Why Every Woman Deserves to Embrace Her Inner Villainess
And why the villainess deserves a major rebrand
“I want to be She-Ra!”
“I want to be Wonder Woman!”
“I want to be Super Girl!”
Nearly every recess of my childhood began with this chorus, each of my friends vying to be one of the heroines of our role playing games. And sure, I loved playing these roles, too. I wanted to be the strong woman who saved the day.
But mostly, I have to admit, I volunteered to play the villainess. My absolute favorite was Catra from the cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power, a villainess who shapeshifted into a panther and whose speech patterns included rawrs and meows. I found her to be an absolutely delicious character: audacious, aggressive, and independent. She was always portrayed as smarter than her male counterparts, regularly thwarted by their oafishness and lack of intelligence. And she wasn’t afraid to ignore her boss’ orders and go rogue, stirring up whatever kind of trouble she could make.
In my book, she was a queen.
Thankfully, none of my friends wanted to play the villain. I suppose that makes sense being as, in cartoons and comic books, the villain always has to lose to the hero. But I didn’t mind that. I had a different idea…
