Witches are no longer scary: Why children’s films don’t want villains

Maleficent, Cruella de Vil, Ursula, Jafar, Hook, Scar… The classic villains of fairy tales — particularly those born from Disney’s animation studio — are nearly as iconic as the heroes and princesses who inhabit their lavish palaces. But it’s now rare to hear a villain’s evil laughter, or to see a scheme stepmother delighting in tormenting a cure animal or a little girl.

Today, it’s more common for an animated movie to tackle abstract antagonists, like a girl’s insecurity, family pressures (Strange World, Encanto), puberty (Turning Red), the challenge of being different (Luca), personal discovery, or even parental divorce. In some cases, these narratives delve into the backstories that shaped classic villains, as seen in Wicked or Mufasa: The Lion King. The face of evil in children’s stories has changed.

Take Moana 2, now the fourth highest-grossing film of 2024 worldwide. Its villain is a god who never appears on screen and ultimately manifests as a storm, merely an obstacle that stops the heroes from advancing. Similarly, Netflix’s Christmas release, Spellbound, which aims to recapture the magic of classic Disney princesses, pits its protagonist against her parents’ separation rather than a traditional foe. It seems no coincidence that Skydance, the Madrid-based production company behind the feature film, is led by John Lasseter, the founder of Pixar — the studio that first broke the archetype of traditional villains in the 1990s. Toy Story pioneered this shift, a transformation that has since evolved alongside broader social changes.

“I think we are overprotective of children, but in the wrong way: hiding, concealing... in a certain sense, censoring,” says Pilar Núñez Delgado, professor in the Department of Language and Literature Education at the University of Granada. “We know they consume audiovisual content without parental guidance (violence, sex...), yet no one seems willing to address that. In stories, we’ve managed to discuss topics like same-sex parents and periods, so it makes no sense to avoid addressing negative feelings or selfish, cruel, or unsupportive behaviors they will inevitably encounter,” explains Núñez, an expert in children’s literature.

She also notes that many traditional tales, which inspired modern films, included life lessons rooted in evil. “Warnings against wolves — read: older predatory men — are metaphors in Little Red Riding Hood. Over time, these texts have evolved, diluting their didactic content to reflect the values of the era,” she elaborates via email.

Ana Garralón, a scholar of children’s literature, supports this view: “There has been a great loss of symbolic elements in contemporary children’s literature, and this affects figures that have traditionally embodied evil. Ambivalent prose and the power of symbolic imagery are lost.”

Villains were often stereotypes that compelled the hero to look inward and grow, culminating in a climactic confrontation. This alter ego could serve as a metaphor for the hero’s darkest side, or appear as a clumsy, exaggerated figure we loved to watch fail. Their songs were often the most entertaining, and their perfectly crafted evilness helped make a complex script more accessible.

The documentary Into the Unknown, which delves into the making of Frozen II, reveals that because the script did not have a clear confrontation, there were weeks of third-act rewrites without a clear creative direction. Test audiences criticized the “lack of clarity” when abstract elements served as the enemy. In Frozen, the villain was never particularly popular, as the central plot focused instead on Elsa’s journey to independence and finding her own voice.

Psychologist Jaime Burque, author of Film Therapy, believes this evolution is positive: “Today’s society adds nuance, depth, and reflection to children’s education. The bad guy is no longer simplified into a single character; the conflict is transferred to more realistic and human elements like insecurity, fear, prejudices, and trauma,” he notes. He first observed this shift in Shrek, where the role reversal appealed to him both “as a viewer tired of boring and stereotypical Disney stories, and as a therapist.”

Inside Out based its success on personifying these abstract emotions. The villain in its box-office sequel was Anxiety, but the solution was simply learning to coexist with it. “Many emotional issues — depression, dependencies, prejudices, resentments, and personal conflicts — stem from a rigid, dichotomous view of life: good vs. bad, success vs. failure. These paradigm shifts in cinema offer a healthier perspective on the world around us. It almost seems like Pixar’s screenwriters are also psychologists,” says Burque, who also highlights Wall-E and Monsters, Inc. as other examples of how to shift the focus on the villain, along with the work of Hayao Miyazaki.

This evolution has also given rise to family films that seek to explain the origins of evil. After Disney’s success with the backstories of villains like Maleficent and Cruella (who were simply misunderstood), and Despicable Me, Wicked is now dominating the box office, offering a reimagined tale of the witch from The Wizard of Oz. It presents her as a character persecuted by hate speech and the political lies of a repressive state.

“If a green witch does something bad (she could be a Black woman or a Moroccan immigrant), we are not goint to think about how that happened. She is condemned and prejudiced for life,” adds Burque. He further explains, “Starting from biased stereotypes means we risk failing to objectively and analytically assess behavior. Understanding the causes and circumstances behind people’s actions helps us empathize with others, avoid prejudice, and take fairer, more assertive, and equitable actions toward them.”

However, Núñez cautions that there are risks to this transformation, which also applies to characters like Scar from The Lion King or the misunderstood villains in Zootopia and Raya and the Last Dragon. “It’s like saying a murderer becomes one solely because of the circumstances they faced in childhood. Not everyone who suffers in childhood becomes a criminal, and this view gives undue weight to one aspect of a person’s experience while neglecting others: education or affection can prevent someone from becoming violent, even if they had a troubled childhood.”

Today’s villains must all have understandable origins or the potential for redemption. In this shift, Disney+ has made The Descendants — a TV series about the reintegration of the children of classic villains — one of its flagship franchises.

The professor acknowledges the “goodness” in this change: “A hidden power may seem less aggressive — because it’s less tangible — than a person who acts maliciously, making it easier to incorporate. It’s part of political correctness. But with tact and empathy, you can talk about everything, and it should be done naturally and without moralism. It’s not about moralizing or indoctrinating, but about encouraging critical thinking. Critical citizenship doesn’t emerge from the abstract, but in everyday situations and actions.”

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