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
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