So, in celebration of the release of Disney’s Maleficent, we present to you Disney’s OTHER Best Villains.
It is the initial buffoonish presentation of Gaston early in the film that makes him so unsettling as a villain. His self-titled villain song is bombastic and ridiculous, and throughout Beauty and the Beast, he doesn’t seem intelligent or sinister enough to be considered a real threat. But then he leads the mob in an attack against the Beast, purely because Belle rejected his advances, and Gaston suddenly becomes horrifying. Particularly in the current climate, where rejection from a woman has led a man to mass murder, the reality of Gaston’s villainous deeds hits hard.
The Coachman is perhaps the most horrifying and evil of all Disney villains, and the main reason for this is, he never gets his comeuppance. The Coachman is a man who tricks wayward boys into sinning at the so-called “Pleasure Island”, where the boys eventually turn into donkeys and are forced to work to the death in the salt mines, except for the poor boys who regain their voice and consciousness, who remain trapped in a pen crying for their mothers. The Coachman’s terrifying, devilish face as he claims that the boys will never come back “as boys” has haunted children for generations. But it is the fact that he is never caught that is most terrifying. Yes, Pinocchio is rescued and becomes a real boy, but what of Lampwick and the other boys who are never rescued, worked to death? And with the Coachman still out there, how many other boys will join them?
Yzma, voiced by the legendary Eartha Kitt, joins Hades as one of the funniest of all Disney villains. Along with her bumbling sidekick Kronk, her plots are more hapless than sinister. Likewise, her fate, to be turned into a tiny kitten rather than meet a horrific death, seems tame. But her place on this list is down to a winning vocal performance by Eartha Kitt, and a smart, funny, almost slapstick script that gives Yzma (and Kronk) plenty of time to shine.
Unfairly overlooked for being a 2D Disney animation in the CGI era, The Princess and the Frog is a delight, with one of the most charismatic villains of the Disney canon in Dr Facilier. Voiced by Keith David, Facilier is essentially an amalgamation of Disney’s greatest hits, with the charisma of Hades, the scheming of Scar, and the terrifying demise of Frollo. But despite this, he is wholly unique, thanks to David’s wonderful vocal performance and an incredibly atmospheric and catchy villain number in Friends on the Other Side. Facilier was truly a Disney villain for the new millennium, but one who is sadly, frequently forgotten.
Judge Claude Frollo is, without doubt, Disney’s greatest villain, and the reasons for this are numerous. Firstly, Frollo is voiced by the late, great Tony Jay, a man who can inject villainy and hypocrisy into his every syllable (see also his work as the villain Megabyte in Reboot). Secondly, his villain song, Hellfire, is one of the most, adult, complex, and stunning in all of the Disney canon, and was recently the focus of a Monthly Musical Moment on this very site. But it is Frollo the character who we must discuss here. Frollo’s villainy is so great because it is so human, and therefore disturbing. Like Gaston, Frollo’s most evil deeds stem from Esmeralda’s rejection of him, but Frollo takes things to a whole other level. Not only has he already been emotionally and physically abusing Quasimodo throughout his life, not only did he murder Quasimodo’s mother on the church steps, but he offers Esmeralda the ultimatum of either sleeping with him or burning at the stake. So Frollo is a murderer and an attempted rapist, and yet still claims to be a man of the cloth. It is this last fact that is the worst of all, as Frollo believes that his every action is justified. His lust for Esmeralda is her fault for being a sinning gypsy, tempting him away from his religious devotion, and he quotes the Bible as he’s about to bring a sword down upon Quasimodo and Esmeralda. Frollo is without doubt the most complex, and most incredible, of Disney villains.