Disney’s Long History of Queer coded Villains
Disney movies are classic, timeless stories, with memorable characters and exciting plots. One way Disney achieves this is through their iconic villains. Have you ever noticed how almost all of these characters share traits and attributes stereotypical of the LGBT community? Disney has a long history of queer coding their villains, which negatively affected the queer community by perpetuating harmful stereotypes and demonizing queer people.
But what is queer coding? Wikipedia defines the term as “a term used to say that characters were given traits/behaviors to suggest they are not heterosexual/cisgender, without the character being outright confirmed to have a queer identity.”
Queer coding itself is not a negative thing. There are many examples of ways the trope has been executed in a way that does not harm the queer community. Yoshihiro Togashi, popular shonen manga artist and writer, had tried making a shonen series that featured a gay main character. However, because of the nature of the genre and the fact that Togashi was not yet known, his story was rejected. In order to get around the restrictions of the demographic, Togashi opted to use subtext and queer-coding instead in his popular series, Hunter x Hunter. The way he codes Kurapika, one of the main supporting characters, was not negative because it was not based on harmful stereotypes.
So how did Disney queer code their villains? What was so wrong about it? And why does it even matter?
Disney Villain’s Coding
Disney used stereotypical speech patterns, mannerisms, and clothes to depict their sexuality. A few of the villains, like Ursula, were even based off of real life queer people.
Ursula’s queer-coded traits are her makeup, her deep voice, and the fact that she is based off of the real life drag queen, Divine. She also falls into the sexual, almost predator-like LGBT trope, unfortunately.
It is even easier to spot this in the male villains. Jaffar, Scar, Captain Hook, Hades, are all examples of characters Disney made that perpetuated the “sissy” gay trope. They were all flamboyant, effeminate compared to their masculine hero characters, campy, and sassy. Scar even has limp wrists.
So what’s the issue?
The problem isn’t that the characters themselves were queer, but that they were villains. Because of the absence of queer heroes in Disney that contrast these villains, the children watching were learning that these traits are bad. That if you break off from the norm, if you do not fit the hetero-normative societal constructs, then you’re just like villains.
These depictions matter because the media kids consume influences their perspective, self-esteem, and values, especially as they grow up. Imagine a queer child watching these very popular movies and seeing these characters and depictions. The child may see these traits, and seeing them being associated with “evil” and “immorality”, they may subconsciously suppress their queerness or feel shame for it. For children who aren’t queer, the negative and stereotypical depictions may encourage prejudice against people who are LGBT.
As we move forward, Disney has become more progressive and attempted more positive queer representation, though they fail to commit and it falls short. I have another blog post about this specifically.
Queer coding is not a negative thing, the trope itself is somewhat neutral. However, Disney’s use of queer coding and consequential villainization of LGBT people has negatively contributed to the representation and treatment of queer people.
