Disney just released their trailer for Cruella, the Emma Stone starring live-action prequel to 101 Dalmatians. Let me put it right here, so you can watch it. None of what I’m about to say will make sense if you haven’t seen it.
Okay, so
What the fuck?
First off, and I know this is old hat, but: Cruella de Vil is a frankly wild person to get Disney’s “sympathetic prequel” treatment. Malificent was a blank slate. It’s easy to graft anything onto her, because she was essentially just a scary special effect. But Cruella de Vil? We all know what Cruella de Vil’s thing was. It’s really easy to understand. She wanted to skin more than one hundred puppies to make a coat.
Again: She wanted to murder puppies. En masse. For novelty clothing.
Now, it is both possible and even healthy to have the ability to sympathize with anyone. Not to forgive them, but to understand them. To see where they’re coming from, even if it has led them to a monstrous place.
But that requires a profound amount of nuance. To be able to understand a person and still condemn them clearly and powerfully is challenging. And Disney does not — cannot — make challenging films.
Jokerfy me
Joker was a huge hit. It was also a deeply stupid and creatively bankrupt movie, as Screenrex owner/writer Kyle Pinion wrote in his review titled, “JOKER is deeply stupid and creatively bankrupt.” Nailed it Kyle.
But it was successful, financially. And that means that knock-offs were inevitable. But I did not expect that the first high profile one would come from Disney. Or that it would be about Cruella de Vil.
And I’ll be honest: It probably isn’t. I’d be shocked if the movie was as dour and mean-spirited as Joker was. I genuinely don’t believe Disney capable of making a movie like that, and while I don’t like Joker, please do not think that is a compliment towards Disney. As I mentioned above, Disney is too attached to its own brand, and that brand is light, family friendly, easily digestible. They flatten complex stories into fairy tales with morals that are easy to grasp.
Part of the cultural staying power of Joker is that it is definitively not that. It is a messy movie, with messy emotions and no control over them. And Disney typically tries not to do that. But what does a flattened Cruella de Vil movie look like?
Again: What the fuck?
Look, the movie isn’t out yet. Maybe Craig Gillespie, director of I, Tonya, actually can walk that balancing beam. He (arguably) did so with that film. The trailer paints a picture as Cruella as an underdog girlboss coming up against — and trying to take over — a world of glitz and glamour. Normally, that would be an… okay hook for a fairly tale, I guess. And, of course, trailers lie. Who knows what will actually be there when the movie gets released in May? (It absolutely will not be released in May)
And yet, not to harp on this, but Cruella de Vil has exactly one trait in our shared pop culture imagination: Murdering puppies. But it’s important to remember.
Because Maleficent and Ursula were in an arguably political fight. They’re outside of the power structure, fighting someone who is within it, protected by it. There is a thin space there for a empathetic wedge, and Disney movies are okay with empathy. They want you to feel for their protagonists, not to understand but condemn them.
Cruella de Vil has no such space. She is the system. She is the power structure. And what she has decided to use her power for is stealing from workers and killing animals.
It’s not that she’s irredeemable; it’s that she’s nothing. There’s nothing special or rebellious about her. Society kills animals for food and clothes all the time. Sure, puppies are a step above that, but not by much. The rich steal from society relentlessly. Again: Dogs make it more personal, but not really more special.
Cruella de Vil is like Gaston: An everyday monster. The kind of privileged, highkey asshole you might meet in your day-to-day life, the sort who makes everything around them just that much worse. And I just do not see what the appeal of showing them as the hero, not just of their own story but of the narrative of a film, is. Who does this appeal to?
I guess we’ll find out
Cruella comes out (ostensibly) on May 28th, 2021. We’ll see about that. No word on whether this will be a theatrical exclusive or will co-release streaming.
Also no word on which Screenrex writer will be reviewing it. I’m deeply concerned that it will end up being me.