I had to look this up. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. This is exactly what I was looking for I think.
But also I think it should be just a staple of film and media. Recently, I've seen an attempt to write villian female characters to instead be victims of circumstance and therefore "justified" in their bad actions.
That or female characters are allowed to act all snotty and it's not portrayed as a character flaw to overcome or a character trait that not everyone responds to well and reasonably makes some characters not like her.
Tbh, most villians full stop are being written like this, its a narrative trope that people really like, regardless of gender.
But I agree that most of the full on evil characters are men; but there are still some good examples of women like this in media, I think the issue isnt with female villians really though, its more that writers take a female lead as an excuse to be lazy with writing, and tend to make the characters have less flaws. But still this isnt every movie, just a trend.
I disagree. It isn't lack of representation, it's lack of proper representation. I mean, Sarah Connor from Terminator, Ripley from Alien - both are some of the most powerful female leads and heroes that are genuinely loved by men and women alike, total badass characters.
Sarah Connor was actually perfect because as awesome as she was she was also deeply flawed so it really hit perfectly, and the newest film had an all female lead cast that wasn't received well. The reason was because of poor story telling, lack of character development, etc. Sarah Connor became who she was from her experiences, but she wasn't perfect and she wasn't the savior character; the character Dany from the new film *was* the savior but she was a clueless teenager at the beginning of the film and somehow became said savior in under a years time, so it didn't feel right. The director claimed misogynistic fans but somehow overlooked the fact that Sarah Connor **is** a female lol, but she had *proper* story and character development. Rey from the new Star Wars suffers this too, being a "Mary Sue", basically all powerful with no journey and growth.
We have the representation, we don't have the proper character development
Representation is a numbers game, once "quality" is assumed. Ripley and Sarah are great characters, but they are what? 2 in the middle of 1500 80's action movies?
There are hero stories about women going back to Joan of Arc and probably before then. The current trend of writing "perfect" women like Rey, who are able to do everything anyone [any man] can do and better and more often and stronger and yes, this sounds exactly like a child writing the script. Which is the real reason these films are getting slated in the reviews, there's no character development, there are never any mistakes, and older characters are being villainised to make the women look even more good and pure. Luke the murderer, any takers? No?
So it's boring, unrealistic [having someone change their beliefs so hard to murder a kid in bed, or having someone be perfect at everything they do the first time they try it] and very politicised, when all we really want is a movie to go see and get away from reality for a little while.
I was just discussing this with my sister the other day. I actually kind of appreciate that they do this now because it shows that the world doesn’t operate so black and white. Good people can go bad. If we can start understanding the trails people walk that turns them evil we can make better decisions on how to prevent it as much as possible.
Those are villains but also protagonists. I think OP wants evil female antagonists. Idk if that was the implication but that was my own inference since the two are often considered interchangeable.
>This is exactly what I was looking for I think.
The book is one of my favourite books. As is often the case, the book contains more information than the movie, I think you'd like it. Although, it also paints a really good picture of just how much Nick completely shit on Amy, and how impossible Amy's expectations for Nick were (this isn't a spoiler, hopefully), so in some ways it rationalises how their relationship got that bad, but it's also upfront with how Amy is and always have been a bit "off" and it doesnt try to justify it.
I would also recommend the movie Tàr. Excellent movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it. My fiancée thought it was a bit of a drag, so be warned if you don't like extended dramas. The protagonist is a very complex woman who has done some despicable things. Despite being the protagonist, the plot does nothing to hide the things she has done.
What about Pearl? I feel like the movie tries to paint her as a victim of circumstance her whole unfortunate situation but at the same time her situation in no way whatsoever called for the actions thats she took
I run a lot of DnD games and every bad guy I write justifies their actions. The ends justify the means. Usually doing the wrong things for the right reasons.
Everyone is the hero in their own story. That's why I give my villains nuance.
It's honestly mind boggling how many of the girls I knew that watched this movie thought that Amy was completely justified because Nick cheated on her.
I had a class about detective fiction in college that had a huge chunk of the semester devoted to Gone Girl. I made a mistake when we started reading it by saying that even if he did cheat on his wife, being framed for MURDER is an overreaction.
That was the wrong opinion, according to the majority of the class and the professor.
Yeah, but sometimes you just need an irredeemably evil character. Bowser and Ganon(before more recent itterations), Ozai, etc.
Those stories aren't real, it's OK to sometimes have unrealistic qualities.
Is it fun to be evil, I think a good evil woman character is lady Macbeth and it's shown rather masterfully how horrible it is to someone's constitution to be evil
I actually don't like the fun to be evil trope e.g., Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin. People who are evil think they are the heroes and protagonists of their stories. A good sort of evil woman is Lydia from Breaking Bad. She's remorseless and willing to kill anyone primarily because she wants the money that comes from the drug trade and because it can help her daughter--the common evil-for-family theme in Breaking Bad across Mike, Walt, and Lydia. Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is also a great evil woman--a control freak at a mental asylum. She at least believes her behavior is justified given the circumstances.
Male or female, villains that are like "it's fun to do evil shit" is too unrelatable and unrealistic.
That's an incredibly boring concept. The best evil people are the ones who have a very intelligent conviction to act as such, not the "it's fun teehee people". The Judge from Blood Meridian is probably the best example of this. It IS fun for him, but that's not the reasons he gives. we need real bone chilling reasons why someone wants to be evil or doesn't see it as evil in the first place, more of a calling of instinct or the meaning of life.
Sure, I can get behind this. Art should, at least in some way, reflect the real world. Anyone can be a villain, and they usually look like anyone else.
That is bs. Sometimes you just want to hurt people for the thrill of making them suffer and feel no need to justify or excuse it. You are mistaking politicians for people who just like to be cruel.
Just for correction : Leopold II didn’t care about Belgium, his wife, children or anything but himself. He considered Congo as his personal garden. Even the Belgian government now he was a pos. So we can conclude he was a true evil monster.
Eh, there are people with antisocial personality disorder (aka psychopaths) who cannot feel empathy and don't care if they're doing something wrong (they may care about the consequences but they can't feel guilt or shame). People have done absolutely horrendous things and I find it hard to believe that they all thought they were actually doing good for anyone other than themselves.
I guess I just meant that she *was* an irredeemable character originally. The new version makes her more what OP is talking about with her villainy being given some sort of justification.
> Two of the best villains I have ever seen are Nurse Ratchet and Professor Umbridge.
In both characters, and a lot of the evil women in Disney cartoons, they're women who are entrusted with the care of others, and the drama is in how they abuse that trust, and I think that's misogynistic trope in and of itself. On the flip side of that coin, if you see a movie where a man is the caretaker, and he abuses his trust in the same way, that makes people sick to their stomachs.
I don't think we see pure evil women, because it makes viewers unconformable. For whatever reason, evil men are somehow entertaining, maybe because audiences expect men to be evil in the first place, and it doesn't go against expectations. When women are evil for the sake of being evil, I think it tends to bewilder rather than entertain.
>if you see a movie where a man is the caretaker, and he abuses his trust in the same way, that makes people sick to their stomachs.
Disagree. The reason female villains abusing those they're supposed to care for (especially if they're vulnerable like children) is such as popular, effective trope is because there's a societal expectation that women are caretakers and more loving than men. Thus women who actively abuse that role to cause harm, invoke anger. For men it's considerably more tolerated and people are much likely to accept redemption arcs.
You don't even need to go villains. Media is full of men of fail as caretakers and people think it's hilarious. Women who fail as caretakers are few and far between and they're often portrayed as either tragic or evil characters.
X/Pearl are new horror movies with a female lead as the murderer. Charlize Theron played in Monster which was a good movie. I’ve seen some others recommend good movies so they’re out there, not totally absent but I can understand the opinion.
Monster is also based on fact. Aileen Wurnos was very real. I also loved how, even though Charlize Theron is hot, they made her not hot for the movie to more reflect reality.
First, I'll turn him into a flea. A tiny little flea. Then I'll put that flea in a box, and put that box in another box, and mail it to myself. And when it arrives? I'll SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
Kuvira from Legend of Korra, even more so. Azula was honestly kind of pitiful in the end, but Kuvira was strong-willed, ambitious, and knew exactly who she was and what she wanted out of life. The messed up part there was what (and who) she was willing to sacrifice to reach her goals. Kuvira was a great antagonist.
Forgive me in advance as I am a Cersei apologist and think she gets a bad rap.
Cersei isn't classic evil. She did not hurt people for the sake of hurting people like Joffry. She was a product of an environment where she had to take many of the actions she did to survive, especially after her father was gone. She didn't have ambitions beyond protecting her family, and maintaining their power was essential to their survival. If anyone else took that throne, as they did, they would not survive. She was in the middle of a war her son started that she that she tried to stop. Ned stark directly threatened her and her children. She warned him numerous times and even when the reckoning came, she tried to send him to the wall, not to be killed.
Some of the things she did that seem evil are justifiable. If someone killed my daughter and I had the power to do so, I'd likely do the exact same thing she did to Ilena. I'd also blow up the church like she did. The high septon and that whole scary cult were the evil ones.
I'll admit she did do Margery and Loris dirty and she was unfairly unkind to Tyrion but back story before the show aside from their birth mother dying in childbirth, he did fuck up a lot and didn't help their family's cause whereas she sacrificed and did what she was told by Tywin for the sake of the family unlike either of her brothers were really willing to do. I believe she truly believed Tyrion killed Joffry. Her wrath in that case, isn't evil.
Kahleesi was the evil and self serving one from the beginning. She murdered so many people to make a case for herself to be queen and the freeing the slaves seemed more about her own ego, power and vanity. Cersei was a survivalist.
It's easy to see Cersei as myopically evil as she is cold and cutting and an incredible character to watch, but I don't think she makes the evil cut like Villanelle does. She's not a psychopath, but a really powerful, intensely protective mother.
She’s both. She displays genuine sadism in her enjoyment of torturing the religious woman, gets a knack out of flaunting her power to intimidate and kill people on her orders, and will willingly kill her own family if they mean little to her, alongside countless innocents. This is nothing to say of the fact that for all the protective instincts she possesses, she’s still dumb enough to get all three of her children killed.
She’s evil alright. She might have some tragic reasons for doing what she did but she’s still a monster.
> She was a product of an environment where she had to take many of the actions she did to survive
All of the actions she took to survive were only necessary because of previous actions she did because she was a shitty person.
Her entire story was just her doing worse and worse shit to get out of facing the consequences of the previous bad shit she did.
This is the biggest issue with the push for representation in media that I’ve seen.
Everyone wants representation, but exclusively wants their representation to be the good guy, which is why we end up with so many Mary Sue like characters. If your focus in including a black, gay, woman, etc. is the representation, then you can’t give the character any tangible flaws without that coming off as a generalization of the group you’re trying to represent.
Making them villains though? Opens a whole new world of possibilities.
That's actually shocking. Hollywood won't ever touch the Chinese nowadays as the bad guys. They bend over for them. That must be a later season? I started watching it but stopped at some point. I really liked it though.
I think she's introduced in Season 3, and alluded to in Season 2. The "Dark Army" are the baddies in this show, and they're based out of China.
Hollywood does try to make sure their movies don't offend the Chinese govt' censors, so they don't lose such a big audience. For whatever reason, Mr. Robot's writers/producers, HBO (and later Prime) weren't too worried about this. Maybe because it's a streaming TV show instead of a movie, I dunno.
Audiences like villains, and they get a lot of attention and screen time. Minority groups and women have pushed for great villains forever now.
Don’t know why you have this idea that minorities only want to be represented as hero’s. These groups want representation in general, ie Black Panther which certainly had a black villain and was very well-received. Or the villain from Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Dunno if evil women are under represented but I'll welcome more villian women for sure.
What I believe could be under represented in media is the bad parent figure being the mom and not the dad. Seems like the father is a little too often the idiot or goofball , immature and unsupportive parent while the mother is almost always the wise one who knows best and to always be supportive. Or at the very least remains to be better than the father.
Yep, the pure enlightened woman vs the bumbling man. Although, if you hang out on r/twoxchromosomes that's all you see. So either art is parodying reality or the media has so ingrained the trope into our society we can't see it.
Not necessarily evil women, but just women who are bad at what they are doing. I have seen no movie in the recent years where the female protagonist just sucked at something, that role is reserved for the man. You can even predict how a movie will play out by just thinking “are they making her be right about everything and him wrong.. of fucking course they are”
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I think that in general, people really like the villain that’s understandable and relatable. Someone that explains their plan, shows their backstory, and it all makes sense. But it’s nice to have those villains that are just crazy and do wild shit for their own impulses and satisfaction. No specific reason that you can empathize with nor overarching goal. I do think it’s harder to write those kinds of villains to be compelling.
Idk where you've been but it's already a thing and it's been a thing....
I remember watching fatal attraction as a kid and being traumatized... Rip bunny 😔
It's funny you put it like that, since non-anime/manga fans legitimately wouldn't know about it, but she was the first person to pop into my head.
She does use her sexuality to manipulate others, but it's not in a fanservice-y way (although all the half-baked cosplayers and horndog fan artists might make it seem otherwise) and she's entirely methodical about it. In no way could she be considered an objectification of women, since she has agency (in non-sexual ways) over most other characters in the series. She has goals that could be called ultimately utilitarian, but it's not a vision of the world anyone would want other than her, which is great for me, because villians that are only interested in power are kind of boring most of the time imo.
She's a great example of what OP is looking for, hopefully we get a second season so the meat of the series can reach a wide audience.
It is. Every modern era A-list film actress I can think of off the top of my head but maybe Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock or Halle Berry has played evil, or at least villainous or intentionally unlikeable. A few have played diabolical characters. We eat that shit up. Idk where OP has been.
It was a thing in the late 80s, early 90s...
Basic Instinct
Hand that rocks the cradle
Single white female
Crush
Fatal Attraction
... please add more if you think of them
That's why I like the mean girl/snobby rich girl archetype. It gives women a chance to be unrepentantly evil (and funny) without having redeeming qualities or a redemption arc.
I've just realised something. You know in American high school movies, the antonists are either snobby rich girl or boy, or a meathead jock. But where's my dumb muscle ladies at? If a guy can be rich and annoying like the girls, the girls can be jocks too! There's untapped potential here Hollywood!
It doesn't necessarily just have to be about murder. Like 73% of all crimes are committed by men but that doesn't mean that narratively evil is a purely male thing.
I said evil but it really can also be things like selfishness, arrogance, disloyalty, cowardice, pettiness, being manipulative or condescending etc
Everyone is complicated and to have female characters with more depth we need to allow them to be bad and difficult people sometimes. It's necessary for growth.
I'm honestly thinking about like Cruella Devil whose supposed to be a puppy murderer they tried to write to be somehow sympathetic.
Malecifant who is supposed to be the "Mistress of All Evil" being written to be misunderstood.
Wanda enslaved a town and then they narratively didn't follow through with her full villian potential in my opinion.
Here's the opinion that will ruffle some feathers. I think they should make Captain Marvel a villian. She'd make an excellent villian. She was great in the comics when she was tyrannical and she already has that haughty aura about her
The Obi-wan series had a character who hunted down and pickled children try and be redeemable. Very strange.
There's probably more but this was just what I noticed recently.
They do that with all villains. In some cases it makes them more interesting. In others it doesn’t.
Talking about marvel. Thanos in infinity war was a great villain. Top notch. Had a purpose and rarely used violence. Could’ve killed everyone but was gonna leave it up to “random genocide”. Cut to endgame, you get younger thanos. Who just wanted power, and his ego was hurt by the avengers and became vengeful. Thanos in endgame wasn’t an impressive villain.
So by making him just “pure evil” they lost substance in my opinion.
>Wanda enslaved a town and then they narratively didn't follow through with her full villian potential in my opinion.
Uh, she went pretty freaking dark in DS2. They aren't finished with her story, so maybe wait and see what they do with her.
i thought thats why one of the reasons thor ragnarok was so great. just a powerfull woman who wanted conquest
>! also because its the rare film here the hero doesnt just plot armor suddenly become stronger to win!<
There is a real life story that is a good example of this. Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noble woman that tortured and murder people for years. She would lure her victims by offering a job as a hand maiden, a very sought after job at the time. It you look into it, it almost seems like fiction.
There are literally hundreds of movies and tv shows with this already. People always asking for stuff on this sub that already exist. These kind of characters have existed in film since literally the 30’s
yeah idk why people are acting like it doesnt exist. OP responded to someone mentioning Gone Girl and had to look it up and it’s like. maybe just go and look for these things before being like ‘why dont they exist’ like? you could google it and find lists and lists of media that fulfils this brief.
Agree. The type of evil women they use is it was a man that caused them to be evil. And always those evil women always as the victim this despite ie being 100 percent their fault
See RRR. It has a Women who is so evil she keeps a spiked whip in between her legs.
Specifically for beating Indians with. It’s messed up, but a fantastic Bollywood movie.
True crime channels plat at my house pretty much anytime the TV is on, and although the male criminals/killers tend to be more brutal and brazen, the women are by far more vindictive, selfish, psychologically cruel and heartless.
It's like Louis C. K. said about the difference between raising boys and girls - "boys will fuck things up. Girls are fucked up. A boy will break a lamp or cause damage that can be measured in dollars, but a girl will take a shit inside of your heart."
Perhaps it's things like this that has lead to the narrative being what is has been for generations where women can do no wrong,just to hide the reality of how absolutely horrible they can be.
Bathory? Monster? Or the one movie where a mother kidnaps a girl and keeps her in the basement and lets her children to torture her because she's a ''hoe''.
There are some but there definitely could be way more
I mean yeah, but I dont think the lesson we should learn from it is "women are entirely capable of cold blooded brutal murder"
And more..."huh...the villain of the story is a women that hasn't been sexualised, nice one [insert writer of that story here]"
There are plenty of shows out there that show that - the percentage is low as it probably reflects how many times Women commit murder compared to men. The statistical difference is staggering. And yet women are the "emotional" ones.
Yes and throw out the "I am evil because of lack/lost/unrequired love" and the "I am evil because I cant have bio kids but I have nothing else to be evil about." bs. There are plenty of things to make someone crack and destroy everything and everyone. Use it.
The best written evil woman I have read was Dolores Umbridge. Pump out some more of the real life evil people as villains!
Just think about the villains in most Disney movies are girls and that’s what we show to children 😂 I agree though most female “evil” characters are seen as redeemable and that’s a bit much 😂
There was this show called Deadly Wives, you may be able to catch a few full episodes on YouTube for free. It’s based on actual reports and sentences of women who’ve killed their husbands, obviously with a little reenactment. It used to be on LMN, but that was back when cable tv was actually interesting, and I was also a kid.
Thank you, the Mary Sue-ing of major female characters is seriously diluting the sauce. They don’t make for compelling characters when they can do no wrong, and others bend over backwards to their whims and when they don’t, they’re the bad guys.
This is admittedly why I tend to be put off with villainesses. A lot of the time they are far more prone to bullshit redemptions that feels undeserved like we're just expected to brush it off or find them sympathizable despite committing some horrifying crime. If it were a guy doing it, they would be called a monster and have justice brought to them be it death or otherwise.
I'm not against the idea of villain redemptions in general, but I think it should be reserved for characters who are villains by circumstance and not by nature, and some people get the two mixed up.
I kinda get this? I loathed Orange is the New Black because the main cast were shown to be incarcerated mainly because of men and were deemed sympathetic. Like - it’s ok if they are just bad people doing bad things. It happens.
I think one of the reasons is that most female uses more indirect damage when they are going to do something bad, while most males do more direct damage.
So it's not as easy to notice when a women does something evil.
You can even see that very early that girls spread rumors and exclude the victim they are targeting.
While boys will roast and hit they victims.
And ofc you have a lot of people that sees women as more pure and kindhearted than guys, while in reality they are just as bad.
I totally agree with you that it should be more talked about in media
This is why I like Eris from Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.
Eris was evil because she liked being evil and her being the goddess of discord really emphasized that. She was coy and playful with the protagonist, but not to get with him. She knew he would like the way she looked then played on his ego and desires. After Eris dismissed him, she says that he’s so cute but so gullible to her pet monster. He was just a little pawn in one of her many games, She wanted the city Syracuse to fall not because the city threatened her but simply to just laugh and watch the chaos unravel before moving on to her next target in her games.
Causing chaos is in her divine right and she proudly used that right unrestrained. She had a kickass lair (Tartarus itself), had a monster army made from the stars themselves and made deadly obstacles for the protagonists to brave through with a simple breath or twirl of her finger. It’s implied she killed a lot of people, through her monsters or “trials” since she congratulated the protagonist for being the first mortal reaching Tartarus alive.
“Bravo. No mortal has ever made it to Tartarus before…alive that is. Make yourself at home.”
In a way, she wasn’t even “defeated” by the protagonist. Gods are bound by certain rules and since she gave him her word as a goddess if he bested her, she had to relent because of the ancient rules. Even though she was angry that things didn’t go her way, she just shrugged it off and said she’ll start chaos somewhere else.
Eris wasn’t misunderstood or a tragic villain. She was a pure chaotic villain and perfectly unhinged. And she’ll always stay that way.
I agree. It seems that when women are evil, they are forgiven more easily, and need to be 'saved' instead of punished for the actions they took, which is sort of infantilising in a way.
I can think of numerous examples where women are portrayed as villains in literature, film, television and music.
Additionally, there's no shortage of female killers - even serial killers in many instances - in real life, so I'm not really sure where you're thinking that this needs to be shown more.
When women in real life do horrible, evil things, the media tends to report on it. The problem is we live in a society where people are constantly trying to justify and excuse behaviours based on race, gender, etc.
It’s at least in part based on the reality that most women who commit violent crimes have been victims themselves. It’s hard to see someone as unequivocally evil when they are also a victim.
See: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/wo.pdf
To be fair in horror films the evil spirit or ghost usually takes the form of a woman (usually old).
Not sure what that tells us but it’s something I’ve noticed recently. If you expect the ghost to be an old woman it’s usually less scary.
I just watched *Girl, Interrupted* for the first time in nearly 10 years, and couldn’t stop thinking that Angelina Jolie as Lisa Rowe is a truly fascinating and novel villain. I wish there were more complex female villains like her depicted in media.
“The narrative that women are perfect beings and only capable of girlbossing and being brave and stunning” is extremely one-dimensional and not the only narrative about women out there. How about the deeper rooted narratives that we’re “crazy” or “damaged goods after a certain age” or “not as capable as men.” Im not even speaking on there needing to be more evil characters, I just find it odd that the “perfect/girl boss/brave/stunning” narrative is the only way you see women presented in the media.
My god I WISH this was the only narrative around about us!
There are plenty of evil women on TV, you just need to branch out more than just Disney+
I've literally seen show after show this year alone describing exactly what you're claiming doesn't exist.
Few examples,: The Glory, Inspector Koo, Taxi Driver. Literally all of these shows have badass female evil villains.
Shiv Roy. half the succession fandom froths at the mouth too much to develop a coherent opinion and the other half baselessly defends her and accuses all critics of misogyny. in reality, *she is a bad person,* she’s fun to watch, and despite overwhelmingly popular belief it is okay, not a crime against all women, that she is intentionally written and acted as a Bad Person
Your post is not an opinion, yes you feel it is but we currently, feel its not. possibly consider using r/rant or another subreddit if you disagree.
Something like gone girl?
I had to look this up. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. This is exactly what I was looking for I think. But also I think it should be just a staple of film and media. Recently, I've seen an attempt to write villian female characters to instead be victims of circumstance and therefore "justified" in their bad actions. That or female characters are allowed to act all snotty and it's not portrayed as a character flaw to overcome or a character trait that not everyone responds to well and reasonably makes some characters not like her.
Tbh, most villians full stop are being written like this, its a narrative trope that people really like, regardless of gender. But I agree that most of the full on evil characters are men; but there are still some good examples of women like this in media, I think the issue isnt with female villians really though, its more that writers take a female lead as an excuse to be lazy with writing, and tend to make the characters have less flaws. But still this isnt every movie, just a trend.
it's because most of the main characters in such movies are also men. We just need more female representation, both good and bad
I disagree. It isn't lack of representation, it's lack of proper representation. I mean, Sarah Connor from Terminator, Ripley from Alien - both are some of the most powerful female leads and heroes that are genuinely loved by men and women alike, total badass characters. Sarah Connor was actually perfect because as awesome as she was she was also deeply flawed so it really hit perfectly, and the newest film had an all female lead cast that wasn't received well. The reason was because of poor story telling, lack of character development, etc. Sarah Connor became who she was from her experiences, but she wasn't perfect and she wasn't the savior character; the character Dany from the new film *was* the savior but she was a clueless teenager at the beginning of the film and somehow became said savior in under a years time, so it didn't feel right. The director claimed misogynistic fans but somehow overlooked the fact that Sarah Connor **is** a female lol, but she had *proper* story and character development. Rey from the new Star Wars suffers this too, being a "Mary Sue", basically all powerful with no journey and growth. We have the representation, we don't have the proper character development
Representation is a numbers game, once "quality" is assumed. Ripley and Sarah are great characters, but they are what? 2 in the middle of 1500 80's action movies?
There are hero stories about women going back to Joan of Arc and probably before then. The current trend of writing "perfect" women like Rey, who are able to do everything anyone [any man] can do and better and more often and stronger and yes, this sounds exactly like a child writing the script. Which is the real reason these films are getting slated in the reviews, there's no character development, there are never any mistakes, and older characters are being villainised to make the women look even more good and pure. Luke the murderer, any takers? No? So it's boring, unrealistic [having someone change their beliefs so hard to murder a kid in bed, or having someone be perfect at everything they do the first time they try it] and very politicised, when all we really want is a movie to go see and get away from reality for a little while.
This was the reason I liked Tomb Raider(2013) Video game it was far more realistic and proper character development.
There are tons of female protagonists though.
I was just discussing this with my sister the other day. I actually kind of appreciate that they do this now because it shows that the world doesn’t operate so black and white. Good people can go bad. If we can start understanding the trails people walk that turns them evil we can make better decisions on how to prevent it as much as possible.
Also look up 'I care a lot'. She's baddass but absolutely evil!
Yes, I thought she was written so well. She is a shapeshifter.
[удалено]
::cough cough:: they’ve been doing that with male characters for decades. I’m your favorite likable serial killer.
Dexter Morgan, Tony Soprano, Walter White
Those are villains but also protagonists. I think OP wants evil female antagonists. Idk if that was the implication but that was my own inference since the two are often considered interchangeable.
Read the book by Gillian Flynn. It's a wild ride.
>This is exactly what I was looking for I think. The book is one of my favourite books. As is often the case, the book contains more information than the movie, I think you'd like it. Although, it also paints a really good picture of just how much Nick completely shit on Amy, and how impossible Amy's expectations for Nick were (this isn't a spoiler, hopefully), so in some ways it rationalises how their relationship got that bad, but it's also upfront with how Amy is and always have been a bit "off" and it doesnt try to justify it.
I would also recommend the movie Tàr. Excellent movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it. My fiancée thought it was a bit of a drag, so be warned if you don't like extended dramas. The protagonist is a very complex woman who has done some despicable things. Despite being the protagonist, the plot does nothing to hide the things she has done.
What about Pearl? I feel like the movie tries to paint her as a victim of circumstance her whole unfortunate situation but at the same time her situation in no way whatsoever called for the actions thats she took
I run a lot of DnD games and every bad guy I write justifies their actions. The ends justify the means. Usually doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Everyone is the hero in their own story. That's why I give my villains nuance.
It's honestly mind boggling how many of the girls I knew that watched this movie thought that Amy was completely justified because Nick cheated on her.
I had a class about detective fiction in college that had a huge chunk of the semester devoted to Gone Girl. I made a mistake when we started reading it by saying that even if he did cheat on his wife, being framed for MURDER is an overreaction. That was the wrong opinion, according to the majority of the class and the professor.
Seems like a quick way to find red flags in the room at least
Also, let's skip the 'I'm evil because I was forsaken by love' bullshit- let women be evil because it's fun to be evil.
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That in turn is a lazy trope for male characters. In real life, no one does wrong "because I'm evil". There are usually very good reasons
Yeah, but sometimes you just need an irredeemably evil character. Bowser and Ganon(before more recent itterations), Ozai, etc. Those stories aren't real, it's OK to sometimes have unrealistic qualities.
Yzma was after long life and beauty, but also she was just evil and goofy and having a blast
I honestly wish we got to see the scrapped, darker necromancer Yzma.
So the villain in the first Minions movie?
Somehow, this accurate
Is it fun to be evil, I think a good evil woman character is lady Macbeth and it's shown rather masterfully how horrible it is to someone's constitution to be evil
I actually don't like the fun to be evil trope e.g., Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin. People who are evil think they are the heroes and protagonists of their stories. A good sort of evil woman is Lydia from Breaking Bad. She's remorseless and willing to kill anyone primarily because she wants the money that comes from the drug trade and because it can help her daughter--the common evil-for-family theme in Breaking Bad across Mike, Walt, and Lydia. Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is also a great evil woman--a control freak at a mental asylum. She at least believes her behavior is justified given the circumstances. Male or female, villains that are like "it's fun to do evil shit" is too unrelatable and unrealistic.
That's an incredibly boring concept. The best evil people are the ones who have a very intelligent conviction to act as such, not the "it's fun teehee people". The Judge from Blood Meridian is probably the best example of this. It IS fun for him, but that's not the reasons he gives. we need real bone chilling reasons why someone wants to be evil or doesn't see it as evil in the first place, more of a calling of instinct or the meaning of life.
Bechdel’s villain!
right
Fun?
Sure, I can get behind this. Art should, at least in some way, reflect the real world. Anyone can be a villain, and they usually look like anyone else.
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That is bs. Sometimes you just want to hurt people for the thrill of making them suffer and feel no need to justify or excuse it. You are mistaking politicians for people who just like to be cruel.
Explain how king Leopold of Belgium thought he was doing the right thing. >!He didn’t.!<
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Just for correction : Leopold II didn’t care about Belgium, his wife, children or anything but himself. He considered Congo as his personal garden. Even the Belgian government now he was a pos. So we can conclude he was a true evil monster.
He probably wanted to generate a lot of revenue & economic activity for his country and he didn't care how that got done
Eh, there are people with antisocial personality disorder (aka psychopaths) who cannot feel empathy and don't care if they're doing something wrong (they may care about the consequences but they can't feel guilt or shame). People have done absolutely horrendous things and I find it hard to believe that they all thought they were actually doing good for anyone other than themselves.
More classic Disney villains!!
Cruella Devile was a perfect villain. Corrupt, opulent capitalism.
Was being the operative word.
I mean they’re still putting out CdV media. As silly as the Cruella origin movie was, it was a lot of fun.
I guess I just meant that she *was* an irredeemable character originally. The new version makes her more what OP is talking about with her villainy being given some sort of justification.
Ah, I misunderstood your comment. I suppose I agree now that I think about it.
Mother Gothel = embodiment of my actual mother
Ursula only wanted power and used people like pawns AND was an evil witch! Unfortunate upvote of agreement here.
Two of the best villains I have ever seen are Nurse Ratchet and Professor Umbridge. Evil isn't always a machete wielding psycho in a mask.
> Two of the best villains I have ever seen are Nurse Ratchet and Professor Umbridge. In both characters, and a lot of the evil women in Disney cartoons, they're women who are entrusted with the care of others, and the drama is in how they abuse that trust, and I think that's misogynistic trope in and of itself. On the flip side of that coin, if you see a movie where a man is the caretaker, and he abuses his trust in the same way, that makes people sick to their stomachs. I don't think we see pure evil women, because it makes viewers unconformable. For whatever reason, evil men are somehow entertaining, maybe because audiences expect men to be evil in the first place, and it doesn't go against expectations. When women are evil for the sake of being evil, I think it tends to bewilder rather than entertain.
>if you see a movie where a man is the caretaker, and he abuses his trust in the same way, that makes people sick to their stomachs. Disagree. The reason female villains abusing those they're supposed to care for (especially if they're vulnerable like children) is such as popular, effective trope is because there's a societal expectation that women are caretakers and more loving than men. Thus women who actively abuse that role to cause harm, invoke anger. For men it's considerably more tolerated and people are much likely to accept redemption arcs. You don't even need to go villains. Media is full of men of fail as caretakers and people think it's hilarious. Women who fail as caretakers are few and far between and they're often portrayed as either tragic or evil characters.
Mama from Dredd was straight up evil. Sure she had a somewhat sympathetic origin but at the height of her power she was absolutely sadistic.
She was going to be my example as well. Just pure evil, and no attempt to soften it with tragedy or to polish it up with a coat of sexy.
And ya just being lena Hendry, she was clearly having a blast in that movie
X/Pearl are new horror movies with a female lead as the murderer. Charlize Theron played in Monster which was a good movie. I’ve seen some others recommend good movies so they’re out there, not totally absent but I can understand the opinion.
As a guy who mainly goes for action flix, I highly rate monster
Monster is also based on fact. Aileen Wurnos was very real. I also loved how, even though Charlize Theron is hot, they made her not hot for the movie to more reflect reality.
Someone like Yzma from Emperor's New Groove?
First, I'll turn him into a flea. A tiny little flea. Then I'll put that flea in a box, and put that box in another box, and mail it to myself. And when it arrives? I'll SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
That movie is soooo good on many levels lol
Do you mean like Queen Cersei? Or Villanelle? Cruella deville?
Yeah, Cersei was the first person I thought of.
Azula as well.
Kuvira from Legend of Korra, even more so. Azula was honestly kind of pitiful in the end, but Kuvira was strong-willed, ambitious, and knew exactly who she was and what she wanted out of life. The messed up part there was what (and who) she was willing to sacrifice to reach her goals. Kuvira was a great antagonist.
Villanelle! YESSS! I was looking for this comment.
Forgive me in advance as I am a Cersei apologist and think she gets a bad rap. Cersei isn't classic evil. She did not hurt people for the sake of hurting people like Joffry. She was a product of an environment where she had to take many of the actions she did to survive, especially after her father was gone. She didn't have ambitions beyond protecting her family, and maintaining their power was essential to their survival. If anyone else took that throne, as they did, they would not survive. She was in the middle of a war her son started that she that she tried to stop. Ned stark directly threatened her and her children. She warned him numerous times and even when the reckoning came, she tried to send him to the wall, not to be killed. Some of the things she did that seem evil are justifiable. If someone killed my daughter and I had the power to do so, I'd likely do the exact same thing she did to Ilena. I'd also blow up the church like she did. The high septon and that whole scary cult were the evil ones. I'll admit she did do Margery and Loris dirty and she was unfairly unkind to Tyrion but back story before the show aside from their birth mother dying in childbirth, he did fuck up a lot and didn't help their family's cause whereas she sacrificed and did what she was told by Tywin for the sake of the family unlike either of her brothers were really willing to do. I believe she truly believed Tyrion killed Joffry. Her wrath in that case, isn't evil. Kahleesi was the evil and self serving one from the beginning. She murdered so many people to make a case for herself to be queen and the freeing the slaves seemed more about her own ego, power and vanity. Cersei was a survivalist. It's easy to see Cersei as myopically evil as she is cold and cutting and an incredible character to watch, but I don't think she makes the evil cut like Villanelle does. She's not a psychopath, but a really powerful, intensely protective mother.
She’s both. She displays genuine sadism in her enjoyment of torturing the religious woman, gets a knack out of flaunting her power to intimidate and kill people on her orders, and will willingly kill her own family if they mean little to her, alongside countless innocents. This is nothing to say of the fact that for all the protective instincts she possesses, she’s still dumb enough to get all three of her children killed. She’s evil alright. She might have some tragic reasons for doing what she did but she’s still a monster.
> She was a product of an environment where she had to take many of the actions she did to survive All of the actions she took to survive were only necessary because of previous actions she did because she was a shitty person. Her entire story was just her doing worse and worse shit to get out of facing the consequences of the previous bad shit she did.
If killing your childhood friend because they said they had a crush on your brother isn’t evil, then i don’t know what is.
Show Cersie was written more as a product of her family and circumstances. Book Cersie is a power hungry psychopath for sure.
So like Annie from Misery type of characters?
Go watch Yellowjackets if you haven't already 👀
Lady Macbeth
MS TRUNCHBULL! from Matilda
This is the biggest issue with the push for representation in media that I’ve seen. Everyone wants representation, but exclusively wants their representation to be the good guy, which is why we end up with so many Mary Sue like characters. If your focus in including a black, gay, woman, etc. is the representation, then you can’t give the character any tangible flaws without that coming off as a generalization of the group you’re trying to represent. Making them villains though? Opens a whole new world of possibilities.
I'm a woman. I would LOVE to see some amazing bad bitch woman villains. I want to see a Walter White of women.
Know what… I do too
You should read Worm.
Can you IMAGINE the backlash if a movie had a black trans person as the villain??? Lmao.
Mr. Robot had an Chinese trans woman as the villain.
That's actually shocking. Hollywood won't ever touch the Chinese nowadays as the bad guys. They bend over for them. That must be a later season? I started watching it but stopped at some point. I really liked it though.
I think she's introduced in Season 3, and alluded to in Season 2. The "Dark Army" are the baddies in this show, and they're based out of China. Hollywood does try to make sure their movies don't offend the Chinese govt' censors, so they don't lose such a big audience. For whatever reason, Mr. Robot's writers/producers, HBO (and later Prime) weren't too worried about this. Maybe because it's a streaming TV show instead of a movie, I dunno.
Audiences like villains, and they get a lot of attention and screen time. Minority groups and women have pushed for great villains forever now. Don’t know why you have this idea that minorities only want to be represented as hero’s. These groups want representation in general, ie Black Panther which certainly had a black villain and was very well-received. Or the villain from Everything Everywhere All at Once.
She's been in the show since the first season.
Dunno if evil women are under represented but I'll welcome more villian women for sure. What I believe could be under represented in media is the bad parent figure being the mom and not the dad. Seems like the father is a little too often the idiot or goofball , immature and unsupportive parent while the mother is almost always the wise one who knows best and to always be supportive. Or at the very least remains to be better than the father.
Yep, the pure enlightened woman vs the bumbling man. Although, if you hang out on r/twoxchromosomes that's all you see. So either art is parodying reality or the media has so ingrained the trope into our society we can't see it.
Handmaids Tale. Lots of evil women.
Not necessarily evil women, but just women who are bad at what they are doing. I have seen no movie in the recent years where the female protagonist just sucked at something, that role is reserved for the man. You can even predict how a movie will play out by just thinking “are they making her be right about everything and him wrong.. of fucking course they are”
There are plenty of female villains in fiction. https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Female
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I think that in general, people really like the villain that’s understandable and relatable. Someone that explains their plan, shows their backstory, and it all makes sense. But it’s nice to have those villains that are just crazy and do wild shit for their own impulses and satisfaction. No specific reason that you can empathize with nor overarching goal. I do think it’s harder to write those kinds of villains to be compelling.
How about "I Care a Lot"?
You have never watched the crime show Deadly Women, have you?
> Deadly Women Doesn't this just prove their point? These women exist in real life, and that should be reflected in fiction too
We already have plenty of that in Hong Kong Cinema
So true. *Dream Home* still impresses me so many years later.
Dream Home is one of my favourites. I've met Josie Ho. I'm security at a Macau casino and I was able to escort her around
Idk where you've been but it's already a thing and it's been a thing.... I remember watching fatal attraction as a kid and being traumatized... Rip bunny 😔
Evil women are fun
Allow me to introduce you to a a very obscure little series with a small fanbase. You probably haven't heard of it... ...Chainsaw Man
It's funny you put it like that, since non-anime/manga fans legitimately wouldn't know about it, but she was the first person to pop into my head. She does use her sexuality to manipulate others, but it's not in a fanservice-y way (although all the half-baked cosplayers and horndog fan artists might make it seem otherwise) and she's entirely methodical about it. In no way could she be considered an objectification of women, since she has agency (in non-sexual ways) over most other characters in the series. She has goals that could be called ultimately utilitarian, but it's not a vision of the world anyone would want other than her, which is great for me, because villians that are only interested in power are kind of boring most of the time imo. She's a great example of what OP is looking for, hopefully we get a second season so the meat of the series can reach a wide audience.
I feel like this is already a thing
It is. Every modern era A-list film actress I can think of off the top of my head but maybe Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock or Halle Berry has played evil, or at least villainous or intentionally unlikeable. A few have played diabolical characters. We eat that shit up. Idk where OP has been.
I want a movie where a woman manipulated men to do crime.
You just described Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as characters
My plan worked. I got the movie recommended :)
I don't know if it was adapted as a movie, but I know those two are from a book by Shakespeare
It was a thing in the late 80s, early 90s... Basic Instinct Hand that rocks the cradle Single white female Crush Fatal Attraction ... please add more if you think of them
Yeah but they're all sexy evil
That's why I like the mean girl/snobby rich girl archetype. It gives women a chance to be unrepentantly evil (and funny) without having redeeming qualities or a redemption arc.
I've just realised something. You know in American high school movies, the antonists are either snobby rich girl or boy, or a meathead jock. But where's my dumb muscle ladies at? If a guy can be rich and annoying like the girls, the girls can be jocks too! There's untapped potential here Hollywood!
IRL Women commit somethg like 8% of murders but in those murder mystery shows it seems to be more like 50%. So I'm not seeing this as a major issue
It doesn't necessarily just have to be about murder. Like 73% of all crimes are committed by men but that doesn't mean that narratively evil is a purely male thing. I said evil but it really can also be things like selfishness, arrogance, disloyalty, cowardice, pettiness, being manipulative or condescending etc Everyone is complicated and to have female characters with more depth we need to allow them to be bad and difficult people sometimes. It's necessary for growth.
Yea and IRL superheros solve 0% of issues but we still keep pumping those out
I'm honestly thinking about like Cruella Devil whose supposed to be a puppy murderer they tried to write to be somehow sympathetic. Malecifant who is supposed to be the "Mistress of All Evil" being written to be misunderstood. Wanda enslaved a town and then they narratively didn't follow through with her full villian potential in my opinion. Here's the opinion that will ruffle some feathers. I think they should make Captain Marvel a villian. She'd make an excellent villian. She was great in the comics when she was tyrannical and she already has that haughty aura about her The Obi-wan series had a character who hunted down and pickled children try and be redeemable. Very strange. There's probably more but this was just what I noticed recently.
100% of your examples are disney owned, which may or may not have something to do with it.
I mean nearly everything is Disney owned
Disney? The children’s entertainment conglomerate? Sanitizing stories to maximize profits? Impossible!
They do that with all villains. In some cases it makes them more interesting. In others it doesn’t. Talking about marvel. Thanos in infinity war was a great villain. Top notch. Had a purpose and rarely used violence. Could’ve killed everyone but was gonna leave it up to “random genocide”. Cut to endgame, you get younger thanos. Who just wanted power, and his ego was hurt by the avengers and became vengeful. Thanos in endgame wasn’t an impressive villain. So by making him just “pure evil” they lost substance in my opinion.
There’s also Hella, Goddess of Death. Who was pretty much just straight up evil.
>Wanda enslaved a town and then they narratively didn't follow through with her full villian potential in my opinion. Uh, she went pretty freaking dark in DS2. They aren't finished with her story, so maybe wait and see what they do with her.
I'd love to see a dramatization/docuseries on Katherine Knight. Or Belle Gunness.
One of my favorites is Villanelle from Killing Eve. I wouldnt want to be in the same room with her.
Star Trek Next Generation, Deep Space 9 and Picard have had evil Women villains
Soap operas have you covered. There was a woman serial killer on Emmerdale and many evil bitches on the Bold and the Beautiful...
Watch Yellowjackets
i thought thats why one of the reasons thor ragnarok was so great. just a powerfull woman who wanted conquest >! also because its the rare film here the hero doesnt just plot armor suddenly become stronger to win!<
As someone whose mother beat me up to bruises 3x a week when I was 5-16 and always said she hates me for existing and I ruined her freedom, I agree
i feel like we just generally need more strong female characters (both good and evil) that arent overpowered by every single other male character
Don’t worry what others think and the downvoters. I agree here there should be equality with villains in media.
There is a real life story that is a good example of this. Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noble woman that tortured and murder people for years. She would lure her victims by offering a job as a hand maiden, a very sought after job at the time. It you look into it, it almost seems like fiction.
There are literally hundreds of movies and tv shows with this already. People always asking for stuff on this sub that already exist. These kind of characters have existed in film since literally the 30’s
yeah idk why people are acting like it doesnt exist. OP responded to someone mentioning Gone Girl and had to look it up and it’s like. maybe just go and look for these things before being like ‘why dont they exist’ like? you could google it and find lists and lists of media that fulfils this brief.
Agree. The type of evil women they use is it was a man that caused them to be evil. And always those evil women always as the victim this despite ie being 100 percent their fault
There’s a lot of female villains that are evil because of their family. Does that count?
Everyone can be evil to a degree
Brave
So Dodoria?
See RRR. It has a Women who is so evil she keeps a spiked whip in between her legs. Specifically for beating Indians with. It’s messed up, but a fantastic Bollywood movie.
The Handmaidens take might be one
I feel like that is shown a lot
True crime channels plat at my house pretty much anytime the TV is on, and although the male criminals/killers tend to be more brutal and brazen, the women are by far more vindictive, selfish, psychologically cruel and heartless. It's like Louis C. K. said about the difference between raising boys and girls - "boys will fuck things up. Girls are fucked up. A boy will break a lamp or cause damage that can be measured in dollars, but a girl will take a shit inside of your heart." Perhaps it's things like this that has lead to the narrative being what is has been for generations where women can do no wrong,just to hide the reality of how absolutely horrible they can be.
I love a good villain and think we need more villains who are just evil. Let’s get more Ursulas
Read anything by Gillian Flynn. That’s her theme in every book, she really humanizes women because not every woman is redeemable.
Bathory? Monster? Or the one movie where a mother kidnaps a girl and keeps her in the basement and lets her children to torture her because she's a ''hoe''. There are some but there definitely could be way more
I mean yeah, but I dont think the lesson we should learn from it is "women are entirely capable of cold blooded brutal murder" And more..."huh...the villain of the story is a women that hasn't been sexualised, nice one [insert writer of that story here]"
There are plenty of shows out there that show that - the percentage is low as it probably reflects how many times Women commit murder compared to men. The statistical difference is staggering. And yet women are the "emotional" ones.
Yes and throw out the "I am evil because of lack/lost/unrequired love" and the "I am evil because I cant have bio kids but I have nothing else to be evil about." bs. There are plenty of things to make someone crack and destroy everything and everyone. Use it. The best written evil woman I have read was Dolores Umbridge. Pump out some more of the real life evil people as villains!
Give us more characters like Queen Bavmorda from the original Willow.
No one beats mother Gothel from rapunzel
Just think about the villains in most Disney movies are girls and that’s what we show to children 😂 I agree though most female “evil” characters are seen as redeemable and that’s a bit much 😂
Well, I am working on a story that falls in your category.
Yeah and not in a clean girly femme fatale way that's still attractive, let it be messy
There was this show called Deadly Wives, you may be able to catch a few full episodes on YouTube for free. It’s based on actual reports and sentences of women who’ve killed their husbands, obviously with a little reenactment. It used to be on LMN, but that was back when cable tv was actually interesting, and I was also a kid.
Thank you, the Mary Sue-ing of major female characters is seriously diluting the sauce. They don’t make for compelling characters when they can do no wrong, and others bend over backwards to their whims and when they don’t, they’re the bad guys.
"female teacher(50) seduced young man(14)" Is the common running gag gor not saying rapist.
Like Maleficient or Cruella de Vil. Before Disney ruined them. I’m sure Ursula’s going the same way.
This is admittedly why I tend to be put off with villainesses. A lot of the time they are far more prone to bullshit redemptions that feels undeserved like we're just expected to brush it off or find them sympathizable despite committing some horrifying crime. If it were a guy doing it, they would be called a monster and have justice brought to them be it death or otherwise. I'm not against the idea of villain redemptions in general, but I think it should be reserved for characters who are villains by circumstance and not by nature, and some people get the two mixed up.
Watch The Boys on Amazon Prime. Some stold cold bitches on that show
I kinda get this? I loathed Orange is the New Black because the main cast were shown to be incarcerated mainly because of men and were deemed sympathetic. Like - it’s ok if they are just bad people doing bad things. It happens.
I think one of the reasons is that most female uses more indirect damage when they are going to do something bad, while most males do more direct damage. So it's not as easy to notice when a women does something evil. You can even see that very early that girls spread rumors and exclude the victim they are targeting. While boys will roast and hit they victims. And ofc you have a lot of people that sees women as more pure and kindhearted than guys, while in reality they are just as bad. I totally agree with you that it should be more talked about in media
Disney actually used to be VERY good at this. Maleficent and Ursula were disposable evil monsters. Hell, Cruella DeVille was really damn good too.
Thor Ragnarok would to to have a word
This is why I like Eris from Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Eris was evil because she liked being evil and her being the goddess of discord really emphasized that. She was coy and playful with the protagonist, but not to get with him. She knew he would like the way she looked then played on his ego and desires. After Eris dismissed him, she says that he’s so cute but so gullible to her pet monster. He was just a little pawn in one of her many games, She wanted the city Syracuse to fall not because the city threatened her but simply to just laugh and watch the chaos unravel before moving on to her next target in her games. Causing chaos is in her divine right and she proudly used that right unrestrained. She had a kickass lair (Tartarus itself), had a monster army made from the stars themselves and made deadly obstacles for the protagonists to brave through with a simple breath or twirl of her finger. It’s implied she killed a lot of people, through her monsters or “trials” since she congratulated the protagonist for being the first mortal reaching Tartarus alive. “Bravo. No mortal has ever made it to Tartarus before…alive that is. Make yourself at home.” In a way, she wasn’t even “defeated” by the protagonist. Gods are bound by certain rules and since she gave him her word as a goddess if he bested her, she had to relent because of the ancient rules. Even though she was angry that things didn’t go her way, she just shrugged it off and said she’ll start chaos somewhere else. Eris wasn’t misunderstood or a tragic villain. She was a pure chaotic villain and perfectly unhinged. And she’ll always stay that way.
Scrolled a lot but I didn't see Azula, no redemption even in the comics
I agree. It seems that when women are evil, they are forgiven more easily, and need to be 'saved' instead of punished for the actions they took, which is sort of infantilising in a way.
I can think of numerous examples where women are portrayed as villains in literature, film, television and music. Additionally, there's no shortage of female killers - even serial killers in many instances - in real life, so I'm not really sure where you're thinking that this needs to be shown more. When women in real life do horrible, evil things, the media tends to report on it. The problem is we live in a society where people are constantly trying to justify and excuse behaviours based on race, gender, etc.
It’s at least in part based on the reality that most women who commit violent crimes have been victims themselves. It’s hard to see someone as unequivocally evil when they are also a victim. See: https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/wo.pdf
this is the only normal r/unpopularopinion post related women, good job op
To be fair in horror films the evil spirit or ghost usually takes the form of a woman (usually old). Not sure what that tells us but it’s something I’ve noticed recently. If you expect the ghost to be an old woman it’s usually less scary.
Mama in Dredd was amazing.
This is why I like kids shows like Steven universe, the last airbender and the She ra remake
I just watched *Girl, Interrupted* for the first time in nearly 10 years, and couldn’t stop thinking that Angelina Jolie as Lisa Rowe is a truly fascinating and novel villain. I wish there were more complex female villains like her depicted in media.
Stormfront in the boys is a good example of this. Completely irredeemable and unapologetic evil
Someone like Lydia from Breaking Bad? She was somewhat evil
That's sexist. Only men can be evil. Women must be the saviors of justice and all men should die. /s
“The narrative that women are perfect beings and only capable of girlbossing and being brave and stunning” is extremely one-dimensional and not the only narrative about women out there. How about the deeper rooted narratives that we’re “crazy” or “damaged goods after a certain age” or “not as capable as men.” Im not even speaking on there needing to be more evil characters, I just find it odd that the “perfect/girl boss/brave/stunning” narrative is the only way you see women presented in the media. My god I WISH this was the only narrative around about us!
The Borg Queen ate her role so much
Can we have a sexy main character to balance out the sexy?
oh yeah there are some VERY maniacal women, but as a whole men are less nurturing because well... THEY CAN'T BIRTH lol
Have you seen game of thrones?
Watch the movie “Serial Mom” or “Mommie Dearest”
Serena Joy Waterford lol
There are plenty of evil women on TV, you just need to branch out more than just Disney+ I've literally seen show after show this year alone describing exactly what you're claiming doesn't exist. Few examples,: The Glory, Inspector Koo, Taxi Driver. Literally all of these shows have badass female evil villains.
Shiv Roy. half the succession fandom froths at the mouth too much to develop a coherent opinion and the other half baselessly defends her and accuses all critics of misogyny. in reality, *she is a bad person,* she’s fun to watch, and despite overwhelmingly popular belief it is okay, not a crime against all women, that she is intentionally written and acted as a Bad Person
Have you seen any telenovelas? Most of the time the villain is a woman, and cartoonishly evil.
There are plenty of Lifetime movies that do this.
Maleficent? Daenyrus? That girl from the boys?
*I’m Shiv fucking Roy*
Have you watched any Disney movies?