Disney Villain Rater – Lady Tremaine

Hello, readers!  Once again, real life has struck me hard, and combined with laziness and procrastination, I've been forced to postpone the second post I keep promising myself I'll make each month.  Good news, though: I've come into a good deal of money, and I have a fairly good chance at getting a new, better laptop.

I've also made the decision to participate in the National Novel Writing Month challenge, or NaNoWriMo for all you Twitter fiends.  Starting on November 1st and ending on the 30th, I have to start on a novel and write 50,000 words before the end date.  This means I'll have to write about 1,600 words a day to make it work.  Hopefully, this will help break my procrastination streak and get my next novel underway.

For now, though, enjoy another Disney Villain Rater article!

Disney Villain Rater – Lady Tremaine

Welcome back to the Disney Villain Rater, where Disney's most wanted are on full, sinister display!  This week's article takes us to a simpler, more classic time in Disney history, and will profile a woman who helped start and continue the tradition of great female Disney villains: the wicked stepmother, Lady Tremaine.  Debuting in Cinderella in 1950, Tremaine is in the same vein as the stepmother of another Disney princess (see the Evil Queen's article from January).

Like before, I'll be rating the following traits on a scale of one to ten: design, personality, goals, ambition, abilities, henchmen, defeat, and voice.  This article will see a return to Disney’s fairy tale roots, both in setting and in the antagonist.  The Wicked Stepmother has been an archetype of villain revisited in hundreds of films and television shows the world over, and it was her rendition in Disney’s Cinderella that may very well have set the precedent.  Cold, calculating, bitter and ruthless, Lady Tremaine is one of Disney’s most despicable villains.  So, without further ado, let’s see just how despicable the Disney Villain Rater says she is:

(LADY TREMAINE) (Cinderella)

DESIGN –

In design, Lady Tremaine mostly belies her ill intentions.  She dresses elegantly and carries herself as such, and rarely has a display of overt emotion.  However, the evil in her is easily seen in her aged face, most notably her eyes.  Those cold, disturbing eyes that are a centerpiece of her calculating nature—you know something terrible is going to happen when those eyes are highlighted or focused on.  Combined with her arrogant, superior face whenever things go as planned, Cinderella’s stepmother is both hated and feared throughout the film.

DESIGN: 7

PERSONALITY –

Going easily with her ruthlessness, her personality makes her a detestable villain.  Remaining calm and smug while giving orders, or even breaking up a fight between her biological daughters, she maintains dignity and serenity throughout.  Even in her rare displays of temper, she doesn’t lose control entirely, and she recovers quickly.  On the other side, when everything is going her way, she exudes a vexing sense of triumph, as if she’s won everything long before the game is even over.  Mix it all together, and it makes a villain that is very easy to love to hate.

PERSONALITY: 8

GOALS –

This movie appears to be stuck in the era of Disney villains with petty, juvenile goals.  In the storybook-style introduction to the film, we are given a brief look at Cinderella’s life before her father died.  When he remarried, things seemed well enough, but after his passing, the stepmother shows her true colors.  It even states outright that she is “bitterly jealous” of Cinderella and is “determined to further the interests” of her biological daughters.  In fact, it could even be subtly (extremely subtly) implied that Tremaine killed her husband just to put herself in this position of power over Cinderella’s life.  In the film itself, Tremaine goes to extra lengths to crush Cinderella’s spirit and good cheer by making her work herself senseless, crushing her chances of going to the ball, and keeping her locked in a room while the palace searches for the prince’s love.  Why?  Just for free labor?  To take out her jealousy on her stepdaughter?  And why is she jealous?  Because Cinderella is prettier and more charming than herself or her own two kids?  Any way you spin it, it seems ridiculously immature, and if she had killed the father of her stepdaughter, it would be even more so.  Not impressed here.

GOALS: 4

AMBITION –

Let’s get the timeline clear, here: Cinderella’s real mother died.  Dad remarries a woman with her own two kids.  Dad dies.  Stepmother is a bitch.  Stepsisters are equally so.  Cinderella is punished for something she had no control over by basically cleaning and fixing everything under the roof.  When the ball is being held, stepmother gives her extra work so she can’t make her dress.  When she makes her dress, stepmother manipulates bitchy stepsisters into tearing it apart.  And when the Grand Duke visits to compare the lost slipper to the feet of the maidens of the house, stepmother locks stepdaughter in the bathroom until he leaves, just so she isn’t discovered.  As much as her goals reflect her “mean girls” attitude towards her stepdaughter, Lady Tremaine truly exemplifies the “psycho stepmom from Hell” trope.  Her manipulation of events and actions all go toward keeping Cinderella down, and not even so much moving her own stepdaughters up.  Her ambition is more impressive than the goal itself, but not by a lot.

AMBITION: 6

ABILITIES –

As stated, Lady Tremaine is a master manipulator.  When her daughters get out of line, two or three calming words is all it takes to reduce them from raging she-demons to calm and serene ladies (and I use the term “ladies” as loosely as I’m allowed).  Her emotional and psychological abuse of Cinderella has obviously broken her willpower and need for identity and purpose, otherwise, the poor girl wouldn’t be wasting her time dreaming for a prince to come and take her away from this nightmare instead of running away or calling the authorities.  Lady Tremaine can also make sure events go exactly as she planned; when the royal ball is announced, she wants Cinderella to stay as far away from it as possible, and makes sure she does—by piling extra chores on her so that she has no time to prepare an outfit for the event.  When Cinderella does end up being ready for the ball, she is easily capable of inciting jealous and indignant anger in her daughters by pointing out that the beads chosen for the ensemble belong to them.  Her daughters fly into a rage and tear their stepsister’s outfit off of her piece by piece, and Lady Tremaine does absolutely nothing until they are finished and Cinderella is right back in rags.  Even her last bid to keep Cinderella at the bottom of the ladder, while not well thought-out, was particularly dastardly when she ended it by indirectly breaking the only piece of evidence available in the young girl’s favor: the forgotten glass slipper.  She seems to look down on people either as tools or targets, even her own flesh and blood, and has no remorse, or even takes sadistic pleasure, in seeing her stepdaughter in pain.  These are all impressive skills that are sadly wasted on a goal relegated to the high school cheerleading captain.

ABILITIES: 8

HENCHMEN –

While not the type of villain to rely on henchmen, the closest things Lady Tremaine has to them come in the form of three beings: the first two, Anastasia and Drizella, her own daughters.  They don’t report to her or (consciously) carry out tasks at her request, but she does use them to accomplish her own ends.  What few skills we see them perform, however, they are horribly inept at; whoever decided that they could sing and play the flute should probably have an ear examination.  Dressmaking seems to be beyond their forte, as well; their outfits for the royal ball are a large step away from elegant and toward comical.  Drizella appears to be the alpha between the two, always displaying a temper and an indignant anger whenever her needs aren’t met.  Of the two entitled women, Anastasia seems to have it the worst; her whining serves as a less aggressive counterpoint to her sister.  Both share their mother’s resentment toward Cinderella, and take much more obvious pleasure in seeing their stepsister suffer.  Tremaine’s third facsimile of a henchman comes in the form of her cat, the aptly-named “Lucifer”.  Again, while not directly reporting to his owner, he does strive to accomplish what would surely be in her favor; in this case, it would be attempting to exterminate Cinderella’s mouse friends.  Sadly, in this, Lucifer is also hilariously inept; he serves as little more than an obstacle for the little rodents to overcome.  Overall, nothing impressive in the way of the help.

HENCHMEN: 3

DEFEAT –

Lady Tremaine’s implied defeat is probably one of the greatest on-screen villain defeats in Disney history, and is surely the greatest of all that don’t involve death.  Tremaine’s last-ditch effort to keep Cinderella away from her prince fails when Jaq and Gus (the mice) successfully free her from the locked upstairs room.  Just as the Grand Duke is about to compare foot to slipper, however, a well-place cane from Lady Tremaine trips the footman working for the Duke, sending the slipper crashing to the floor.  Contempt for the villainess doesn’t get much worse at that point, but relief and triumph come in equal measure when Cinderella produces the slipper’s twin—and elicits a horrified look on her stepmother’s face.  The satisfaction in that scene is palpable; that last look of appalled defeat is all one needs to know that she has lost, indefinitely. 

DEFEAT: 8

VOICE –

Cinderella’s wicked stepmother is brought to life by the chilling vocals of legendary character actress Eleanor Audley.  Originally a radio actress, Audley achieved fame for her portrayal of snooty, high-society female characters.  Her voice was not the only aspect of Lady Tremaine’s character that made it work wondrously; Disney animators even patterned the character to resemble her.  Tremaine’s deadly grace and poise in the film are a product of the real world.  Audley’s role as the wicked stepmother would be so successful that she would work for Disney again nine years later, as another villain: the sorceress Maleficent in 1959’s Sleeping Beauty.  Audley was also known for her role in the classic TV series “Green Acres”.  Eleanor Audley died in 1991 at the age of 86, but it is safe to say that she has left behind a legacy worthy of the highest respect.  Many Disney villains follow in the footsteps of Tremaine and Maleficent, and by extension, their voice actors follow in the footsteps of Eleanor Audley.

VOICE: 8

Unlike the previous films I have written about, Cinderella had not just one sequel, but two.  Cinderella II: Dreams Come True was released directly to video in 2002, with the third of the trilogy, Cinderella III: A Twist in Time being released in the same way five years after.  Both movies show a return of Lady Tremaine and her stepdaughters, and the stepmother herself is just as wicked as ever in both.  In the first sequel, she attempts to control the decisions of her daughter Anastasia when the latter falls for a commoner, proving that she is still a control freak, and that she is also desperate to regulate someone’s life after Cinderella’s ascent to royalty.  The second sequel shows the Tremaines in control of the Fairy Godmother’s magic wand, and using it to manipulate time in their favor and displacing Cinderella from her fairy tale ending.  The third movie makes Lady Tremaine seem even more monstrously ambitious than in the first two films combined.  She went so far as to use stolen magic to manipulate the time stream just to get what she wanted—to destroy Cinderella’s happily ever after.  In fairness, this earns Lady Tremaine an extra 3 points for each film; while not the strongest of entries in Disney continuity (Cinderella II was especially panned by critics), and while she did lose a subsidiary when her own daughter Anastasia found redemption, her own character remains a strong and formidable opponent.

RETURN FOR A SEQUEL: 6

For the final scores, we will incorporate the extra points from the sequels into the average.  The scores are as follows:

COMBINED SCORE: 58

FINAL SCORE: 7.25

All in all, a respectable score.  Lady Tremaine outdoes even the Evil Queen in villainy (making me wonder whether the classic schoolyard argument of “My Parent Can Beat Up Your Parent” holds true for Disney princesses and their wicked stepmothers).  While not quite as malevolent as the Headless Horseman, Lady Tremaine proves to be the greatest mortal villain in my Villain Rater series thus far.  While her grudge against Cinderella is juvenile and nearly unfounded, and she seems to have difficulty finding good help these days, her cool, calculative nature and skill in manipulation and duplicity do not in the least go unnoticed.  Her smug air of victory makes her particularly loathsome, and her actions to keep (or return) her abused stepdaughter in line are, if possible, even more so.  After an entire film of watching and feeling for Cinderella through her pain and misery, it’s easy to agree that Lady Tremaine is an icon in detestable Disney villainy—and that the look of shocked defeat on her face, the last we see of her in the first film, was totally worth it.

Thanks for joining me on another character profile.  The characters in my next profile aren’t clearly defined as villains, but then again, nothing in 1951’s Alice in Wonderland is clearly defined.  Nevertheless, there is one antagonist that is a good head above all the others—and may want you to lose yours.

Thank you again for your time, and for your eyes.