Introduction

The cicadas’ songs ripple through the leaves, and the heat of the earth settles in between the trees like a familiar breath. Outside it is a warm, loud summer night. Inside though, there is only the faint whisper of my own breathing and the Queen of Heart’s hushed screams. My face, weak with the effort of keeping my eyes open, is streaked with fat, glistening tears. My heart is a pinball in my chest, and I know it will burst if Alice does not make it out of Wonderland. When she finally wakes up I am sure that we both have barely escaped certain death. 

I run up the stairs and bury myself in the cool folds of my bed, terrified that an army of playing cards will storm in behind me. In that same year, I will be a pink and glittery rendition of Princess Jasmine for Halloween. I will give my momma a thirty-minute lecture on why I think villains should be allowed in to the House of Mouse too… sometimes. There are many things that hold sacred places in my heart: good macaroni and cheese, toothy smiles, red lipstick, and Biggie Smalls’ joints. But I have long known that Li Shang, “A Whole New World,” and the wonderful thing about Tiggers are more than songs and characters that I find cute and catchy. Disney has shaped a large part of who I am, and although I cannot recall every character’s name or belt every song from heart, I consider myself more than a fan of Disney princesses. I consider the movies, shows, and songs that have decorated both my childhood and heart home.

                I did not only enroll in Writing 101: Decoding Disney because its growing notoriety as the best freshman writing class on campus. I did not enroll in this class solely because there is absolutely nothing I would rather do during my time at Duke than watch the cinematic masterpiece that is Aladdin for homework. I enrolled because the question of what we, as individuals and as a society, define as evil is one that I ask myself every day. Studying villainy will not only be fun and intriguing, it will show me what my own moral, values, and perspectives are, and hopefully by the end of this course I will see the Queen of Hearts in a different way than I did a decade ago.

                In this class we’ll get an opportunity to study all of the ideas, opinions, and themes that can be found about villainy and evil in the different films that I grew up with. I am interested in learning if we view some villains differently, kinder or harsher, than others. I am interested in the different traits, actions, and criteria that will be used to define villainy across the different movies, and how some villains differ from others. I want to explore why I am the number one fan of villains in some movies, but not in Disney movies (with the exception of Hades because we could honestly be best friends). At nineteen years of life, studying movies from my childhood in one of my first college classes seems like a great way to become a better writer, and to learn myself better as well.