AIBU to wish that movies would stop giving villains disfigurements or scars?

[SpotandDot]

For full disclosure I haven't yet seen the new Bond Movie but yet again we have a villain with facial disfigurement/scarring. Why do so many movies have to use this as a sign of evil? It just enhances the stereotypes of people with disfigurements as evil or people to be feared. It's becoming terribly tedious.

AIBU?

I agree, @SpotandDot - and I think it is actually more scary to make villains look ordinary - the thought that anyone could be evil, and most villains don’t have some big, flashing sign proclaiming their villainy.

@Shelddd

You sound like a lot of fun

And you sound like an absolute idiot.

To be clear I’m very scarred but not facially - I thought it was quite funny in the amount of times random blokes have thought it was acceptable to ask what caused my scars!

YANBU OP

@Budapestdreams

YANBU. Shakespeare used disfigurement to indicate that someone was a bad person. We should have moved on.

It's like the subtle sexism and racism, it seeps into our collective subconscious that how we look on the outside reflects what sort of person we are on the inside.

Very much agree.

YANBU OP. Haven't seen it yet but these subliminal messages are everywhere, especially the entertainment industry.

@HesterShaw1 I’m halfway through the first book and I think she’s brilliant!

[quote TheSockMonster]@HesterShaw1 I’m halfway through the first book and I think she’s brilliant![/quote]
She's very kickass, but sympathetic she isn't! She does behave terribly as the series goes on, but is still an engaging and sympathetic character. She is so well drawn.

Enjoy the series!

It's an interesting one because I think it's quite often used (in a very obvious way) to show the character's past trauma, and elaborated on as part of their humanising background. It's a somewhat lazy way of showing they aren't just a monster, the trauma they experienced in their life led them to this. I can see what you're saying though, it's certainly done too often.

@aSofaNearYou

It's an interesting one because I think it's quite often used (in a very obvious way) to show the character's past trauma, and elaborated on as part of their humanising background. It's a somewhat lazy way of showing they aren't just a monster, the trauma they experienced in their life led them to this. I can see what you're saying though, it's certainly done too often.

I have a facial scar. It hasn’t traumatised me. I hasn’t led me to be a monster. The implication that it would do so, to so very many characters, is what makes it insulting. It is the same as saying that I must be a monster because of my scar.

I agree op. I also wish they would make the dentist scary in kids films.

Doesn’t the specific “baddie with scar on one eye/cheek” come from 20th century anti-German sentiment? It is a depiction of a Heidelberg university fencing duelling scar, popular as a status symbol amongst a specific social strata of German “officer class” men, many of whom ended up in military roles against the British.

I agree it's lazy, just like I hate gender stereotypes for young children especially.

However, I have a facial scar from an accident and amputated finger because of cancer and don't feel personally affronted.

I interpret it as metaphorical, too. Even so, is it that prevalent anymore? There seems to be enough media which also cast someone good looking as the baddie. Look at the high school cheerleader trope or popular series such as game of thrones.

A few articles on this:

screenrant.com/no-time-die-safin-james-bond-villains-face-disfigured/

uk.movies.yahoo.com/james-bond-no-time-to-die-facial-scars-disability-campaigners-133933996.html

www.dailydot.com/unclick/james-bond-disfigured-villains/

www.mailplus.co.uk/edition/showbiz/film/109911/no-time-to-die-slammed-rami-malek-ernst-stavro-blofelds-facial-disfigurements

If you have a facial disfigurement, the only representation you’re likely to encounter in films/TV is unpleasant characters. Many of those unpleasant characters will be unpleasant for reasons directly related to their facial disfigurement.

The baddie can be good looking/ugly/disfigured/scarred but the hero/heroine can only be good looking, with perhaps one small, aesthetically pleasing scar or not-too-visible disability.

One of the most popular and widely listened to radio programmes in Ireland, Liveline on RTE radio 1 from 13.45h - 15.00h, featured a piece on this very subject today - facial disfigurement and "baddies" in movies, particularly James Bond films and the hurt caused to those with facial disfigurement.

The more people speaking out will, I believe, change things. 🤞

@BestZebbie The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp has an important section with duelling scars - it’s a wonderful film about the friendship between a German and English officer (made in 1943!).

@PeterPomegranate

YANBU

Bond movies are terrible for it.

Re the Witches - I thought in the books the witches do have physical differences (bald heads, no toes that mean shoes don’t fit well, something with their hands that mean they need to wear gloves). I haven’t seen the recent film and I’m not defending the trope of using those differences associated with evil, but at least some of that is in the book.

They do but in the case of the hands at least it's that they have claws, which is not an actual thing which can happen.

In the film the hands shown are the same as those caused by an actual medical condition, and people who are affected by that condition were rightly very upset by this. (Bryony, the woman from bakeoff a few series ago, posted about it I seem to remember.)

Doesn't Hermione get her teeth fixed magically by keeping quiet until they were straight/smaller so she doesn't have to wear braces in one of the Harry Potter books?

I don't see the need for that when some kids find orthodontic work difficult - why not just have the same treatment as any other kid and then be a smart, strong minded girl with braces, rather than magically 'perfect'?

I think that as long as you don't take everything you see on TV very literally and to heart, and teach your kids to do the same, it really doesn't matter. I don't think "fuck me! They must be evil because that's what the TV says!"

Well most people won't consciously make that association. Doesn't mean it has no effect though.

When my DS was around 3 or 4 we were in a shop and I pointed something out to him and he said sadly "I can't have that, it's for girls". I asked him why and be replied "because it's pink". I never taught him that, had never said he couldn't have something because it was "for girls". The messages we pick up from the world around us, including from films and TV, have an effect, even if we like to pretend they don't.

You are right, @NeverDropYourMooncup. She is hexed and her teeth grow hugely long (and when she asks to go to the hospital wing, Snape snarks that he can’t see any change from normal), and when Madame Pomfrey shrinks them back, she tells Hermione to tell her to stop when they are back to normal, and Hermione doesn’t say stop until the teeth are the size she wants.