Who’s afraid of Cruella de Vil? New stories are humanising female villains of old

+Print Archive
In print
After Hours

Who’s afraid of Cruella de Vil? New stories are humanising female villains of old

Cruella

Disney’s latest live-action films are providing origin stories for female villains of old, extending them a degree of sympathy, discarding the usual focus on the “good” princess, writes Michelle Smith of Monash University

Instead of consigning the female villain to a simplistic caricature of evil, films such as Maleficent offer nuanced depictions Disney’s new live-