#but seriously guys do NOT give your money to Disney rn. theyre funding genocide.

[proximasc0rner]

(So. I'm going to preface this by saying I'm a Gen Z queer kid who doesn't know what it was like to be LGBTQ in the earlier days of our fight for equality, and I don't know what it was like to have the ONLY queer representation onscreen be queer-coded villains. This post is not to be taken too seriously. It was just a silly thought that popped into my head, so I wanted to share a lighthearted rant about it. Please don't murder me okay thanks)

Sometimes life gives you lemons, and sometimes it hits you with the Disney Villains hyperfixation. Again.

This post isn't going to be about how much I am a fUCKING SIMP because I do NOT have the balls to talk about the shit that runs through my head when I'm just casually in love with fictional Bad People™️

Instead, it's just about me diving through various rabbit holes and learning about the queer community's complicated relationship with Disney Villains. I learned what the Hays Code was, and how it was the origin of the queer-coded villain trope. Good guys weren't allowed to be gay. And even though the Hays Code eventually just kinda died for the most part, the trope stuck around.

But even though the trope was designed to frame queer people as untrustworthy, perverse, and strange, a lot of LGBTQ folks really, REALLY love these diabolical characters, myself included-- although I wasn't around when the queer community first "claimed" the villains as our own, so to speak. I actually watched a really interesting video essay on the subject that I'll link to below! A lot of it boiled down to a sense of relatability to these characters-- these villains want to take charge of their lives, and are more often than not outcasts in some respects. So, really, it becomes easy to see the appeal of these extremely self-confident and unapologetically different characters.

But again. Queer-coded villains come with a lot of historical baggage. Thus, when the live-action remakes started coming out, the villains lost most of the queer-coding they had.

But that gave them the new problem. They are FUCKING BORING. LOOK I HAD TO SAY IT. These bitches do NOT have much personality to them. I'd give an example of a Disney live-action remake villain to prove this point, but uh I'm. Kinda boycotting Disney right now, and these movies. I cannot remember these movies enough to tell you anything about them.

BUT ANYWAY. I realized that kind of leaves queer audiences between a rock and a hard place: either have a queer-coded villain whose trope was literally made to villainize queer people, orrrr have a villain whose personality is so bland that you might as well replace them with a sapient cup of tap water and still have the same impact.

And thus, I propose a solution to this dilemma!

Yes, queer-code the villains (DONT LEAVE YET IM GETTING SOMEWHERE). Make them just as delightfully overdramatic as villains like Maleficent or Jafar. Give them that limp wrist. GIVE THOSE MALE VILLAINS PERFECT EYELINER.

But if you're going to queer-code the villain? Then queer-code the hero, too. Show that queerness is not intrinsically tied to morality of any kind, it's just a part of who some people are. Make those heroes flamboyant. Give them that drag queen gait. If you're feeling froggy, lesbian-code the hero's mom or something! Make her be older and unmarried and give her that deeper voice and then show how fucking awesome of a mother she is to the hero. Walt Disney would be rolling in his grave (or cryogenic pod depending on who you ask /j), and I think that would be truly beautiful.

So. Yeah. That about covers it. Okay everyone go home and drink water. :)

EDIT: HAHAHAHA I DEFINITELY DIDNT FORGET ABOUT THE LINK TO THE VIDEO OR ANYTHING

#but seriously guys do NOT give your money to Disney rn. theyre funding genocide. #disney #disney villains #queer #lgbtq+ #lgbtq #lgbtqia #queer coding #walt disney #villain #Youtube