagonist, so they have simple black hats to boo at and good guys to cheer for.
Thank you! 😊 And I agree with your theory - though it's sad to think the industry may be ready to give up on simple "black hat" baddies. I think they could be just as entertaining and memorable as well-fleshed out "empathetic" villain - and ironically enough, with the latter becoming a bit of an oversaturated trope, I think some unexplainable chaos could be refreshing. (I've also noticed they've relegated these to creature-type characters - though I personally don't think they're as scary or effective as villainous humans.)
@@ana-isabel Deadly and unstoppable creatures hit our lizard brain harder, they are more horror oriented, where villainous humans and well crafted psychological terror can hit all the buttons of terror and the disturbing lack of empathy. I suspect another aspect of this genre is that bad guys are more probably fun to write especially when they have "justifiable" motivation. Those stories likely appeal to all the thoughts of revenge for real or imagined slights that regular people experience in daily life. Kind of like road rage translated to movie villains. :-)
Great video as usual! 🙌 And I can't wait for the CGI Lion King Scar prequel. Where Disney just remake Scarface but with Lions. "You need lions like me so you can point your fucking paws and say, that's the bad guy." It writes itself! 😅🤑💰💰 It would be the perfect unholy trinity of Hollywood, it's a prequel, it's a remake of a already established franchise and it's about a villain!
Holy shit, someone should pitch this to movie execs - it's cashgrab perfection ❤️ Only thing missing is their nth "first gay character" whose easily omittable depending on their market, but gets those Buzzfeed pieces/Twitter threads rolling! 😍 (lol but real talk, this premise sounds hilarious and yet depressingly fits the ideal Hollywood moneymaker)
I must say, cartoon Harley fits you to a T as villain alter ego. Now you'll need a proper foam bat and confetti/glitter bomb and threaten to blow up the next con if they don't name a stage after you.
I’m mostly curious about your decision to flip your camera perspective on your cut-in out of costume edit shots. I noticed Olaf switching from the right side of the bed to the left, and then I noticed your beauty mark do the same. Why this creative choice in setting up your shots?
If you think about it, most mobster movies are villain origin stories. They succeed in having the protagonist's fall be more or less understandable, tragic yet not excused. Scarface, Goodfellas, Casino, The Godfather... all of them are films about people turning into villains, giving them different degrees of sympathy at the begining but always have them be a bad guy at the end. Conclusion: this type of story works, even if you don't root for the main character at the end
This stuff is so dangerous. My abusive father was harder to escape because people always said “you only get one Dad”, “he doesn’t MEEEAN it”, “he loves you 🥺” etc. No bitch, he might be charming and shit but it doesn’t make up for being a sadistic narcissist.
I think it is interesting to explore the human drama behind a villain's motivations, BUT i don't think they need a solo movie to do that. If the movie in which the villain is introduced doesn't do that, then they're not doing villains right.
Haha true! Like I mentioned, I feel like some of the best "tragic/sympathetic" villains already have their backstories/motives explored in whatever material they appear. With what we've got so far at this point, the "solo movies" almost feel like a way to primarily sell fanfiction of the original characters. Fun in parts, but they aren't really the same "villains" by the end of it all.
@@ana-isabel 100% agree. If they wanna do villain-starring movies, I personally think it'd be cooler to do sequel properties where you build off of the character development of the original, rather than prequel/origin stories that either disregard or replace that development entirely. As I'm typing this I realize I'm talking about Loki. More villain shows/movies should be Loki, thank you for coming to my TED Talk...
A bit of a flaw with this I see is Superheros are also usually odd balls so they aren't golden boys in their own stories, they are usually actually outsiders and weirdos. They are usually an underdog in their own story. They are not golden boys normally. Even Superman, arguably the golden boy of golden boy Superheros, is just a small town boy from Kansas who happens to be an alien. There is isolation in being an alien on several levels. From being a small town boy who moved to the big city to ACTUALLY being an alien. Superheros are Superheros because DESPITE having powers that could crush their enemies .... Or the world (rather gifted them or born with them or creating a "super suit") they choose to use them to help the disadvantaged and not advantage themselves. Like Joker takes revenge on what was done to him (in the Joker movie), but Batman tries to fight to prevent others from going through what he went through when his parents were murdered. Yes, he's rich but Bruce Wayne as a public persona is a persona. The real Bruce is isolated and alone and has issues connecting as a Man outside of being the Batman. Also, Protagonist doesn't mean "hero of the story". Like brilliant stories about villians have ALWAYS existed. I read a highly disturbing book in college about a serial killer where you kind feel for the protagonist at the end, but you are glad the cops get him in the end. He needed to go to jail. The value I can give to the Joker movie is he is a villian as a protagonist. The fact that some of the audience didn't get that is troublesome. Maleficent and Cruella are full rewrites and it kinda annoys me while watching the movie even while enjoying the performance. I don't mind origin stories for villians, I mind when origin stories rewrite the character to the point they are a different character from the original. Because then you are just slapping a known name over what is arguably an original story not an origin story and there is a difference.
Completely agreed, especially with using the name of well-known villains to sell a completely rewritten story. At that point I feel like they could easily succeed as standalone, original tales (and I particularly feel this way about Cruella) - but I guess the dollar signs attached to existing IP take priority, lol. Ultimately, what separates heroes from villains is exactly what you point out - that heroes do good *despite* their tragic backstories and villains do bad *because* of it. Maleficent and Cruella could very well have had intriguing origin stories where they do descend into villainy - but Disney (being Disney) took the safer route of turning them into the "outsider/weirdo" hero instead. Which was disappointing, but ah well - the latter was at least a ball of dumb fun. :3 I do agree that Joker, by the end of his movie, was still a villain despite being a protagonist (and that's how I interpreted it too) - though I can also see how the film's framing offers leeway for certain viewers to miss the mark. It's a bit worn-out to say, but Taxi Driver really did do it better haha.
Joker has had a sympathetic back story for a long time (all it takes is one bad day). Magneto has had one since before I was born. Psychologically speaking, (I think) humans need to demonize others to make it easier to combat opposing threats(?). There is, I believe, an old adage “every villain is a hero in their own story”. These depictions, in my opinion, are the most realistic depictions of villains, and I hope this trend continues.
Look no further than the biographies of 20th century industry magnates. Inspiring make-it-from-nothing stories of the winners in the economic power game.
For me, a proper villain origin story requires a spiral down. The Disney examples really avoid that downward spiral, if anything the villain being explored is ascending from something meek to a louder personality. Maybe their situations should keep making them compromise in a way that chips away at their virtue but seems to be for a good cause. It could be to help someone, could just be the desire to win. Or they were just always bad and give us the story of how they used it to obtain power. I feel like the approach they take is more of a heroes origin. If for example they were to make Gaston now a days a movie, he would probably start out the exact opposite of everything we've seen of him. He'd probably be frail, friendly, loves animals, and is not very popular and over the movie he just fills into what we know, but secretly, so he isn't a full villian he still keeps bunnies and feeds deer and hunts to preserve nature or something lame like that. If I made Gaston, I would make it that he was always good at the things we know him for. He was always big, tough, but maybe not quite popular and not known for being too bright. His story is the story of a hunt and Gaston must compete with others who are more renowned than he, he's just a good hunter in his village by reputation. We root for at first him because he is trying very hard and the other guys are jerks. But over the course of the movie you have Gaston make cruel and selfish choices because he wants to win and he wants everyone to know he's the best. By the end the other hunters have fallen or succumb to whatever they are hunting and Gaston through a bit of cruelty and leaving someone behind, has come back triumphant. His journey should demonstrated to him a lesson of cruel supremacy that he carries into his life. He's threatened by smart people in general because no amount of cruelty in the woods will make him smarter than someone else.
Joker already had a sympathetic back story in the Killing Joke which was done in the late 80's. the difference with Killing Joke and the Joaquin Phoenix movie is that The comic is not just about Jokers Backstory but a Philosophy battle, Joker thinks a single bad day is enough to break a person While Batman argues that there is still a choice to be made Joaquin Phoenix Movie is traditionally done as a prequel and origin, Just like in Killing Joke, Joker does commit terrible things but unlike in killing joke where they are obviously framed as Joker being in the wrong, in the movie it's more complicated some a framed in a way that makes you question if everything was all in his head or not. And Since Joker is a comic character where writers take a lot of liberties to write characters differently it was more natural to give Joker a different story this time With Maleficent and Cruella however, i felt it was unnecessary since 1. they were already solid characters and id even argue that they are the spines of their respected movies 2. Turning these characters who obviously done general bad things such as, cursing a child to their death, or skinning puppies for fashion into "girlboss icons" is never a good idea 3.Their names are "Maleficent" and "Cruella De Vil" the only backstory they need is their character concept designs
Bahahaha I couldn't agree more. Still feels strange how they picked Cruella and Maleficent, of all Disney villains, to craft a sympathetic/AU heroic story for; after all, their intentions in the original films seemed pretty simple and clear-cut, what more was there to flesh out? Still really liked Joker despite its flaws, but I agree the whole "sympathetic" approach was done better in Moore's version - especially with the added philosophical touch. Pretty curious how they'll further frame his character in the supposed sequel Phillips announced.
I honestly don't think Harley Quinn needs a story like this, because her introduction in the animated series already _is_ exactly this sort of sympathetic origin story. I think the direction they've been taking with giving her these completely unhinged wacko films is far more interesting for her character specifically.
Depending on the villain they already have a tragic backstory. Mr. Freeze for example is just trying to find a cure for his wife's illness. Other villains would be better off without sympathetic backstory Carnage for example bonded to a host that was a serial killer and together they have killed a lot of people. Kinda hard to say that it's the same character if all they do is hurt others.
I like Succession too but I do NOT sympathize with any of the Roy's and very much enjoy watching them flounder because they are just such terrible people. If the show ends with them all dying in a helicopter crash, I'll watch and say "Good, yes, great ending."
Bahahaha actually, wouldn't mind this ending 😂 or really any variation of them getting bit in the ass. I guess at the moment I still feel like there's hope for redemption for *some* of them, which leads me to strangely care despite their awfulness. Roman may be too far gone though lol.
I liked Maleficent because it took a character that was already was enormous fun to watch (seriously, the best part of Sleeping Beauty was a tie between Maleficent chewing the scenery, and the 3 fairies reenacting a magic fueled Buster Keaton sketch), and dropped her into what's almost a Wuxia plot. Yeah, she's objectively over powered, but watching the protagonist wade through the mooks is half the fun of that kind of movie 😁 Besides, I don't really get to see a female lead in that sort of story that often (particularly in the West), so I'm more than willing to overlook it's flaws for the rollicking good time it delivers 👍
I feel much the same about villain origin stories as I do about all origin stories: is this the most interesting part of their tale? Most of the time how someone comes to be who they are or gain their powers is actually one of the least interesting parts of the story -- what I like to see is the consequences. What do they DO with their situation? How does this stuff ripple out into the world? It's more interesting to see Spider-Man get worn down by his sense of duty and want to quit than it is to see the 40th version of him getting bitten by a spider (credit to the MCU version for skipping all this stuff). Something like Breaking Bad isn't really an "origin", since the whole point of the story is the slow transformation of Mr Rogers into Scarface, so the journey is just as much the destination. We're watching to see just how deep and dark the rabbithole is going to go. Even Better Call Saul, a prequel, isn't as much an origin story as it is a similar tale of descent. With something like Joker though, we already know his end-point, so anything that happens in the origin is just going to feel like it's trying to justify the behaviour of the most horrifyingly awful villain in the DC roster. And for me, The Joker doesn't need an origin. Even the Red Hood stuff I don't entirely accept as canon because it's far more interesting to think of him as someone unknowable, like how Ledger's version tells conflicting stories about how he got his scars. How he came to be that way isn't as interesting as the fact that he's true chaotic evil, and that's what he should bring to any story he's a part of. Which means, of course, the more you use him the less return you get on the investment. Someone like Mr Freeze is great, but his origin is really the only interesting story to tell with him. Two-Face can have a compelling origin but the most interesting element is how you apply his duality to other stories. I dunno, I felt like using Taxi Driver as a template for a Joker origin story was a really weird move since Travis Bickle is closer to someone like Rorschach. Actually quite liked Maleficent (the first one, the second one is awful), haven't seen Cruella yet. My vote for next Sympathetic Disney Villain Origin is John Smith/smallpox.
Walter White did not go from Mr. Rogers to Scarface. Walter White was a bitter, resentful man who was pissed that other people got rich off his ideas while he was stuck teaching high school chemistry. He was waiting for his chance to get revenge on the world, and when he was told he had cancer, he said, "if I'm going down, I'm taking the world with me." Morrie Schwartz was a real life professor who was told he was terminally ill. But he wasn't bitter or resentful. He spent the last year of his life meeting each week with a former student and telling him life lessons. So the question is, which path?
But it's not that i forget that they'll become villains, instead i completely separate these new takes as completely different characters. These are not Maleficient, Joker or Cruella, they're new characters that took stablished names. At least Maleficient was an ok movie, Joker is just misery porn and Cruella... I don't even want to watch that, it doesn't seem to have absolutely anything in common with the source outside of being about fashion and the shoehorned dalmatians.
Oh dude yeah - if you're ever gonna watch Cruella, expect an ENTIRELY different character. 😆 It's a fun little heist/fashion movie on its own, with random Dalmatians thrown in and a protagonist with coincidentally the same name as an iconic Disney villain. That's how I'm choosing to see it at least hahaha (I also think it's actually better than Maleficent, but that's just me :p).
Talking about villain protagonists, I'm suddenly reminded of Death Note. Not the same, since Light Yagami was a new character created for that story. But maybe that made things easier? Tsugumi Ohba had a story they wanted to tell, not to humanize an existing villain, but to show a relatively normal person's descent into villainy.
Ah yes, Death Note's an excellent example of a "villain"-led story that doesn't attempt to sugar coat his eventual sociopathic spiral. Something the US remake dropped the ball with lol.
Original Maleficent was also justified though, the King and Queen greedy for free gifts, invite every supernatural creature (fairies, spirits, and witches) in the kingdom, and only exclude Maleficent. So she shows up and gives an Old Testament type blessing/curse, make her beautiful, give her eternal youth, but keep her asleep until true love finds her.
Boardwalk Empire by HBO is an amazing mob show, where just about every character is a villain and/or criminal and/or morally bankrupt in some way. There's hardly anyone that gets through the show without a deep slash or gash in their character as a person.
I absolutely adore Boardwalk Empire, it's one of my all-time favorite shows 😭 and I agree with you, there's no real "moral" character in the show (at most, they're on varying levels of sympathetic) and yet they manage to still have you root for them to some degree. Also, Richard Harrow.🥺
@@ana-isabel Boardwalk Empire didn't have characters. All that actually happened in real life. Nucky Johnson was a real person. Fiction could never give us villains like reality. You want villains with no redemption arc? You want bad for bad's sake? Turn off Netflix, open a history book. If you dare. Edit: And history books don't have trigger warnings.
Wonder which Disney baddie will get their parents brutally killed off next. Also - be sure to be one of the first 1,000 to get a free 1-month trial of Skillshare Premium! 👉skl.sh/anaisabel07211 ✨
It works as long as they don't touch RL villains. Can only imagine what would happen if certain historical figures got the Maleficent treatment. (shudders)
@@adventuresinAI1982 Yikes, that's a big nope for me. 😬
Probably scar or jafar.._
As the ever wise Jake Peralta once said "cool motive, still murder." A tragic backstory doesn't get rid of the fact someone did something terrible.
Lmfao.
Sometimes I feel like these sympathies types of villains are almost manipulative, or rather, it’s how they are written that’s manipulative. It’s like people think that just because the villains has a sob story, it means that all of the terrible things they do are now justified, and I feel like the writers know that fans will do this with their favorite villains, so now even past villains always have to have a sob story in order to make us feel bad for them and ignore all of the terrible things they do.
Pretty soon, my head cannon for why some sympathetic villains tell their sob story to the hero is actually because in-universe the villain is actually just trying to manipulate the hero so the villain can escape punishment.
@@anotherrandomguy8871 kinda. Although there is a difference in guys like kratos or 2019 joker where they’re def justified at first (one instance just self defense) but as they become less caring and more violent the game/movie doesn’t want you to sympathize with them anymore. Meanwhile in wandavision it was great until they decided to not commit to Wanda straight up being the bad guy and accepting it, they bring in two bad guys that shouldn’t have or didn’t need to be there because for some reason we can’t let the main character be bad or completely in the wrong even tho it’s been done before
Agreed
I'm in agreement with you. Honestly I'm of the opinion that if Joker ever got a tragic back story and it stuck that he shouldn't be made redeemable for it. In fact, that's why I'd like him to get a tragic back story because he'd be perfect as a person whose been screwed over by the world to the point where he just doesn't give a dam if you feel sorry for him or not.
Can't wait to see the origin story of the hunter who shot Bambi's mom. Bet he was just a nice guy who had a very bad day...
His family was starving and they were vegetarians their whole life, but times got hard so he had to do it.
He was fired from his job because of COVID-19. His family was living out of his car and he owed a lot of money to a lot of people.
He needed a deer to sacrifice for a dark magic ritual to bring back his dead wife
Actually it’s been confirmed that Judge Doom from who framed Roger Rabbit was the hunter who shot Bambi’s mother so that would be a very dark rabbit hole to go down.
Starring Chris Pratt and Anya Taylor Joy
I can't wait to see a Gaston prequel explore how he hates smart women because his mother was killed by a bookshelf, or that Frollo and Hades have huge daddy issues!
Actually hoping Disney doubles down and gives us that Gaston origin story, would pay to watch that hilarity unfold 🙏
Hey, That bookshelf is set to be voiced by Helen Mirren!
I didn't watch Hercules, but Hades was eaten by his father in Greek mythology so I would say there might be some daddy issues, who knows. In mythology he was actually good guy and only god who could keep it in his pants (most of the time).
I also would like to see a film where a child eats four dozen eggs every morning to get large.
Or that Claude Frollo was a nice prodigious and pious kid who got brainwashed into extremist Puritanism :(
Joker did have the greatest villain of them all: society.
Now society is going to need its own origin story and eventual redemption arc.
My issue with most villain origin stories is that they're simply not villain origin stories. They're just alternate Bizarro universes where they're not villains at all. It's fine if writers want to explore "what if X wasn't a bad guy?" (and they've done so successfully before with for example Agent Venom), but don't frame it as a "villain origin story" when you're not gonna make them a villain in the end.
I'd argue that Joker is the only actual villain origin story out of these since we do get to see him commit horrific and despicable acts with no way of going back, while in for example Cruella, the worst thing she does is some vandalism against 1 specific person who murdered her adoptive mum. I don't see how you go from wanting revenge for your mum to wanting puppy genocide so you can make a new coat. Cruella was more like the prequel to an origin story since we saw nothing hinting towards her going down a dark path, it mostly just explained how she got the name and why she's so rich.
LOL agreed - she was really only Cruella by name. Other than that she's a completely different character as a far as I'm concerned, and nowhere close to the villainous maniac of the classic animation - or even Glenn Close's portrayals.
Totally hit the mark with most writer's intentions; seems like most of them (as with Cruella and Maleficent) are more interested in crafting fanfiction, rather than actual origin stories of these villains. (Which - as you note, isn't inherently bad... but their marketing often misleads us to think otherwise.)
I think you just accidentally justified Disney making a sequel for Cruela
I had no problem with Maleficent being the main character, or even if she was turned heroic (though I wonder why she was still named Maleficent). What I didn't like is that they took the three fairies and turned them into useless comic reliefs that bordered on child abuse.
Precisely, that was my biggest gripe too! Instead Maleficent spends more time raising Aurora than the fairies do, and SHE'S the reason that they're in hiding in the first place!
@@trinaq I just didn't like the change- the fairies are kind of rare beast in fantasy. Three middle age women who like to drink tea and eat cookies, but kind of useless in housework, can direct the future of kingdoms and fights the mistress of evil with magic? Like, I honestly thought they were the main characters in the movie.
And can you imagine a Maleficent where it's her, the mistress of evil vs badass fairies ?
@@katherinealvarez9216 I am so mad we didn't get that Face-Off😑💀
Imo, doing anything to "rehabilitate" or "explain" the Joker fundamentally misunderstands what makes the character so good. Heath Ledger's performance perfectly captures the essence of the Joker: perfect chaos, without rhyme or reason, but plenty of laughter.
Spot on with Heath - I couldn't agree more.
Phoenix‘s joker still works in the overall joker mythos tho._.
With jokers famous line in the killing joke.
"Something like that happened to me, you know. I.._ I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes i remember it one way, sometimes another._. If I'm going to have a past, i prefer it to be multiple choice "
Think one of the interesting things with Joker is how many interpretations work with him. From Hamills silly but menacing crime boss, Ledgers almost Faustian force of evil, to New 52s madman weaponizing the mystery surrounding him. I think Joker works better without much backstory but compared to all the other origins, I think this one has a better story compared to mobster splashed with chemicals or struggling comedian stealing from the company he works for being splashed in chemicals.
@@Psychedelicgothicpink yes, and I dislike all of them. See my original comment.
@@cdubsb3831 I agree that little to no back story is best for the character. Thus why Ledger's portrayal is, imo, the best version (with Hamill's a close second solely due to Hamill's sheer talent)
I liked Joker as a standalone film. That said I can't really connect it to other versions of the character. Seems like it's own thing.
Same. I don't really interpret it as an origin story, because the Batman's Joker is a nihilistic force of chaos, whereas Phoenix's a bit of a revolutionary/misanthropic one. I always interpreted the new Joker more as a disguised testament to mentally ill's people struggle in society than an origin story in itself (just like The Arrival is as more about the perception language brings us than people trying to translate aliens' languages imo).
I always think of Joker as a sort of proto Joker. Like He’s not THE Joker. Otherwise this mans Batman’s been beating up a geriatric old man all this time.
It literally is its own thing, the Joker's real name is Jack Napier, not Arthur Fleck
@@amazingspiderlad That's only in the 1989 Tim Burton Film (Which I grew up with and love), but there are so many versions of the character with potentially different origins.
I feel like Birds of Prey was Harley's sympathetic "origin story."
It shows her growing out of the abusive hell that Joker put her through, and ends with her saving a girl's life along with all her friends and allies.
I really hope to see more of that version of Harley, but I don't think going BACK in time with her is a good idea.
I've got good news for you! The animated series is exactly this, but MUCH better! Can't wait for the third season, it's my favourite DC project by a country mile.
Same here, I thought Birds of Prey was fun! :D I should've clarified though - I meant an origin story movie that follows her as a sympathetic Harleen Quinzel, way before she met the Joker and descended into "madness" (which, to be clear, I don't think would be a great idea either hahaha).
@@ana-isabel To be fair, in the Batman the Animated Series where she was debuted, her origin story is pretty sympathetic, and the comics have done really good stuff with it (especially the one named "Harleen"), so that's one of the few I'd actually really enjoy.
@@ana-isabel I don't know I think a movie that focuses on Harleen vs the Joker in their therapy sessions, having it play out like a fight where they are both trying to get one over on the other, and have the movie focus around that and I would watch it quite a lot. Think Clarice talking to Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.
@@camerontrompf5602 oooh, would love to see that but nervous they could easily screw up the messaging.
The new Loki show also does an amazing job at humanizing a villain, albeit one that already started a redemption arc. There’s also an AMAZING musical called “twisted” that tells Aladdin from Jafar’s perspective, and in it there’s a musical number where some other Disney villains give a quick rundown of their stories from their perspective; it’s great.
18:45 -- Let's be real, PETA would equate making a joke about killing dogs to actual murder.
LMFAO truuue
I think my issue with these sorts of narratives is that they are less “here, let me offer you additional context on why this character is a delightfully evil character” and more “here is a revisionist history where the villain never was the villain, actually.”
I’ve always loved OG Maleficent as a character because she’s just unapologetically evil. She appears at a party and curses a newborn out of spite. Then she toys with a prince because why not. As a young girl, I always felt chills and intrigue when she announced “and now you shall face me, oh prince, and all the powers of hell!” before turning into a dragon that stuck in my nightmares for weeks.
Fastforward to L-A Maleficent: she’s a sweet pure soul who was wronged by an power-hungry jerk, all right, but I mean, her death curse wasn’t even a death curse in the iconic “revenge scene.” It went from “she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die” to “she will fall into a death-like sleep.” I mean….what? Where is that evil woman I always enjoyed because she was so strong and commanding in her actions?
They don’t even have her transform into her iconic dragon form. Why? Because we have to keep making Maleficent into a good person, don’t worry, there is no evil here. Except….her being evil was what made her fun…
Additionally, as you and others have mentioned, to make sure Maleficent is framed as the hero, others have to be rewritten to be more evil or incompetent or both. New Stefan hates fairies, so why did he entrust his daughters to three incompetent fairies other than to give Maleficent more time to play hero and caretaker for Aurora. Why were the three fairies robbed of their moment of softening the death curse to a sleep curse? Because we have to make Maleficent “good.” It’s all so frustrating and not enjoyable to me. I feel like I read weak fan fiction than a villain origin story.
I’m sure these kinds of narratives vibe with some people, but they definitely aren’t for me. Thanks for the great video!!
I think I wouldn’t have had such an issue with this take on Maleficent if they didn’t make so many changes in order to make it clear that Maleficent ISN’T evil.
Don’t have the sweet angel child be named Maleficent at the beginning of the movie-have her embrace that name after she takes on the powers of hell to exact revenge on Stefan. Have her curse Aurora to death, and have the weaker fairies soften the curse because they cannot break the magic Maleficent has embraced.
Let the three fairies still care for Aurora properly. Then, as Aurora grows up, she encounters Maleficent in the forest. Maleficent has cursed Aurora, but her beef was with Stefan-cursing this child hasn’t brought her the satisfaction of revenge she’s been hoping for. And now, she’s spending more time with Aurora and regaining the compassion she used to have. However, her path for revenge has also left her neglecting the Moors /transforming it to match her anger.
Maybe have more of a journey where she’s grappling with how she’s hurt people-the three caretaker fairies in particular-other than the one who harmed her while still appreciating her new identity. Just things that I still wonder about years after seeing the movie
I think the "Incel extremist threat" surrounding Joker was exaggerated. Not only were there no actual shootings at theatres showing Joker, there weren't even significant threats.
The idea was spread mostly by fear-mongering media sources likely due to the fact that disillusioned men tend to view the Joker as an empowering symbol. It was pretty irresponsible, in my opinion.
They actually wanted something to happen, it was blatant provocation to prove a point.
Yes it was just manufactured outrage by "journalists" who hadn't even seen the film. Media "journalism", especially online, is a joke
Why can't a villain just be evil for the sake of it? It seems that every single one of them need to have a tragic backstory to explain away their more nefarious deeds!
Not sure their backstory explains away their bad acts ... the difference between a hero and a villain is that the hero rises up over the adversities thrown at them, while the villain is swept along with them and chooses to take the easier low path. You don't have to provide the backstory (Heath Ledger's Joker just shows up completely formed to great effect), but in real life no one is bad in their own story ... they all feel justified, even the sociopaths. The conflict is the good guy vs the bad guy, and you need to describe the motivations for the conflict or it's just not that interesting.
i dont even care if they have a reason, but at least let them be bad, it worked in joker, but cruella just doesn't look like the puppy killer she would become in the future
@@Hapsard I disagree. I don't think you need to have explicit motivations for many villains for the conflict to be interesting- especially when the motivations are poorly written. A lot of times mystery can add to the fear and menace of a villain.
I say "explicit motivation" because usually there is the inferred motivation that the villain is selfish and is willing to make other people collateral damage to get what they want- power, money, to satisfy their base passions.
I feel like this is one thing these types of films ignore- you can be raised without any major trauma and still give into selfish desires and become evil.
Turn on the news and you’ll get what you want.
because it's more realistic this way. Very rare are people born evil or evil for the sake of evil. There's a motive or a backstory and villains that are always just evil get bland and boring over time. It also teaches us that not everything is black and white and that maybe some real-life villains can be redeemed or how to prevent someone from becoming a villain. Its not really good to go through childhood thinking that some people are just born bad.
Forum posters watching villain movie: "OMG that's TOTALLY me!!"
Movie: "They are a bad guy"
Forum posters: "omg what no pls 😥"
Prequel: "Don't worry there is a good reason why they're bad"
Forum posters: "Ye it's totally me 😎"
I think X-Men First Class does a good job at being a villain origin story. We all know what’s going to happen with Erik but by the end it’s a little painful to watch him finally become magneto
Yes agreed! :D proof it can be done well, and defs one of my favourite villain origin stories too.
I'm a simple man. I like hot takes, straight facts, and Ana Isabel videos.
It seems pointless to make a villain origin story where you can’t see them as their future self by the end. It’s not like it hasn’t been done properly in many properties, like you pointed out.
Like you said, it’s for the money.
Disney: Oh yeah? So we can't have Wicked? Just wait and see
One of my favorite Villain Protagonist stories is Cousin Bette by de Balzac.
Bette is an ugly, unhappy spinster living in the charity of relatives, whom she loathes. When the man she loves is taken away from her by her young niece, she plots her vengeance by destroying the family with scandal. Bette was abused as a child, while her cousin was pampered, but that still doesn't stop Bette from being monstrous. She takes out her pain in destructive, negative ways by destroying her relatives after the last straw broke the camel's back.
tbf, we do have the harley quinn animated show for a sympathetic harley quinn portrayal... and it's great.
It's SO good! Third season soon!
Harley has always been portrayed as sympathetic though. Even in her first appearances we get to learn how she fell in love with the Joker and how he used her as a tool in his villainous schemes. They showed how she's stuck in an abusive one-way relationship, but the Joker manipulates her to stay even after he tried to murder her.
@@leetri True, I guess. I guess, what I meant is, that she is also a main character in it.
I LOVE this show much.
Every villain doesn't need a tragic backstory; sometimes people are just assholes.
Adding background info and motivations for pop-culture villains wrecks their ‘edge’ and overall malevolent mystique.
I agree that they’re reduced to mini-boss status when there is a bigger bad in the story lore
I thought Harley Quinn's origin story was always sympathetic?
I think Magneto was also written for a long time to be sympathetic? What the nazis and racists (mutantists?) did to him and everyone he loves, well, a valid reason for his actions but doesn't mean its the right actions, thus a villain. But splitting hairs, the overall point of the video is taken. Ty
The problem is: Joker is still a villain and evil as a whole. The other two no. My opinion anyways.
He definitely is, I just felt the framing (in his 2019 film) could've been better :)
I thoroughly disagree. He is not evil. Don't get me wrong, he's definitely not a hero, but he's a utterly broken person who feels unseen. He is very much mentally ill and abused in several ways and starts out trying his best to get what help there is. His spiral starts when he gets beat up and then fired. Then he's assaulted, has his only teather to some sort of a social safety net taken away. Then his relationship with his mother is destroyed when her lies and/delusions are revealed. On top of that he realises that he has imagined the only relationship in his life that seemed healthy. Then he discover that he gets seen and applauded for his killing of his assaulters. Something that is arguably self defence gone to far. That's literally the only affirmation he gets that's not in his head.
I'm not condoning his actions, but I think a society that threats its most vulnerable like that is the actual evil in the film, and in real life, and the Joker in this context is more of a symptom. As is the riots around him.
@@thehorriblebright IMHO exactly what you describe is kind of problematic, on the terms of how mental illness is framed. I think it sanitizes the reality and makes people think that only people like him (such as mass shooters) are victims of an unfair society and deserve praise and impunity instead of being fairly judged. And at the same time, that the vast majority of people with untreated mental illnesses (due to an unjust society) either have the potential to turn into a heinous villain or are "not really suffering that much because reality is not that unfair to them", when they don't go to such extremes.
@@roj4169 Well that's the sort of thinking that put people in imaginary categories like "good" and "evil". That's bullshit to the end of time. What I'm saying is that a society that treats people like trash should expect dumpster fires on their own frontstep. No one's relived of responsibility for their actions unless they are too mentally ill to be held to that responsibility, which the joker is at the very verge of being in this film even at the start. The attitude of Thomas Wayne is the real evil to me. People like him are why there are violent uprisings and riots. I can very much empathise with Arthur Fleck myself. I've had mental health issues my entire adult life and it's only thanks to the Swedish social safety net and being born into relative privilege that I'm not living on the street or dead. I'm not saying what Fleck does is right in any way, but if you push a vulnerable person enough something will break and if you don't construct your society to adress that, you're going to have bad surprises.
@@ana-isabel Yup. It's all in the framing. Also I do think the 2019 flick was exploiting the ignorance of huge swaths of young men to not recognize Taxi Driver/The King of Comedy, particularly how both of those clear inspirations for Joker were framed as cautionary tales.
To be fair, this all goes back to Milton's Paradise Lost. Even as far back as the 1600s, people love a good villain backstory
No mention of Milton's Paradise Lost, which virtually invented this idea.
Also worthy of attention would be Grendel by John Gardener...
I think that audiences nowadays cannot suspend disbelief anymore to accept overall good characters. This trend of elevating villains coincides with with a pattern of bringing down heroes---particularly Batman, whose actual superpower was that he by instinct always did the right thing; for a couple decades now it has been taken as a given that nobody with his resources in his job could be unremittingly benevolent---he must have a paranoid dark side. Actually from that franchise the best example of a villain being turned into a popular protagonist is Harley Quinn, who is on the cover of (it feels like) every DC comic. So now people will accept that a puppy-skinner might have some sort of backstory that somehow explains if not forgives, you know, puppy-skinning.
Yeah I'm really not a fan of the "new" gravel eating psycho Batman you see all over. Batman TAS had the perfect Batman and showed his depth better than most others. He could be harsh when needed, but also knew when to show compassion and could stop villains by just listening to them.
I don't think that people not being able to accept good characters is true. I think the majority just don't want boring, one-note protagonists anymore. Hell, most people don't want boring OneNote antagonists anymore either.
And in the case of the three characters being discussed in the video, people liked them as villains because they were villains with flair and personality. And Disney just wanted to capitalize on it and play it safe. I think if maleficent and cruella were not Disney products, we could have gotten a much more interesting movie.
Actually never noticed the parallel of this trend to that of "darker heroes" in recent times - interesting. I do think there's a growing demand for more "morally grey" characters since it seems to commonly be equated with them having "more development" or "substance". I think this is true in plenty of cases and makes for a ton of intrigue (i.e. Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, etc.) but it's a fine balance to strike, and can easily send out a strange or confused message if not pulled off properly.
I also definitely agree Maleficent and Cruella could've gotten better movies if not for being "Disney" products; I think their stories would've particularly fared better if they actually embraced evil, rather than turned into inspiring "heroes", by the end of their films. (I mean, the whole point of Cruella's character *is* the whole puppy-skinning bit 😅)
i like insatiable, it keeps making us simpatize with the main character at the same time said character does progressivelly more evil acts every time, it feels like a villain origin story of a great villain
Omg I love insatiable! She’s such an evil character but I also relate to a lot of her struggles. That’s a great example!
Harley already kinda has a sympathetic back story.
She did from the start. It's literally always been an important part of her story that she's stuck in an abusive and manipulative relationship with the Joker, and it's her love and dedication to him that sent her down the path from being a successful doctor to being a mentally unstable supervillain
I think certain bad and evil characters do work better with a back story, while others are better of being evil for evil sake - depending on the movie and story they serve.
Like with the Marvel series. I couldn't imagine the Infinity Saga working as well if they didn't make Thanos' motivation understandable instead of just destruction hungry. Nor could I see myself having loved Homecoming as much if the Vulture wasn't a sympathetic downtrodden dad worthy of saving. Yet, flip side, Hela was delightfully just power hungry, the bad guy in Ironman 1 a money hungry prick and they worked all the better for it.
These classic Disney movies work a lot better for me when the villain is just evil, an obstacle to rise to over come and not something needing depth and contemplation. Disclaimer, I haven't seen any of the Disney Villain origins - they just don't have appeal to me.
With the Joker, I had the same feeling. After Heath Ledger's incredible performance with his own unreliable origin story...the idea of giving that character a fixed past ran the risk of making arguable the best comic book adapted movie a bit hollow. However, I was intrigued enough to go see Joker, and I think the way they did it worked: a clearly different Joker in a different time, in a different take of the DC Batman 'verse helped dissociate any notion of this being the same Joker as Ledger, or Hamil, Nicholson or ... *shudder* miss guided Leto versions.
I never found myself rooting for Phoenix' Joker, more just understanding how he got to where he ended and feeling less "shocked" and appalled by his actions because of his origins.
I throw the Disney Villain origins in a similar pile as the unnecessary prequel - explaining the things that went better unsaid. Though, maybe I should give them a go - I am weary after being burnt by Star Wars Solo (ok, I didn't expect greatness after the other movies, but the origin parts of Solo were so cringe worthy as to now being all but deleted from my memory as to avoid harming Han in the original movies)
Movie discussion aside, this channel continues to amaze me with how much someone can transform their look through make-up. It's genuinely impressive.
You hit the nail on the head for why these types of movies make me roll my eyes. To make a great villain that is typically depicted as simply relishing in the fun of being evil sympathetic, you basically have to change everything about who they are as a character, separate them from their classic protagonist counterparts, and replace them with lame new villains for them to clash with.
Reframing the Bad Guy...
"I'm not 'Bad'...I was 'Damaged By Life'."
Great video, the intro had some nice editing. Seemed a little slicker than usual. I do have to wonder if one of these villain origin stories could work without people feeling sympathetic to the character. Personally would love to see an origin story of Lex Luther. Not necessarily any Lex we've seen much like Joker. What I love in the comics is that any universe that doesn't have Superman, Lex Luther is actually a really good person and humanitarian. But the mere existence of Superman offends him to his core and therefore makes him evil. So you could definitely make him a sympathetic character.
Hm, interesting! I admit I don't know much about Lex or the Superman lore, but he'd make a pretty intriguing protagonist if that's the case.
(And thanks - the intro was my favourite bit to edit! :p)
It's interesting to see Hollywood delve into these villain backstories. I think it'd be interesting to see the MCU take on a Magneto backstory film. If you want a truly tragic story of society failing leading directly to their villainous deeds, he's a poster boy. To watch the horrors of the Holocaust first hand and then see it happening all over again with Mutants in "present day" (whenever that is) I don't think I've ever been quite so sympathetic to a villain before. I think there's a lot more nuance there than Joker's "society cast me out so I'm going to kill rich people now" which I think is kind of missing the mark a bit, and draws an unfair equivalence between trauma, mental health and violence which can be damaging to people looking for help.
Perfectly put - especially the bit on unfairly equating mental health and trauma to violence. I also definitely agree with Magneto, though I think Marvel's already portrayed this pretty well with the new era of X-Men films (starring Fassbender?). Still, I think his own, solo origin movie would be well worth the watch if done well.
Honestly at this point, if there's new x-men movies, I wanna actually see the x-men doing superhero stuff instead of more of Professor X and Magneto's past
@@amazingspiderlad Yea I hear you there. I would love like a 90s comics aesthetic superhero team just going out doing flashy X-men stuff all bright and actiony. That'd be dope.
@@Clare_Standin honestly I would love it if they combined things from the old and new comics. Have vibes of the 80s-90s comics, and have the x-men actually doing superhero stuff, but also include more recent stuff like Iceman being gay and tell a story that isn't just repeating the dark phoenix saga for a third time. Maybe even the Krakoa storyline.
"so why are they becoming defense attorneys for {definition of a hero}" because they lack selfawareness to understand that by making heros bland they stoped being heros.
heros can only be proactive. but they only tell villains as being proactive.
Both Joker and Cruella could have been standalone movies.
Cruella's name could have been just changed, but no, Disney can't invent a new character -.- That's a huge risk, it's way too much.
Joker could have been an "alternate version" or something. Call it a "variant" even though it's DC not Marvel but you get what I mean. But the internet's infatuation with Joker couldn't allow such thing
Yeah, that's what I'm confused about too - Cruella could've easily been a completely different character. The direction and acting was fine - it's biggest problem was being tied to an incredibly iconic, well-established Disney villain. Yet the only thing she has in common was the name, lol. God forbid they don't recycle existing IP though - how are they ever gonna sell tickets otherwise? /ₛₐᵣ𝒸ₐₛₘ
There’s actually an official DC name for AU stories starring DC characters. It’s called “Elseworlds”. You might as well call the Joker movie as an “Elseworld” story.
the thing I just can't move past in these kinds of films is that so many of them push that "mental illness equals villainy" trope that I just hate, it bothers me more than the cash grab aspect of them tbh.
anyway, succession is great from the first second of the intro up until the credits and more people should watch it.
In addition to "trauma makes you evil" and/or "trauma justifies being a shit person".
YEP, THIS. 👆 Overused as it is, I don't mind the whole "trauma leading to villainy" trope as long as they don't use it to actually justify their shitty behaviour. It's annoying and sends a terrible message. Also definitely not hot on the whole "villainizing mental illness" trope either. :/
That aside, yes - Succession is fantastic.
The joker movie was almost great but it never really made its mind up what it was trying to say.
One minute he was a social outsider slowly being driven to madness and the next minute the film would try to make his actions seem understandable and rational instead of just the result of mental deterioration.
Then it would switch to suggesting that none of the story happened anyway and the joker as the narrator was just making it all up. I understand that was sort of the whole point of it but it just felt very unsatisfying to come away from the film having not really learnt anything. Perhaps the joke was on the audience for watching it.
LOL, that last bit. Funny enough I actually hadn't come across the theory that the narrator had been "making it all up" at the end - that's interesting! But yeah, I did feel the messaging was a bit confused. I personally would've preferred the first angle - a simple story of Arthur Fleck gradually losing his sanity sans all the blatant sob story bits. Chronicle (2012) is a film that comes to mind that achieves this pretty well, imo.
For the record, if you know anything about DC comics related media, you know the Joker Phoenix played doesn't HAVE to be THE ONE TRUE JOKER.
Also he's literally just a different guy, the Joker was never called Arthur Fleck before this
Aristotle explains this perspective of humanity. No matter who we are we feel what ever we do we do it for the "good" as we ourselves see it. Even something as simple as making youtube videos can be analyzed for its faults all the while the creator can explain their reasons for doing so in a positive light. In these movies we are reminded of our own nature and perspective. "Surely we arent the bad guy, we have our reasons for X" We love the validation to be just who we think we are.
Cruella was the first movie I saw in theaters in a couple of years actually (the last one being Ant-Man and the Wasp in 2018) so for getting back to watching movies in theaters, it felt like a nice reintroduction. I thought it was a fun watch, and as far as the Disney live action reboots have gone... Well, Cruella has easily been my favorite.
Haha same here! I guess I've been so burnt out (and continuously appalled) by all the other Disney remakes that this one was a pleasant surprise imo. It helped having two fantastic actresses leading it, along with a pretty good director. Just not sure how they're gonna explain the Pongo and Perdita bit lmao
Great insights Ana! I always appreciate how you cite psychology and science to make your points, keep up the great work : )
I know diddly about Elden Ring, but this essay had the exact effect I get from a great article about a band or book or a historic event: you get an appreciation of the depth of something, and even if you delve no further into the subject, you can be grateful that "there are good things, too. And aren't they worth" sharing?
Thank you.
I honestly think Cruella should've actually killed the dalmatians. (obviously I don't condone this irl just for the plot) It appears as this "twist" and just ends up being a lie, however, it would make the boys going back to this horrible dynamic even less believable. The boys deserved better imo.
Title feels misleading with the inclusion of Joker. Authur Flecks deeds are never portrayed as heroic. His film is literally a descent into his madness, not some underdog story like Maleficent or Cruella.
The big redeeming factor for Joker though (on the part of the writers, not the character) is that the ending leaves us all questioning the validity of the whole film. It is to say: we shouldn't just blindly empathize with anybody who tells us a sad story that tugs at our heartstrings. I compare it with "I am a Killer," on Netflix where they interview people on death row for murder. There's a whole lineup of people who brutally murdered their victims, but we are first presented with their side of the story. And as the evidence trickles in more and more, we are left with making our own choice about whether or not the individual deserves a chance at redemption.
If you're interested, Moore's origin story for the Joker recently got a LOT less sympathetic.
How?
@@Quirderph Look up."the three jokers." The story implies Jack mat have not been a loving husband.
@@speedbumpchump6388 do you feel it was because the writer felt he had to spell out that the Joker is a bad guy to the audience of today who has to be spoon fed everything? Not even necessarily the audience but the "journalists" who love to manufacture outrage like they did with the Joker movie.
I appreciate having this whole villain re-framing unpacked. As someone writing a morally-grey "good intentions but you took it WAY too far" antagonist for my novel, I am getting really tired of this lens put on the villains because the nuance between those two angles seems so lost on studios lately. (And unfortunately on some audiences too.) And it's making me leery about even proceeding with publishing using my original drafts. Ughhhh
Ah yes, it's a careful balance - but achievable! Some of the best comic book/superhero movie villains have achieved this; Killmonger, Thanos, and Magneto to name a few. I think what their material did well was ultimately condemn their extreme "solutions" while acknowledging that their sentiments have merit. After winning audiences over in their own movies, not sure how the "Joker" and "Cruella" sequels are gonna flesh out their eventual life of crime (though I have a feeling they may just nuke the latter's altogether).
@@ana-isabel Entirely agreed! Actually Killmonger is an example that came to mind for me when describing that line of still maintaining that the villain is ultimately in the wrong even if they have admirable goals. I just feel like the villain redemption is being so over done WITHOUT the nuance that I'm worried it's almost seen as a trope in a negative way. Like, around the time Harry Potter was being written, loads of other children's or YA novels were using very black and white morality with villains. And then shortly after a large amount of studios and authors overcorrected and overused the gray morality without nuance.
Huh....I wonder if you could prove any causation as to the timeframe of the reverse and overcorrection
Nox from season 1 of Wakfu. I really wonder why I didn't see this mentioned earlier in the comments, but he has one of the best done backstories for a villain in recent times. "If I succeed, no one will care because it will all begin again. If I fail, I don't care if the world survives or not."
Aaaay new video!
Think the alternate universe or "elseworlds" take on these villains is a great way to sum up these interpretations.
Grew up with the traditional 2-dimensional versions of these characters so it was a lot of fun to see what new writers could do with them after years of the same characterizations.
Also really enjoyed the new Loki series if you've had a chance to check it out for another re-framed villain story!
Keep up the amazing work once again Ana!!
Ahhh thank you!! :D I've actually just finished the new Loki series, and while it took a while to get going (imo) I'm pretty intrigued for the next season after seeing the finale. I've always thought Loki to be an interesting dimensional villain in the MCU, and I'm glad this series gives us a chance to further explore his character and all the strange stories they can play around with. (Hope to see more absurd concepts like croc-Loki hahaha)
If the inevitable Sympathetic Ursula movie isn't just a John Waters film, I don't want it.
Haven’t watched Cruella yet so I shall drop this comment and come back in a month when it’s on Disney Plus without the 30 bucks. Much love. Deuces
So thesis statement: Maleficent/Cruella are shallow but harmless fun. Joker is deeper and better executed but potentially dangerous.
I believe they both have a place in the world of art, but I will say the impact movies like the Joker can have terrifies me infinitely more than predictable, safe popcorn fluff like Maleficent and Cruella.
Sadly you can't cure being 14. You can only age out of it. Some never do.
Another day saved by another video
I actually really like the Maleficent movies. I thought Angelina gave an amazing performance and saw the stealing of her wings as a metaphor for sexual assault and it made me incredibly emotional the first time I saw it. Yeah it's not as edgy and dark as the others but I do think they did a good job with her keeping her villainous confidence and attitude even with the sympathetic backstory. I enjoy the concept of villain backstorys because in real life pretty much no one is just born inherently evil. And I think what made them the way they were in the original movies is a really interesting and entertaining concept.
I love your videos!! 😊
Ahh thank you! ❤
I think having the dalmatian puppies be siblings actually explains a lot. 100 offspring isn't exactly something you'd expect from a healthy genetic pairing of any dog.
2:50 if you want to see a mostly sympathetic Harley origin, read the comic Harleen by Stjepan Sejic. If an origin movie is ever made, that will be the template.
I like to see it as more of a step away from the Hero/Villain/Victim trichotomy. Okay, she's a Princess in exile, does that mean she's the victim of her Nephew, and has to find a Prince to legitimize her re-taking the throne, or does she go out there, buy some armor (She wasn't thrown out alone, and penniless) and raise an army to go take it back herself like a Queen? (Mathilde, and Queen Margaret of Anjou are but 2 Historical examples.) These roles aren't mutually exclusive. A Victim can grow up to be a Heroine of some, and Villainess of others. I believe that we're finally starting to write more complex characters.
I would also point 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula as precursor for this simpathetic villain protagonist subgenre of movies
Ana Isabel proves women in cosplay can shapeshift
Todd Phillips actually said at the TIFF screening of Joker that there is a point in the film when you SHOULD get off the support train for Arthur Fleck (aka Joker). Even the director and Joaquin Phoenix agree that the Joker is a bad person you shouldn't sympathize with. And the fact that this great psychological drama has become some people's alt right manifesto just frustrates me to no end.
At first blurring the line between hero and villain was fun and cool now it’s boring and everything at this point is a deconstruction so I mean really if you wrote a traditional comic story THAT would be the real deconstruction
Saw a comment mentioning how this is a result of shows like Breaking Bad or the Sopranos, but the thing is, while those shows feature villainous characters as heroes at times, they don’t shy away from having them doing some really horrific stuff, reminding you that they’re still villains. Walter White will be fighting someone worse or more threatening, but he won’t draw the line on poisoning a kid to get what he wants to defeat him. Yes, he was mocked and ridiculed, but it’s never shown as an excuse for what he does afterwards, he’s still Satan by the end. The problem I keep seeing with those types of films, is that the villain is a straight up clean cut hero by the end, just a little more cynical, slightly unlikeable (but in a lovable way) or snarky, but still a hero.
New Video Hype!
The intro to this one was really good!
Another enjoyable and well presented video essay on pop culture. I can't recall which actor first pointed out that the villain they played never thought of themselves as a villain, they always believe they are doing the right thing, which is how they were convincing. A lot of the comic book villains and movie villains who are obviously the bad guy are the black hats because it makes it easier to have a bad guy to hate and know which side to cheer for. Even though it wasn't a stand alone movie about the villain, Apocalypse Now was an early example that gave a surprising insight into the viewpoint and motivation of Colonel Kurtz who was doing horrific things in a war, and yet the idea of what is too horrific in a horrific war is something a lot of movie goers hadn't considered before that movie. Thanos was just the Colonel Kurtz of the MCU.
Maybe the villain origin movies are becoming popular because the industry has noticed that black hat villains are kind of boring and some of the movie watching public might be just a tad more sophisticated in the evil villain motivation they need. If you look at many recent movies like A Quiet Place or Tomorrow War, they have reverted to the antagonists being predatory creatures rather than intelligent antagonists, maybe because they don't need to justify the actions of the antagonist, so they have simple black hats to boo at and good guys to cheer for.
Thank you! 😊 And I agree with your theory - though it's sad to think the industry may be ready to give up on simple "black hat" baddies. I think they could be just as entertaining and memorable as well-fleshed out "empathetic" villain - and ironically enough, with the latter becoming a bit of an oversaturated trope, I think some unexplainable chaos could be refreshing. (I've also noticed they've relegated these to creature-type characters - though I personally don't think they're as scary or effective as villainous humans.)
@@ana-isabel Deadly and unstoppable creatures hit our lizard brain harder, they are more horror oriented, where villainous humans and well crafted psychological terror can hit all the buttons of terror and the disturbing lack of empathy. I suspect another aspect of this genre is that bad guys are more probably fun to write especially when they have "justifiable" motivation. Those stories likely appeal to all the thoughts of revenge for real or imagined slights that regular people experience in daily life. Kind of like road rage translated to movie villains. :-)
Great video as usual! 🙌 And I can't wait for the CGI Lion King Scar prequel. Where Disney just remake Scarface but with Lions. "You need lions like me so you can point your fucking paws and say, that's the bad guy." It writes itself! 😅🤑💰💰 It would be the perfect unholy trinity of Hollywood, it's a prequel, it's a remake of a already established franchise and it's about a villain!
Holy shit, someone should pitch this to movie execs - it's cashgrab perfection ❤️ Only thing missing is their nth "first gay character" whose easily omittable depending on their market, but gets those Buzzfeed pieces/Twitter threads rolling! 😍
(lol but real talk, this premise sounds hilarious and yet depressingly fits the ideal Hollywood moneymaker)
I must say, cartoon Harley fits you to a T as villain alter ego. Now you'll need a proper foam bat and confetti/glitter bomb and threaten to blow up the next con if they don't name a stage after you.
I’m mostly curious about your decision to flip your camera perspective on your cut-in out of costume edit shots. I noticed Olaf switching from the right side of the bed to the left, and then I noticed your beauty mark do the same. Why this creative choice in setting up your shots?
If you think about it, most mobster movies are villain origin stories. They succeed in having the protagonist's fall be more or less understandable, tragic yet not excused. Scarface, Goodfellas, Casino, The Godfather... all of them are films about people turning into villains, giving them different degrees of sympathy at the begining but always have them be a bad guy at the end.
Conclusion: this type of story works, even if you don't root for the main character at the end
Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas would be terrifying people even if they weren't real.
Idk about movies but Starkid's youtube musical Twisted is a fantastic take on Alladdin's Jafar as as a protagonist.
This stuff is so dangerous. My abusive father was harder to escape because people always said “you only get one Dad”, “he doesn’t MEEEAN it”, “he loves you 🥺” etc. No bitch, he might be charming and shit but it doesn’t make up for being a sadistic narcissist.
You know the poem paradise lost? Guess what year that was made.
I think it is interesting to explore the human drama behind a villain's motivations, BUT i don't think they need a solo movie to do that. If the movie in which the villain is introduced doesn't do that, then they're not doing villains right.
Haha true! Like I mentioned, I feel like some of the best "tragic/sympathetic" villains already have their backstories/motives explored in whatever material they appear. With what we've got so far at this point, the "solo movies" almost feel like a way to primarily sell fanfiction of the original characters. Fun in parts, but they aren't really the same "villains" by the end of it all.
@@ana-isabel 100% agree. If they wanna do villain-starring movies, I personally think it'd be cooler to do sequel properties where you build off of the character development of the original, rather than prequel/origin stories that either disregard or replace that development entirely. As I'm typing this I realize I'm talking about Loki. More villain shows/movies should be Loki, thank you for coming to my TED Talk...
A bit of a flaw with this I see is Superheros are also usually odd balls so they aren't golden boys in their own stories, they are usually actually outsiders and weirdos. They are usually an underdog in their own story. They are not golden boys normally. Even Superman, arguably the golden boy of golden boy Superheros, is just a small town boy from Kansas who happens to be an alien. There is isolation in being an alien on several levels. From being a small town boy who moved to the big city to ACTUALLY being an alien. Superheros are Superheros because DESPITE having powers that could crush their enemies .... Or the world (rather gifted them or born with them or creating a "super suit") they choose to use them to help the disadvantaged and not advantage themselves. Like Joker takes revenge on what was done to him (in the Joker movie), but Batman tries to fight to prevent others from going through what he went through when his parents were murdered. Yes, he's rich but Bruce Wayne as a public persona is a persona. The real Bruce is isolated and alone and has issues connecting as a Man outside of being the Batman.
Also, Protagonist doesn't mean "hero of the story". Like brilliant stories about villians have ALWAYS existed. I read a highly disturbing book in college about a serial killer where you kind feel for the protagonist at the end, but you are glad the cops get him in the end. He needed to go to jail. The value I can give to the Joker movie is he is a villian as a protagonist. The fact that some of the audience didn't get that is troublesome. Maleficent and Cruella are full rewrites and it kinda annoys me while watching the movie even while enjoying the performance.
I don't mind origin stories for villians, I mind when origin stories rewrite the character to the point they are a different character from the original. Because then you are just slapping a known name over what is arguably an original story not an origin story and there is a difference.
Completely agreed, especially with using the name of well-known villains to sell a completely rewritten story. At that point I feel like they could easily succeed as standalone, original tales (and I particularly feel this way about Cruella) - but I guess the dollar signs attached to existing IP take priority, lol.
Ultimately, what separates heroes from villains is exactly what you point out - that heroes do good *despite* their tragic backstories and villains do bad *because* of it. Maleficent and Cruella could very well have had intriguing origin stories where they do descend into villainy - but Disney (being Disney) took the safer route of turning them into the "outsider/weirdo" hero instead. Which was disappointing, but ah well - the latter was at least a ball of dumb fun. :3
I do agree that Joker, by the end of his movie, was still a villain despite being a protagonist (and that's how I interpreted it too) - though I can also see how the film's framing offers leeway for certain viewers to miss the mark. It's a bit worn-out to say, but Taxi Driver really did do it better haha.
Joker has had a sympathetic back story for a long time (all it takes is one bad day). Magneto has had one since before I was born. Psychologically speaking, (I think) humans need to demonize others to make it easier to combat opposing threats(?). There is, I believe, an old adage “every villain is a hero in their own story”. These depictions, in my opinion, are the most realistic depictions of villains, and I hope this trend continues.
one word : Silco
Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles origin story. Do it. DO IT.
Look no further than the biographies of 20th century industry magnates. Inspiring make-it-from-nothing stories of the winners in the economic power game.
For me, a proper villain origin story requires a spiral down. The Disney examples really avoid that downward spiral, if anything the villain being explored is ascending from something meek to a louder personality. Maybe their situations should keep making them compromise in a way that chips away at their virtue but seems to be for a good cause. It could be to help someone, could just be the desire to win. Or they were just always bad and give us the story of how they used it to obtain power. I feel like the approach they take is more of a heroes origin.
If for example they were to make Gaston now a days a movie, he would probably start out the exact opposite of everything we've seen of him. He'd probably be frail, friendly, loves animals, and is not very popular and over the movie he just fills into what we know, but secretly, so he isn't a full villian he still keeps bunnies and feeds deer and hunts to preserve nature or something lame like that.
If I made Gaston, I would make it that he was always good at the things we know him for. He was always big, tough, but maybe not quite popular and not known for being too bright. His story is the story of a hunt and Gaston must compete with others who are more renowned than he, he's just a good hunter in his village by reputation. We root for at first him because he is trying very hard and the other guys are jerks. But over the course of the movie you have Gaston make cruel and selfish choices because he wants to win and he wants everyone to know he's the best. By the end the other hunters have fallen or succumb to whatever they are hunting and Gaston through a bit of cruelty and leaving someone behind, has come back triumphant. His journey should demonstrated to him a lesson of cruel supremacy that he carries into his life. He's threatened by smart people in general because no amount of cruelty in the woods will make him smarter than someone else.
Imagine giving a sympathetic backstory to Frieza from dragon Ball that'll be interesting to see.
I think Harley’s back story is already fairly sympathetic.
Joker already had a sympathetic back story in the Killing Joke which was done in the late 80's. the difference with Killing Joke and the Joaquin Phoenix movie is that The comic is not just about Jokers Backstory but a Philosophy battle, Joker thinks a single bad day is enough to break a person While Batman argues that there is still a choice to be made
Joaquin Phoenix Movie is traditionally done as a prequel and origin, Just like in Killing Joke, Joker does commit terrible things but unlike in killing joke where they are obviously framed as Joker being in the wrong, in the movie it's more complicated some a framed in a way that makes you question if everything was all in his head or not.
And Since Joker is a comic character where writers take a lot of liberties to write characters differently it was more natural to give Joker a different story this time
With Maleficent and Cruella however, i felt it was unnecessary since 1. they were already solid characters and id even argue that they are the spines of their respected movies 2. Turning these characters who obviously done general bad things such as, cursing a child to their death, or skinning puppies for fashion into "girlboss icons" is never a good idea
3.Their names are "Maleficent" and "Cruella De Vil" the only backstory they need is their character concept designs
Bahahaha I couldn't agree more. Still feels strange how they picked Cruella and Maleficent, of all Disney villains, to craft a sympathetic/AU heroic story for; after all, their intentions in the original films seemed pretty simple and clear-cut, what more was there to flesh out?
Still really liked Joker despite its flaws, but I agree the whole "sympathetic" approach was done better in Moore's version - especially with the added philosophical touch. Pretty curious how they'll further frame his character in the supposed sequel Phillips announced.
I honestly don't think Harley Quinn needs a story like this, because her introduction in the animated series already _is_ exactly this sort of sympathetic origin story.
I think the direction they've been taking with giving her these completely unhinged wacko films is far more interesting for her character specifically.
Depending on the villain they already have a tragic backstory. Mr. Freeze for example is just trying to find a cure for his wife's illness. Other villains would be better off without sympathetic backstory Carnage for example bonded to a host that was a serial killer and together they have killed a lot of people. Kinda hard to say that it's the same character if all they do is hurt others.
I like Succession too but I do NOT sympathize with any of the Roy's and very much enjoy watching them flounder because they are just such terrible people. If the show ends with them all dying in a helicopter crash, I'll watch and say "Good, yes, great ending."
Bahahaha actually, wouldn't mind this ending 😂 or really any variation of them getting bit in the ass. I guess at the moment I still feel like there's hope for redemption for *some* of them, which leads me to strangely care despite their awfulness. Roman may be too far gone though lol.
It all began with the musical “Wicked”
I liked Maleficent because it took a character that was already was enormous fun to watch (seriously, the best part of Sleeping Beauty was a tie between Maleficent chewing the scenery, and the 3 fairies reenacting a magic fueled Buster Keaton sketch), and dropped her into what's almost a Wuxia plot.
Yeah, she's objectively over powered, but watching the protagonist wade through the mooks is half the fun of that kind of movie 😁
Besides, I don't really get to see a female lead in that sort of story that often (particularly in the West), so I'm more than willing to overlook it's flaws for the rollicking good time it delivers 👍
I feel much the same about villain origin stories as I do about all origin stories: is this the most interesting part of their tale?
Most of the time how someone comes to be who they are or gain their powers is actually one of the least interesting parts of the story -- what I like to see is the consequences. What do they DO with their situation? How does this stuff ripple out into the world? It's more interesting to see Spider-Man get worn down by his sense of duty and want to quit than it is to see the 40th version of him getting bitten by a spider (credit to the MCU version for skipping all this stuff).
Something like Breaking Bad isn't really an "origin", since the whole point of the story is the slow transformation of Mr Rogers into Scarface, so the journey is just as much the destination. We're watching to see just how deep and dark the rabbithole is going to go. Even Better Call Saul, a prequel, isn't as much an origin story as it is a similar tale of descent.
With something like Joker though, we already know his end-point, so anything that happens in the origin is just going to feel like it's trying to justify the behaviour of the most horrifyingly awful villain in the DC roster. And for me, The Joker doesn't need an origin. Even the Red Hood stuff I don't entirely accept as canon because it's far more interesting to think of him as someone unknowable, like how Ledger's version tells conflicting stories about how he got his scars. How he came to be that way isn't as interesting as the fact that he's true chaotic evil, and that's what he should bring to any story he's a part of. Which means, of course, the more you use him the less return you get on the investment.
Someone like Mr Freeze is great, but his origin is really the only interesting story to tell with him. Two-Face can have a compelling origin but the most interesting element is how you apply his duality to other stories.
I dunno, I felt like using Taxi Driver as a template for a Joker origin story was a really weird move since Travis Bickle is closer to someone like Rorschach.
Actually quite liked Maleficent (the first one, the second one is awful), haven't seen Cruella yet.
My vote for next Sympathetic Disney Villain Origin is John Smith/smallpox.
Walter White did not go from Mr. Rogers to Scarface. Walter White was a bitter, resentful man who was pissed that other people got rich off his ideas while he was stuck teaching high school chemistry. He was waiting for his chance to get revenge on the world, and when he was told he had cancer, he said, "if I'm going down, I'm taking the world with me."
Morrie Schwartz was a real life professor who was told he was terminally ill. But he wasn't bitter or resentful. He spent the last year of his life meeting each week with a former student and telling him life lessons.
So the question is, which path?
But it's not that i forget that they'll become villains, instead i completely separate these new takes as completely different characters. These are not Maleficient, Joker or Cruella, they're new characters that took stablished names.
At least Maleficient was an ok movie, Joker is just misery porn and Cruella... I don't even want to watch that, it doesn't seem to have absolutely anything in common with the source outside of being about fashion and the shoehorned dalmatians.
Oh dude yeah - if you're ever gonna watch Cruella, expect an ENTIRELY different character. 😆 It's a fun little heist/fashion movie on its own, with random Dalmatians thrown in and a protagonist with coincidentally the same name as an iconic Disney villain. That's how I'm choosing to see it at least hahaha (I also think it's actually better than Maleficent, but that's just me :p).
Is there truly a right and wrong anyway?
Talking about villain protagonists, I'm suddenly reminded of Death Note. Not the same, since Light Yagami was a new character created for that story. But maybe that made things easier? Tsugumi Ohba had a story they wanted to tell, not to humanize an existing villain, but to show a relatively normal person's descent into villainy.
Ah yes, Death Note's an excellent example of a "villain"-led story that doesn't attempt to sugar coat his eventual sociopathic spiral. Something the US remake dropped the ball with lol.
@@ana-isabel Interestingly, the films you talk about in the video are also American. I wonder if there is a connection?
Honestly, I’ll root for Angelina no matter what she’s doing in a movie so I’m just glad that the movie was good.
also the cruella 2021 movie is literally
anti-activist propaganda, I just thought I'd mention that since it's clearly above your paygrade
Original Maleficent was also justified though, the King and Queen greedy for free gifts, invite every supernatural creature (fairies, spirits, and witches) in the kingdom, and only exclude Maleficent. So she shows up and gives an Old Testament type blessing/curse, make her beautiful, give her eternal youth, but keep her asleep until true love finds her.
Boardwalk Empire by HBO is an amazing mob show, where just about every character is a villain and/or criminal and/or morally bankrupt in some way. There's hardly anyone that gets through the show without a deep slash or gash in their character as a person.
I absolutely adore Boardwalk Empire, it's one of my all-time favorite shows 😭 and I agree with you, there's no real "moral" character in the show (at most, they're on varying levels of sympathetic) and yet they manage to still have you root for them to some degree.
Also, Richard Harrow.🥺
@@ana-isabel Richard is one of my favorites too! He and Nucky are always my top 2 on-screen.
@@ana-isabel Boardwalk Empire didn't have characters. All that actually happened in real life. Nucky Johnson was a real person. Fiction could never give us villains like reality. You want villains with no redemption arc? You want bad for bad's sake? Turn off Netflix, open a history book. If you dare.
Edit: And history books don't have trigger warnings.