Matt Walsh Explains Why These Movie Villains Were Right
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
177.15976
Summary
Disney villains get a bad rap, but in many cases they are misunderstood, misconstrued, and misused. Here s a list of 5 Disney villains who were actually right all along. 1. Bambi 2. Scar 3. Lion King 4. Mufasa 5. Simba
Transcript
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So we all know that Disney movies these days are hopelessly woke and basically awful in
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every way. I'm a narcissist. Weird. Weird. And that's why most people think back fondly to
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like the old days at Disney. They pine for the classics. I understand that mentality but
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the truth is that even older Disney movies have issues. The problem is that in those films in
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many cases the alleged villains are treated I think very unfairly. They get a bad rap. In many
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cases they are misunderstood, misconstrued. I only wanted to help. And look maybe it's just my
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overabundance of empathy and compassion. You know it gets me into a lot of trouble sometimes and
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maybe that's what allows me to see it this way. But either way today in this very important video
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we're going to talk about Disney villains who were actually right all along. So we'll go through
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five movies. Number one is Bambi. Wake up. We have company. Now first of all I've never met a child
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who actually likes this movie. I don't know anyone my age who liked Bambi growing up. Bambi is
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one of the weakest films in the Disney canon. And yet it's viewed as a classic because it
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happened to be released in the 40s. Although it could have been released last year based on the
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fact that the villains in this movie are the hunters who shot Bambi's mom.
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There you are. File away. Oh good shot boy, good shot. But they were obviously entirely justified in
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doing so. First of all because venison is delicious. Those hunters I'm guessing made some
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great venison steaks. Maybe some deer jerky out of Bambi's mom. Which is a fact that could have
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brought Bambi some comfort and solace if anyone had explained it to him but they never did. Second,
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deer populations are out of control in this country. Like they wreak havoc in ecosystems.
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They cause 1.5 million car crashes a year, including hundreds of fatalities. So deer hunters are
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performing a service and yet they've been villainized in a movie that generations of bored children have
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been forced to watch. Think about this. If Bambi's mom had not been shot and killed, she may have gone
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on to like run into the road one night. Causing a family returning home from dinner to veer off into
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a tree and die. Whole family. Dead. Think about that. Number two is Lion King. Now I'm not saying that
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Scar is the good guy in that film. I'm not justifying what he did. Like killing your brother
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trying to kill your nephew is inappropriate. I don't condone it.
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But all I'm saying is that, you know, I think the character deserves a bit more sympathy than he gets.
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Okay? I don't want to get into the nature versus nurture debate, but when you name your child Scar,
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you can't complain when he becomes a villain. Especially if we have one kid that you name Mufasa.
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So what did you expect? Also, I'm not saying that Mufasa deserves to be thrown off a cliff,
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but there's a fundamental, like, moral dishonesty to Mufasa that I've, that I always found deeply
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troubling. Even as a child, the first time I saw it, I even said to my parents, there's a fundamental
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moral dishonesty in this film, mom and dad. I said that to them. And here's why. He eats his own
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subjects. Okay, one minute, they're all celebrating the birth of his son. You know, they're bringing
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gifts or whatever they're sharing. And the next, they don't show this in the film, but Mufasa is
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hunting them down and consuming them. And by the way, lions eat their prey alive. That's how lions
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eat. That's how Mufasa treated his subjects. And then he has the audacity to get all high and mighty
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towards Scar. Like, you can understand Scar's resentment. And to make matters worse, they acknowledge
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it in the movie. So Simba asks his dad. Dad, don't we eat the antelope? They were just at our baby shower
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and now, like, we eat them. And that's, that's kind of not cool. And Mufasa says, well, son, that's okay
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because it's part of the circle of life. When we die, our bodies become the grass and the antelope
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eat the grass. Okay, but that is not the same thing at all. That is not an even trait. So give me a
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break. And also your body doesn't even become grass. So that's bullshit to begin with. And I'm not
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holding it against the lion for being a lion. I'm just saying that there's arguably a certain
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intellectual integrity in Scar's outlook and behavior that you don't find with Mufasa. That's my point.
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Number three is Pocahontas. This is an obvious one. The villains in this movie are the evil white
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Europeans who are portrayed as brutal, greedy barbarians, oppressing the innocent Native
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Americans who are all kind and generous and so in touch with nature they can literally talk to the
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trees. Somehow everybody speaks perfect English, including the trees. This is like the noble savage
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myth put the film. It's also really, we talk about wokeness in Disney films. This was the beginning
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But you could argue that that march began with the vegetarian propaganda of Bambi. But in any case,
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the white settlers in reality were courageous and intrepid pioneers, not villains.
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We build roads and decent houses and... Our houses are fine. You think that only because you don't
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know any better. So that's an easy one. Number four is Snow White. Now this is another case where I'm
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not so much claiming that the evil queen was wholly justified in her actions. I'm simply suggesting
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that the situation is a bit more nuanced. There's some nuance, there's some complexity, okay?
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Did Snow White deserve to be poisoned with an apple? No. But does she also bear some responsibility
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for eating an apple offered to her by a random old woman who showed up at her window laughing
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Just the woman shows up at the window and says, hey, do you want an apple? And she never says,
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who are you? What are you? Why? Um, excuse me, what the actual f*** are you doing in my house?
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This woman's walking around the forest, randomly handing out apples. There's no question. She just
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takes it and eats it. Doesn't bother washing it in the sink. So it's hard for me to feel sorry for.
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And for the record, you should never eat anything if the person offering it is laughing while they
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hand it to you. Never mind if it's an evil laugh. I don't care if it's any kind of laugh.
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And never mind that they're at your window in the middle of the day for no reason.
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Not to mention the fact that the whole Snow White fairy tale is really about home invasion and
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burglary. Uh, this woman barges into the home of these clearly mentally disabled old men,
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Jiminy Crickets, who aren't even half her size, makes herself at home.
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Now, eventually the dwarves grow attached to her. So you might say, oh, they're friends.
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No, they were, they were terrified when they first got away. Like anybody would be. You get home and
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there's this giant, like sleeping on your bed, all of your beds that she's helped herself to. Of
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course you're going to be, anyone would be scared. And they were scared, but eventually this kind of
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Stockholm syndrome takes effect. And, uh, and, and they become friends. And then when she dies,
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they put her in a glass coffin because they somehow had a full size glass coffin lying around,
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which makes you question their motives, frankly. And they display her body for several days until a
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prince who has never met her before. Okay. Shows up out of nowhere, kisses this woman who for all he
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knows has been dead for days. And this is, this is back when they didn't have like the preservation of
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the body. Nothing was done to preserve the body. There could be some, you know, decomposing. I mean,
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and he starts just kissing this dead woman. It's very dark. It's a very morbid story. When you think
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about it, like an insane person, which means the evil queen is maybe still evil, but her action should
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at least be understood in proper context. And maybe you could argue that she even was an advocate
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for private property rights. And that's why she was so upset at Snow White. I don't, you know,
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that's one interpretation. Number five, finally, is Beauty and the Beast. Now we've talked about this
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before. I consider it to be one of the most important issues that I discuss. It probably
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deserves to be the subject of its own documentary. Gaston is the quintessential villain who was
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actually the hero of the story. And I will insist on this until my dying breath. We're supposed to
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hate Gaston from the beginning because why? He's manly and in good shape. He eats a lot of eggs.
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Is that his crime? What has he done wrong? It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts
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getting ideas and thinking. They never explain it. And the anti-Gaston propaganda is laid on thick from
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the very beginning. But even in spite of that, it's clear who the real protagonist is. We see Gaston
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early in the film. What a pleasant surprise. Right? He's dressed to the nines. He visits Bell to
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propose marriage. Say you'll marry me. And he's obviously an advocate of traditional marriage and
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the nuclear family. He even says that. He makes a pitch for the nuclear family, traditional marriage
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to Bell. He's explaining. We'll have six or seven dogs. No, Bell. Strapping boys like me. You know,
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he wants to have children. He wants to have a family. It's a very lovely thing. Bell turns him down
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and pushes him into a mud pit. Total humiliation. And yet by the end, Gaston is still willing to risk
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his life to rescue this woman, this woman who humiliated him from the clutches of a beast.
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And how did Beauty end up in that situation? Yeah, she initially went to the beast castle to save her
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dad or whatever, I think. How did you find me? But she had many opportunities to escape after that
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point. Like, she could have just walked out. I mean, she was in the prison cell and then she's
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invited to dinner. And from that point on, she doesn't go back to the prison cell. So she could
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have left anytime. Anytime. But she stays because she ends up falling in love with a non-human creature
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who looks kind of like an evil water buffalo. Keep something in mind. Bell didn't know that the
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beast was really a human prince. She had no idea about that. Okay? That's true. Look up on the...
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You can go back and watch the movie. She never is aware of that fact. That was just luck of the
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draw. So as far as she knew, she was entering into a romantic relationship with a member of
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another species. That's a simple fact. Now, of course, poor Gaston, he didn't know about any of
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this. He didn't know that the beast was really a prince. He didn't know that the woman of his dreams
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had fallen in love with a giant mutant mountain goat. All he knew from his perspective was that Beauty
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had been imprisoned by a monster. Her own dad told Gaston that...
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And so he rallies the troops. He marches off to fight for her and save her. This is the villain of
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the story? The man who ultimately gave his very life for the woman he loved? And the monster who
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kidnapped a young woman is supposed to be the one we're rooting for?
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That's just wrong. And I won't stand for it. So thank you for spending 10 minutes watching this
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piece of content. It was obviously very important and well worth your time. And mine.