Out Takes

23 Aug 2016

Villains: pure evil or just misunderstood?

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Villains: pure evil or just misunderstood?

The Hollywood Reporter called DC’s Suicide Squad a ‘confused undertaking’. Vanity Fair called it ‘ugly and boring’. The critics agree: Warner Brothers’ foray into DC’s vault of villains is a mess. But pundits have tipped the film to haul 140 million dollars over its opening weekend, in America alone. Clearly audiences are revelling in Suicide Squad’s feast of villainy – even if it is milquetoast.

The critical failure of Suicide Squad raises an important question about what makes a villain so bad that they’re good. For a long time in Hollywood, and still today, film makers relied on a venerated formula, which involved inverting social and moral standards and vesting those standards in a marginal, or queer, character: think Disney’s Ursula, or even former incarnations of DC’s Joker. These are villains whose queerness defines their villainy.

This week on OUT TAKES, we unpack the queer coding of some of Hollywood’s most successful queer villains, and look at why queerness has for so long been tantamount to villainy. From Hitchcock notoriety like Mrs Danvers and Norman Bates to Disney royalty like Scar and Cruella de Vil, we take a look at (and revel in the villainy of) some of Hollywood’s queerest villains.

Essential viewing: Rebecca (1940)

Hungry for more: The Little Mermaid (1989)