With Cruella, Disney presents us with a modern day Karen villain
And the result is that we're sympathetic to this bold, take-charge Cruella
All week as I’ve been getting my kids ready for day camp and listening to the end-of-day synopses of the camp experience, the word Karen has started to emerge and not because there’s a camper named Karen, but based on the less than positive stereotype of a “Karen.”
For those you who may need a little education on what or who a “Karen” is - it’s a term that sparked a TikTok and meme frenzy around a year and half ago. Per Wikipedia: It is a White woman seeming to be entitled or demanding beyond the scope of what is normal. The term also refers to memes depicting White women who use their privilege to demand their own way.
Wikipedia goes into greater detail, but you get the gist. Seemingly, any middle-aged woman who speak ups or risks never being heard because, she’s well middle-aged and more likely to be never heard, unless she’s Beyonce, could fall in the category of a Karen but a Karen also comes with agency and a sense of “I’ve earned the right to speak up and be heard.”
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Which brings me to the new Disney Cruella. It’s an amazing movie and I endorse it wholeheartedly. It’s 2+ hours of captivating entertainment and if, for nothing else, to get you back to the theater or to stream on Disney + for $29.99 (Premium), it carries with it the the allure of Emma Stone (Superbad, La La Land, Spiderman movies with Andrew Garfield, etc.) surfacing from her quasi retirement, to dazzle us with late-aughts feels so we can reminisce about how fun it is to watch her come alive again, even when she’s doing an over-the-top British accent as Cruella.
If ever there was a Disney villain who deserved a better cover story or at least a better rep, it’s Cruella De Vil. She’s been demonized since the 60s, when Disney made the animated film 101 Dalmatians and the reign of her terror extended to the movie reboot from 2000 and into The Descendants.
Cruella’s back story dating to all of her early depictions is as a mad fashion designer/heiress who stole puppies for sport but really for business - to make her Dalmatian coats. She proudly wore her fur coats, sauntered when she walked, and carried her cigarette holder wherever she went. She had two “imbecile” men, Horace and Jasper, who worked for her and did her bidding stealing dogs and locking them away.
The reimagining of the origin story for Cruella in the movie Cruella as directed by Craig Gillespie, takes a drastic sharp turn from the original novel, The Hundred and One Dalmatians, written by twin English sisters, Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone (daughters of a costume designer). In the novel, Cruella is never “good”- She’s depicted as pampered and privileged (perhaps an original “Karen”) with a streak of “bad.” And “bad” not translating to “naughty” but more in the sense of a pathology.
In the film, Cruella is born “Estella” and she is reborn Cruella thru the cruelty of life, loss and circumstance. Estella’s kind and sweet mother is killed at the paws of dalmatians and Estella witnesses this act as a young girl. She then becomes a street urchin and grifter along with Horace and Jasper, two other kids like Estella without parents.
Estella tries her best to be good and conform and be the person her adopted mom (spoiler alert) would want to her to be. She says “please” and “thank you.” She doesn’t make messes so there’s not a lot of clean up, though she goes on some pretty elaborate heists with Jasper and Horace. But there’s zero self-fulfillment in the sense that she doesn’t really get what she wants either. She wants to design dresses and be known.
Cruella, on the other hand, is a crazy, brilliant fashion designing genius. She takes what she wants and who she wants and makes a fashion rebel statement everywhere she goes. It’s enthralling and hypnotic but she slowly devolves into a narcissist and starts to treat her “family” of Horace and Jasper pretty terribly.
Emma Thompson as “The Baroness” fits the role of villain quite well. She’s everything Estella is not and Cruella eventually becomes though we secretly hope not, even though we know better because we know where 101 Dalmatians picks up. The baroness is a savvy businesswoman with “killer instincts” and is unapologetically rude without a care for anyone else. She, like a budding Cruella, is also the ultimate narcissist who proudly tries to have Cruella offed on multiple occasions. She’s out for numero uno. As she relays to Estella/Cruella at a celebratory lunch where they are celebrating the Baroness’ upcoming Spring collection and its signature dress which she believes Estella has created, “If it’s her [Cruella] or me, I pick me.”
In the end, however, fate can only choose one Disney Karen and as it so turns out, it’s the heiress to the Hellman throne that proudly wears the title of benefactor of “Hell House” We feel OK about this as Estella is laid to a permanent rest and Cruella is born because as Stone teases us at the movie’s close, “She’s got ideas.” And we know from experience, her ideas are worth entertaining and by the end of the movie, so does everyone else.