If you’re like me, you watched a lot of Disney movies growing up. While watching the movies, I always dreamed about becoming a princess and living in one of their beautiful castles. But now, as a legal adult (I still feel like a kid sometimes), I have realized that it’s not the princesses and the heroes that I relate to – it’s actually the villains! I know it sounds weird, but the villains are much more relatable than you’d think.
Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove
As kids, we saw Yzma as Kuzco’s evil advisor who tried to murder him so that she could become the empress, but instead of killing him, she turned him into a llama. But let’s be real, Kuzco was a horrible boss. I mean, he was selfish, ungrateful and practically abused his staff. While Kuzco was out partying and celebrating himself, Yzma was left to do all the work. My friend Dani described her as the “equivalent of doing a group project and being the only one who does the work,” and I couldn’t agree more! I know that we’ve all been there, the only difference is that Yzma took her level of frustration to a bit of an extreme.
Mother Gothel from Tangled
Okay so yes, Mother Gothel kidnapped Rapunzel and imprisoned her up in a tower for 18 years, which is totally not cool. But when you really think about it, her reasons were a tiny bit valid. I’m not saying that it’s okay to go around kidnapping people because clearly, it’s not, but we all know how great it is to finally find a skincare routine that works for us and once we find it, we never want to let it go. Yes, kidnapping and imprisonment is a bit of an elaborate way to go to get a good skincare routine, but sometimes you do what you have to do (don’t kidnap anyone though, that’s not cool).
Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians
Cruella I can’t justify as much because she wanted to murder puppies, and we don’t stand for that at all. But she was just trying to get the perfect outfit, and haven’t we all done that before? Obviously, none of us would take it to such extreme lengths, since killing puppies is a very drastic measure just to get that perfect #ootd.
Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty
Let’s start off by saying that cursing a newborn baby (or really anyone) isn’t the nicest thing to do. I think we can all agree on that. But I think that some of us can probably relate to the hurt Maleficent felt after not being invited to Aurora’s christening. I mean, they were having a big party and invited everyone but her, and that has to hurt. They could’ve at least come up with an excuse as to why she wasn’t invited or kept the party a bit more on the down-low. Maleficent has every right to be annoyed about it but she probably shouldn’t have put a curse on Aurora because of it.
Hades from Hercules
So what if he’s the Greek God who rules over the underworld and wanted to destroy Hercules and Zeus so that he could rule Mount Olympus? He had his reasons. Have you ever been that single friend who just watches everyone around you be all happy and in love? Well, Hades is basically an extreme version of that. He’s stuck ruling the underworld (a job that he didn’t even ask for) while all the other gods and goddesses are all together– all happy and loved up– to celebrate the birth of Hercules! Not to mention, when he showed up at the party, Zeus made a joke about him ruling the underworld and they all laughed at him! Totally rude and embarrassing! Imagine if you were forced to go to the Underworld all alone while everyone else was having a good time up on Mt. Olympus, you’d probably want to take it over too! I don’t blame him for wanting to get back at them a little bit, but he did take it to a bit of an extreme.
So yes, these villains took things a bit far, but deep down, they’re just like us. They’re just people (plus a fairy and a God) who want a better boss, clear skin, good clothes, an invite to a party and to feel less alone. But just a little reminder (which I hope you don’t really need), just because you want these things, doesn’t mean that you can go around kidnapping, cursing and killing people!