The De-Slayification of Disney Villains
/Disney’s next upcoming musical Wish is already receiving backlash online. Some promotional material is beginning to come out and the response has been lukewarm at best. Questionable animation aside, a couple songs from the new soundtrack have been released and audiences are not impressed. Animated musicals are Disney’s bread and butter, but they might have dropped the ball on this one. The new villain number, “This is the Thanks I Get”, has seen the most of this hate, and it just might be deserved.
Disney villain songs have a long history of being standout songs on their tracks. Not every antagonist in Disney gets their own dedicated song, but when they do there’s typically a sense of drama and style that punctuates them. From “Poor Unfortunate Souls” to “Friends on the Other Side”, Disney often gives its villains some of the strongest songs in their movies.
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Take my personal favourite, “Hellfire” from Hunchback of Notre Dame. The passion, the visuals, the melody; it all comes together to create a sequence with so much edge. Minister Frollo comes across as skin-crawlingly creepy as he laments on his own lustful feelings for Esmeralda, accuses her of seducing him with witchcraft, and then declares that God would want Esmeralda to be his wife. It’s a chilling representation of religious corruption and bigotry. Also, The music itself is so hard-hitting. There are dips and crescendos and choirs singing in Latin. Here is a Disney villain number that is just dripping with style.
Juxtapose this with “This is the Thanks I Get” and the disappointment is immediate. Many people blame this song on Lin Manuel Miranda’s influence on Disney, and while I absolutely see his style creeping in, I don’t think that’s at the heart of this issue. “This is the Thanks I Get” is bright and punchy. It’s lighthearted and meant to portray a villain who is still acting as the nice guy, but the song just has no teeth. There’s no flair. I don’t see the passion, so it just feels flat. “Mother Knows Best” from Tangled also features a villain playing the role of a good guy, and it still manages a dark gritty tone that makes Mother Gothel appear to be a formidable antagonist. “This is the Thanks I Get” is downright forgettable.
I wanted to know whether this was an ongoing problem with modern Disney or if Wish just missed the mark, so I looked into what songs Disney has been giving to its villains lately. Interestingly, “Mother Knows Best” seems to be the last true villain song we’d gotten before this. The movies in between Tangled and Wish either weren’t musicals, or they didn’t have clear-cut villains, instead focusing on more complex interpersonal conflict. The only exception is Frozen, which does reveal Hans as a primary villain, but he does not get a song in that movie. So, it’s hard to say whether this has been coming for a while or Disney is having an off day. Maybe the studio is just out of practice when it comes to villain numbers.
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I, however, believe that the problem stems from Disney’s new approach to antagonists. I do like how the studio stepped away from clear-cut antagonists with movies like Encanto, but when they do include villains, they tend to be a little lackluster. We used to have the imposing figure of Maleficent and the impeccable fashion choices of Cruella de Ville. Now we get Luca’s Ercole Visconti, whose design could be swapped with any male background character to little effect. Maybe it’s because Disney has moved away from queer coding its villains, maybe it’s because Disney wants to send a message about subtle evils, but whatever it is, villains are just boring now.
So maybe its no surprise that this corporate blandness has bled into the music as well. I think this is what happens when a studio becomes over-reliant on playing it safe. Disney hasn’t been taking a lot of risks lately and there’s definitely more focus on following trends. Even Wish’s terrible animation stems from their attempts to jump on the 3D-that-looks-like-2D trend. Old Disney villains were bold. They stood out and even stole the show a little bit. Now Disney cares about making everything as digestible as possible for movie goers. Now, Disney villain songs are skippable tracks where the antagonist whines for three minutes, and it might stay that way forever.
Jack is an aspiring writer in Algonquin’s Professional Writing program. He resides in Ottawa, Ontario despite absolutely despising the cold. His main interests are movies, food, and politics. He hopes to give you some insight into the world of film scores and soundtracks.
