Cruella Chooses a Dark Road

 

 

Spoiler Alert: In order to discuss the moral and spiritual nature of Disney’s Cruella, I include huge spoilers in this review.

In terms of story telling art and technical presentation, I feel like Disney’s Cruella is well crafted. Tragically, mimicking Cruella in the story, the artistic gifts of those who made this movie are misused. Instead of using their gifts and talent to promote virtues like truthfulness, humility, and love, Cruella encourages viewers to choose a dark road of crime, revenge, and ultimately identifying with evil.

Cruella begins the movie as the little girl born with very unusual hair named Estella. Estella suffers in many ways. She is bullied because of her unusual looks and struggles to find ways to express her creative genius. She fights back against the bullies and gets expelled. Her mother (well, the woman she believes is her mother, and who in terms of love and care is her mother) is struggling to do the best she can to care for Estella and raise her with good values. In a dark turn (and for a movie whose audience will include many young children, it is a very dark turn), Estella’s mother is killed when vicious dalmatians attack her, knocking her off a cliff where she falls into a rocky, stormy sea and perishes. Yes, the dalmatians in this movie are vicious. And as with any animal whose attack of a human causes someone to die, it actually would have been right and just to put those dogs down (Exodus 21:28). We’re already a long way from the family friendly 101 Dalmatians classic, but things get worse.

After witnessing her mother’s murder, little Estella flees to London. Orphaned, grieving, and desperate, she joins up with two boys who introduce her to a life of crime as a way to survive. The movie makes their stealing (mostly a pick-pocket level of theft) look fun, glamorous, and cool. Do you know anyone who has been a victim of that type of theft in real life? I do. The loss of some money and/or valuables, and the real inconvenience of having to replace various cards, are usually the least of the negative effects of such crime. There is often a feeling a being violated that does the most damage. It’s not innocent or harmless. It violates both God’s simple command, “Do not steal” (Exodus 20:15), as well as the deep principle, “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 19:19). But in the movie, it just looks fun and cool.

There is a deeper issue here. When a person suffers terrible loss and evil, as Estella had, does this justify choosing to respond with evil actions? In real life, people who are deeply hurt are in fact strongly tempted to respond in sinful ways. Should we feel compassion for such people and patiently seek to win them with the love and grace of Christ? Yes! Should we put their life of crime in a positive light in a movie that may encourage many young people to imitate that path? God forbid! Yet, that is what Cruella does.

Is there a better path for those who have suffered cruel injustice? There is! Consider Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We don’t know most of the details, but being conquered by an enemy nation and then carried away from your homes as slaves into that nation was surely a terrible ordeal beyond what most of us can imagine. Not only that, but the nation that conquered and enslaved them, Babylon, was so evil that it became a symbol for cultures dominated by demonic evil and dark immorality later in the Bible. But in the midst of all that, Daniel and his friends humbly trust God. They first pass the relatively small test of refusing to eat food that at that time was forbidden to God’s people. Later, they face and heroically pass much more difficult tests when their lives are threatened if they don’t engage in pagan worship or stop praying to the one true God. The point is that suffering terrible tragedy that was not your fault and living in difficult circumstances is never a valid reason to disobey God.

As Estella chooses to embrace her dark alter-identity, Cruella, she treats her faithful friends like tools to be used. She also intentionally chooses to pursue revenge against the evil baroness. God warns us, “do not avenge yourselves.” A large portion of this dark movie involves Cruella using her creative genius to humiliate and destroy the baroness. Like the thieving, the movie makes the revenge look cool and sexy.

Not surprisingly, Cruella teams up with a trans fashion designer. Thus, Disney is now fully embracing and participating in Hollywood’s pro-LGBTQ agenda and marketing this to children. The whole glamour-fashion industry is morally and spiritually unhealthy, but is again made to look cool in the movie. But all of this is just building up to the darkest element of the movie.

At the end of the movie, Cruella, having buried her Estella identity, goes a step further into darkness by taking the last name De Vil. The movie makes it clear through dialog, through the “Devil” license plate on her car, and through the Rolling Stone’s song “Sympathy for the Devil” playing in the background, that Cruella has chosen the name De Vil because in some way she identifies with the devil. The devil is real. He is the most evil being that exists. Identifying with him in any way or form will always bring darkness, suffering and harm to the person who does so and to everyone around them. It’s not cute. It’s not cool. It’s not funny in any way. And the end of that path is eternal destruction (Matthew 7:13, Philippians 3:19, 2 Thessalonians 1:9).

If I tried hard, I could find a few glimmers of light and some hints at positive lessons in the movie. But these are overshadowed by Cruella’s dark path and dark example and dark ending. If you want your kids to be terrified of dalmations, think petty theft is cool and fun, embrace a life driven by revenge, and ultimately choose to identify with the devil, then Cruella is the movie for you. Otherwise, I recommend sticking with 101 Dalmations.

 

Related Blog Posts:

 

Raya and the Last Dragon: Should We Trust It?

 

Is Disney’s “Soul” Good for Yours?

 

Christian Thoughts on Hamilton, the Musical

 

Frozen 2: Biblical Lessons and Christian Thoughts

 

Avengers End Game: Lessons for Christians

 

 Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .

The Butterfly's Message

 

The two photos above were taken by Mark Corbett at Bantimurung National Park, Indonesia

Here I share a poem I wrote that was inspired by butterflies, intelligent design theory, and Paul’s theology of natural revelation and the attempts of people to suppress it. I share it in both plain text form and in a JPEG form. Feel free to copy and share it with others with these caveats:

1. Freely you have received, freely give.

2. Please include a link back to this blog post.

 

 

 

The Butterfly’s Message

 

It lands close by and a child spies -- a butterfly, a work of art,

Then intuitions, deeply planted, spring to life in mind and heart:

“Someone made this, Someone Who must be very great and wise!”

The butterfly’s message has been delivered unto the child’s eyes!

 

Children grow and off to school and university they go;

There tenebrific evolutionary tales authoritative professors sow.

Doubts trouble minds that with wonder had once been glad and bright;

The butterfly’s message  begins to fade into a moonless night.

 

But science itself is not the villain of this truth-battle story;

Rightly used, science is a hero that uncovers the hidden glory.

For the butterfly holds microscopic wonders that Darwin could not know;

New discoveries, to the butterfly’s message, new depth and strength bestow.

 

Molecular machines and coded information -- naturalism is impotent to explain;

And layers of irreducible complexity make evolutionary tales burdensome to maintain.

As evidence is piled up, intelligent design increasingly is acknowledged and confessed,

When finally seen in reason’s light, the butterfly’s message is not so easily suppressed.

 

by Mark Corbett,

https://parresiazomai.blogspot.com/2021/07/marks-resources-on-scientific-evidence.html

 

 

About the sources of inspiration for “The Butterfly’s Message”

Although the above poem is short, a wide range of sources contributed to its formation in my mind. Here are some of those sources:

* When we (my wife Hope and our daughter Joy with myself) were living in Indonesia on the tropical island of Sulawesi, we sometimes visited Bantimurung national park. The park is known mainly for waterfalls and butterflies. On one occasion, when Joy was at just the right age for maximal wonder, a butterfly landed first on Hope’s finger then on a nearby rock (see photos above). Joy gazed at it with wonder and delight. The butterfly was excelling at its appointed job as it delivered a message about its Creator’s skill and wisdom.

* While Joy has never struggled with her faith because of the misleading claims of naturalism, I’ve read and heard accounts of other students who have and this has often been a major factor in deconstruction.

* A number of books from the truth-battle heroes of the Discovery Institute contributed to the poem’s theme and some details in the poem. Specifically, Doug Axe’s insightful Undeniable, explains that the universal tendency of children to ascribe nature to a Creator is actually supported by a right understanding of science. Of course, the concept of “irreducible complexity” was introduced to us by Behe’s paradigm defining work, Darwin’s Black Box, and Stephen Meyer explained the foundational role of information in all of life in his outstanding book, Signature in the Cell.

* I learned the word “tenebrific” yesterday while reading a blog post from the website “Uncommon Decent.” There, as in the poem, it was applied to the influence of the Darwinian myth factory. That set off a cascade in my mind that resulted in the poem.

* The ideas related to the truth about our Creator being seen in nature and yet being suppressed by people comes form a more ancient and authoritative source: the Apostle Paul writing in Romans. I recently published a short video on this topic: The Suppression of Truth and What We Can Do About It.

* Finally, and above all, anything good here is ultimately due to the Creator of butterflies, our God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

For Further Reading on Related Topics see:  Mark’s Resources on Scientific Evidence for God and Devotions Inspired by God’s Creation

 

To God be the glory!

 

Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .

 

Butterfly drawings credit:

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay