Pictured above: Actress Emma Stone speaking at the 2012 WonderCon in Anaheim, California. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
By Nina Larbi ’22
Op-Ed Editor
Set to release in May 2021, Disney’s “Cruella,” based around the “101 Dalmations” antagonist Cruella de Vil, is the company’s newest addition to its series of live-action movies. The trailer promises a dark backstory for the classic villain, with actress Emma Stone’s voiceover declaring, “I am woman, hear me roar.”
“Cruella” appears to mark a shift in Disney’s live-action remake series, choosing to play up the titular character’s villainy rather than painting her as misunderstood like “Maleficent” did. Despite this, the film follows in the footsteps of the company’s other remakes. Rather than engaging with the original material and creating a story that aptly represents marginalized groups without relying on sexist tropes, Disney cloaks the story in a “girl boss” narrative with a few pithy statements to make it more socially conscious.
Disney’s track record on minority representation and gender roles has slightly improved since the early 2000s thanks to the release of animated films such as “Brave,” “Moana” and “Raya and the Last Dragon.” There continue to be concerns, such as the hiring of primarily East Asian actors rather than South Asian actors for “Raya,” which takes place in the Philippines, but overall, it is better than the era of “Pocahontas” and “Aladdin.”
Disney’s earlier forays into diverse narratives felt more like an exotic change of scenery rather than an actual attempt at representation. Now, though, audiences are holding them to higher standards and demanding representation at all steps of the production process, because in the end, Disney isn’t doing minorities a favor — they’re creating a product for profit.
The recent live-action movies are a different case, though. Most are direct remakes of the original animated classics, with the exception of “Cruella” and “Maleficent,” which focus on the antagonists of said classics. The problem Disney seems to encounter when producing a live-action remake is that the source material has sexism, racism and other prejudices so baked into the story that they have to take steps to mitigate it. But rather than creating a product that reworks the story, they lampshade or outright mention the problematic aspect instead. Alternatively, they repackage the protagonist as an empowered woman, despite most Disney princesses never having arcs of their own — many of them only existed originally to affirm the importance of virtue and chastity to young girls.
To be fair, most Disney classics are based on highly moralistic fairy tales from centuries ago that seek to do that exact thing: teach young girls to be virtuous and adhere to gender roles. However, these stories were written centuries ago and desperately need to be revised for modern young audiences. The way to do that is not by adding an ironic remark about how women shouldn’t be able to read, like in the 2016 Disney remake of “Beauty and the Beast.”
The way Disney has been rewriting their female protagonists is indicative of a wider trend within film, which is a move away from white male protagonists toward white women. Coming-of-age stories now feature white girls as the main characters, such as in Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” and Olivia Wilde’s “Booksmart.” Meanwhile, charismatic corporate types like Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street” are swapped out for the white lady capitalist complete with platinum blond hair and red lipstick. “Cruella” fits into this latter category.
The term “girl boss” is a joke at this point, reserved for vitamin-peddling multi-level marketing schemes and ill-conceived Netflix shows. However, its spirit, a superficially feminist, often capitalist, woman, is becoming a staple in Disney remakes.
Cruella de Vil is now a “psycho girl boss” for skinning puppies, and Belle is “empowered” because she reads books and makes overt comments about the fact that she is a hostage. Yet, this is superficial and does nothing to challenge the sexist core of many of these stories.
Ultimately, I would like to see Disney work meaningfully to better represent marginalized people. They should write stories that don’t have misogynistic, heterosexist ideals of love and gender roles at their core. These remakes are nothing but a cursory revision of older, insensitive works in an attempt to gain social currency all while profiting from their well-cultivated Disney brand nostalgia.