Abstract
Female villains, both fictional and real, are subject to unconscious gender bias when part of their iniquity involves the disruption of male authority. Disney’s most popular animated villain, Maleficent, from Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Elizabeth Holmes of the now-disgraced blood testing startup, Theranos, reveled in their power, deviating from idealized feminine propriety. An analysis of scenes featuring Maleficent, the “mistress of all evil”, and coverage of Elizabeth Holmes, once the first self-made female billionaire, illustrate how powerful women with hubris are censured beyond their misdeeds. Elizabeth Holmes’ adoption of a deep voice and other masculine characteristics parallels Maleficent’s demeanor and appearance that signal female usurpation of traditional male power. Both antagonists also engage in finger pricking that penetrates the skin and draws blood, acts associated with symbolic male potency. The purported ability to bewitch, in conjunction with the adoption of patterns associated with male dominance, suggest that Maleficent and Elizabeth Holmes wield power over men and wield the power of men. Discomfort with the way in which magical powers were allegedly employed by these women echo historical fears of witches accused of appropriating male power. Furthermore, powerful women who encroach on male authority but ultimately fail to upend the gender hierarchy trigger schadenfreude beyond that expected from their wrongdoings. In the end, the stories of Maleficent and Elizabeth Holmes celebrate the downfall of women who brazenly embrace power, without showing women how to challenge the gender hierarchy.
Highlights
Portrayals of powerful women, both fictional and real, shape conceptions of female villainy (Bindrim 2018; Chang et al 2019; Kennard et al 2016; Lester 2015; Olsson and Martiny 2018; Rudman and Kilianski 2000)
Comparing Elizabeth Holmes (EH) to Maleficent in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1959) entailed textual analysis in which salient themes were extracted from the definitive book about EH by Wall Street Journal investigative reporter and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner John Carreyrou
She shares EH’s zeal for self-aggrandizement, epitomized by her iconic declaration, “I am the mistress of all evil!” Her arrival at Aurora’s christening is heralded by thunder and lightning, a storm power associated with Zeus-like male power (Dundes et al 2018; Primo 2018)
Summary
Portrayals of powerful women, both fictional and real, shape conceptions of female villainy (Bindrim 2018; Chang et al 2019; Kennard et al 2016; Lester 2015; Olsson and Martiny 2018; Rudman and Kilianski 2000). Maleficent of Sleeping Beauty (1959), Disney’s most popular villain, foreshadows media treatment of EH, founder and CEO of the now-disgraced startup company Theranos Both women display masculine traits in worlds where males predominate: A fictional kingdom and the disproportionately male realm of STEM (Banchefsky et al 2016; Banchefsky and Park 2018; Cidlinská 2018; Tao and Gloria 2018). The four major themes explored in this paper are as follows: (1) The significance of gender roles dictating “acceptable” female traits such as compassion and dependence; (2) finger pricking as emblematic of women’s misappropriated phallic power; (3) fears of women controlling men and their use of sorcery to do so; and (4) animal symbolism that reinforces the traditional gender pecking order These four themes support the argument that powerful women that overtly display single-minded ambition are guilty of hubris. Her income was from purveying beauty products (not STEM), a realm where women are accepted as authorities
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