The Case Against Disabled Villains

Ableism isn't something that's always in your face and obvious. It can be subconcious, too, and that leads to things like this or disabled people not being considered when buildings are planned, etc.

Social Justice Resources:
-
-

Personal Links:

[nomisunrider]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the most notable thing about Vader in my opinion, and that's the fact that the reveal of his horribly scarred face in ROTJ takes a trope that's normally used for horror (oh the villain has a facial difference, how disgusting!) and instead makes it into a humanizing moment. It's the transition from the invincible killer robot Vader to the very human and vulnerable Anakin, and his scars are the proof that he is a person and not a machine. This is what a hero looks like: anemic, torn, struggling to breathe, and eyes full of love. It's such a beautiful subversion and I wish we had more examples of it, disability as an affirmation of humanity.

[pink_parade]

The issue of good guys having tiny scars was one of the main things I hated in the Mortal Engines movie. In the books, Hester is scarred as a child and ends up with an enormous gash going through her entire face. The movie decided that was too much and decided to just give her a tiny nick on the edge of her mouth. It made me furious.

[SqualorOpera]

Trust me besties. If I become a villain, it will not be motivated by my being disabled. It will be motivated by my unending desire for attention and my longing to wear a cool long villain dress and have a giant pet snake that I sic on bigots.

[mr.outlaw]

The whole "The Villain has a point, but let's not do anything about it" is a cliche that I absolutely hate. Then again, it make sense. The vast majority of heroes aren't people of virtue or people with case-by-case decision making. They are enforcers of the statue quo. They are soldiers for the world that we know instead of the world that could be. Even if the villain has a point, because they are "breaking the law, " the heroes are going to beat them up. I honestly think V from V for Vendetta could be portrayed as a bad guy in a Marvel movie.

[rosiex]

People always remember that Anakin has a prosthetic arm but never Luke, even though Luke loosing his hand is way more iconic in movie history. I think people tend to forget because they always just put a glove over their hand/arm so they don't have to green screen it in all the time. It could be nice seeing Luke with his metal hand on display more.

[azazelreeds]

I feel like part of what makes Vader work in the original trilogy is how little attention is actually drawn to the fact he is disabled in the first place. If Obi-Wan didn't make the remark about him being 'more machine than man now' I don't think very many people would have even caught on to the fact he was disabled in the first movie. The breathing mechanic could have just as easily been just a plain old space suit respirator instead of life support. He's scary and the clear villain because he's this massive armored man in black strutting around, not because of any obvious visual deformities. Plus that line and the one scene in Empire are the only times it's referenced, and in both fairly minor scenes. The only major instance is when it does become plot relevant at the end when Luke is fighting him on the Death Star, and even then you could argue Luke doing to Vader what Vader did to Luke at the end of Empire was more important than the actual fact they were mutually disabled. Vader works fairly well (to me. obviously people might disagree) is because he is a villain that happens to be disabled rather than a disabled villain. If that makes any sense.

[snowwhite]

Yeah, I wouldn’t mind if they just like happened to be disabled? Like show an inhaler on Mr Bad Dude’s nightstand, idc, but I want the disability or scarring motivated villainy to just stop. I think ATLA turned the latter on it’s head with Zuko: Zuko’s scar tells us not how bad he is, but how much of a villain Ozai is to have done it to his son. And Zuko comes around eventually anyways.

[yakubduncan]

I think there's an interesting issue when the disability or especially facial disfigurements are the result of their villainy (e.g. in Wonder Woman, the facial scars are, I think, implied to be a result of her experiments with poison gas).

That allows for some plausible deniability (i.e. it's diagetically a consequence of their villainy, not just arbitrary of a motivator for it), but it not only reinforces ugly=evil (or more accurately evil -> ugly), but it also implies that the kind of danger the heroes put themselves through is fundamentally different (i.e. heroism -> sexy scars, evil -> ugly scars).

Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Wayfairers series by Becky Chambers, since it has multiple disabled characters (in a sci-fi space setting, no less), and also broad themes of body autonomy and societal provision for different bodies which are interesting from a disabled perspective.

[CelestiaLily]

The fact that Anakin had a small scar across the eye and an easily-covered prosthetic right up until he got flambéd very much fits in line with the idea of "heroic" facial differences being minimized for cool factor...

idk if I'm reading this right, but his decision to not wear the glove at his secret wedding with Padmé (showing the metal prosthetic openly) was likely meant as some sort of "omen" about their future. There was even a bizarre take that Anakin losing his limbs literally reduced his Force capabilities due to having less midichlorians in his body.

That said, Anakin's body basically being a battlefield & playground for abuse is another conversation entirely. What does it mean to have a bomb embedded in your bones since birth? What does it mean that your childhood groomer, your manipulative abuser, exerts *total* control over your medical health (including a literal "off-switch") as a means to further deny your own personhood? Like that's a whole new swamp to wade thru

[aceofspades]

It’s concerning how disabilities are given to villains as a trait to make them seem less human. Villains can be written in very human ways where even if they’re the bad guy they’re still clearly a person who’s the hero of their own story, but many villains tend to be simply monsters, even if they’re physically human. Facial differences are a big example of this, as it’s used to play into the trope of “ugly=evil” where anyone who isn’t traditionally attractive must be evil; villains can be traditionally attractive, but anyone who isn’t isn’t allowed to be anything but a villain. When people use facial differences or scarring to make their villain “ugly” enough to be clearly evil it’s just the writer loudly proclaiming that they think people with facial differences or scars are ugly which is just very disrespectful. Other disabilities are usually used to separate the villain from everyone else, to other them and make it clear they’re different, and since they’re the villain and many times their disability is why they are the villain that othering is meant to show that they’re bad because they’re different, which implies that everyone who’s different in that way is or will be bad. It goes without saying that these are horrible messages that do a lot of harm to a lot of people, being disabled or looking different doesn’t dictate your morality, lazy writers just try to find ways to make it externally obvious who their villain is and who we should root against without considering the real people they’re hurting by using these traits as their signifiers for evil.

[RubyDaLynx]

It's okay for villains to be disabled in some way. What's not okay is presenting them in a way which shows that they're evil BECAUSE they're disabled. Having a villain with a disability could work as a great tool to humanize them, the problem is that most authors use it to do the exact opposite.
So it's not really about what conditions the villain has, it's about using them correctly. The hero could be disabled too, or neither of them. My advice is, as long as you're respectful do your research and you'll be fine in my book

[hollydillon]

the dark lord on life support has not been good my self esteem. i'm on a ventilator and i've never seen anyone like me who isn't a villain.

[hiddenechoes]

Whenever villainy is tied to appearance the line "Who is the monster and who is the man" from Hunchback of Notre Dom then the song "Hellfire/Heaven's Light" booms in the back of my brain.
I blame the fact that it's the first movie I remember seeing with a disfigured character. The soundtrack constantly pops into my brain at opportune and inopportune times.

Love this video, as always.

[Rapidashisaunicorn]

Okay now I really want a rich, disabled villain who’s whole thing is seeking out some rare, single-use cure and the (probably also disable, but working class) heroes come along and go “wtf fuck dude?! You have all this money, just fix the systemic issues in society instead. Add more ramps and subtitles and a subsidized prescription drug program”

[quen_anito]

Would be nice to have a disable villain that, through a serendipitous twist, the heroes end up empathizing with and understanding the virtues of their struggle. Even if at time it led them to be pitted against each other with mortal consequences. And through various acts of solidarity and rehabilitation, they learn to forgive each other and fight against a much bigger bad.

[cynthiabrogan]

Hear me out: disabled villain who’s redemption arc is learning not to hate their disability while the hero goes on to be a politician/lobbyist who fights for the benefit of disabled people but not in an abled-savior way more of a “this will make my new friend have a better life so we can go get tacos!” kinda way

[Bluesonofman]

Vader drew his strength from the fact he was in so much pain. He got injured because he became evil. He’s not evil because of his injuries. Other villains need to have their disabilities be more thought out.

[ryanratchford]

Having both the hero & villain have the same disability & show how morally neutral disabilities are. And that the good guys isn't doing war crimes because they're upset about their disability so much that they use it to do evil.

[BlindStarLily]

Proud to say that the characters I have as heroes with facial scarring do not fall into the, “Scarred but still conventionally attractive for the sake of the ablebodied audience, ” trope. One of them is refered to as, “The Decomposer, ” and is the angel of rot, decay and putrefaction. She is very obviously disabled because her body is literally rotting away. She has an eye missing, patches of hair are gone, her teeth are visible through one side of her face, etc.
The other is a nurse who’s face was badly disfigured when she was attacked by a monster as a child. Her whole thing was that she used to be considered the most beautiful girl in her village until her face was messed up, so she’s been on both sides of the coin, being beautiful and vapid, and being considered ugly and bitter. From this, she’s grown, and I’m seriously proud of how both have effected her character wise, making her more empathetic and genuinely kind to others.

ETA — I also wanted to add something about the angel—Her name’s Thana btw. Her wings don’t work at all and actually act as a burden to her since, due to their large size, they’re extremely heavy and, since they’ve basically died completely, they sort of just drag behind her when she walks. They’re constantly cause her bad pain and will occasionally twitch from time to time.
I’m honestly so genuinely proud of her entire vibe. One of her arms, from fingertips to just below the elbow, is completely skeletal, and she has these leg braces she wears to keep her upright in case one of her bones rots to the point of snapping while she works. Pretty much, whenever she begins causing something to rot, the same effect is thrown back at her. This is based somewhat in Biblical lore, so she’s been doing this for as long as things have decayed, meaning millions of years of this (Or thousands depending on if it’s viewed as subscribing to the earth being 6000 years old. It’s up for interpretation.) But either way, a long, long time. If I ever start posting, I might write and narrate a quick story about her sometime.

[videocrowsnest]

On Vader (and Star Wars as a whole): Even Emperor Palpatine, his master, fits the "disabled villain on life support" trope if you examine the lore. He is the emperor of the galaxy, and pretty much a very powerful, very evil space wizard for those unfamiliar with his thing, yet is super shocked that he was able to at one point just walk without the use of the dark side of the force despite being able to melt peoples faces off with his dark sidery. Heck - Most Sith (and dark siders) you could argue fit this trope, because the dark side ravages their bodies in ever-increasing increments the more power they gain via it. For most Sith, as well as for Palpatine, their evil has nothing to do with what he has going on body wise, and more to do with the fact they are just enjoys being evil, so they are really cruel and selfish individuals.
But now that I think we've had that niche with villains such as Vader, or Emperor Palpatine very well covered, I think fellow creators, writers, and artists alike should do what we do best and be creative. Why copy and redo this, when there is a world of unused ideas out there that do not feed ableism by using villains with disabilities in the prior mentioned way?