I’m doing a comparison/contrast on male v. female evil characters in film (film can mean movies, television or any other filmed genre) to determine what the most defining “evil” traits are per gender (i.e. what makes them evil and how does the evil manifest?). Who would be your votes?
I’m omitting characters who are obviously too insane to really have much control or analysis of their actions (e.g. Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Lilli Taylor in I Shot Andy Warhol, etc.).
My votes:
Norma Desmond- Sunset Blvd.- it could be argued that she’s more psychotic and pitiful than evil, but I favor the latter. Her self obsession, megalomania, manipulativeness and complete disinterest in the feelings of others (except as they concern her) have not only destroyed her own life but those of Max (also villainous in his own way) and of course Joe and Betty. Joe should have beaten the hell out of her then sued her for palimony.
Livia Augusta- I, CLAVDIVS- Sian Philips gave one of the greatest performances in history playing this remorseless old monster from middle age to ancient. (Why doesn’t she work more often, I wonder- surely marriage to Peter O’Toole can’t scar you that much.) The scene in which she “comes clean” with Claudius is a masterpiece: “Yes, interesting… he wouldn’t eat anything that had been touched by anybody’s hands so I was up all night poisoning the figs on the tree… no, I didn’t kill your father [her son], that was a natural gangrene, though I will admit I had intended to kill him if he lived”. Even the deathbed scene where she’s paralyzed and horrified because Caligula has reneged on his promise to make her a goddess isn’t sympathetic because she’s only concerned out of self interest. She admits that she had some remorse for poisoning Augustus after fifty years of marriage but that’s about as close as she comes to a soul.
Angela Channing- Falcon Crest- when you think “amoral bitch” and “married to Ronald Reagan” it’s surprising that Jane Wyman doesn’t come to mind sooner. This show was at its best a pale imitation of Dallas and at its worst downright silly and unintentionally funny, but Wyman’s Angela Gioberti Channing etc. etc. was so over the top and deliciously venomous that she made it worth watching. (It was pitiful seeing her IRL at her daughter’s funeral, so ancient and feeble, thinking that a major talent still resides within that frail frame.)
Ms. Smith- Nick of Time- a mediocre movie far undeserving of Johnny Depp, but you totally believe Roma Maffia’s performance as a woman who would willingly kill an innocent child and never lose a minute of sleep. Very overlooked performance in an understandably ignored movie.
Mona Demarkov from Romeo Is Bleeding (played by Lena Olin) - a seductive Russian hitwoman who at one point cuts off an innocent woman’s arm and hides it under the sleeve of her coat, so when cops handcuff her, they’ve really handcuffed the wrist of the severed arm and she slips away.
Phyllis Diedrichsen from Double Indemnity (played by Barbara Stanwyck) - one of the great screen femme fatales, who manipulates Fred McMurray’s dorky insurance salesman character into murdering her rich husband for her. But of course they don’t live happily ever after.
Now that I think about it, many of the evil women in film are of the femme fatale mold, women who use sex to manipulate men to do all sorts of unspeakable acts–usually doing the women’s “dirty work” for them. Linda Fiorentino’s character in The Last Seduction is another good recent example, although she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.
The following come to mind, although I don’t think any of them hold a candle to Livia:
[ul]
[li]The Wicked Witch of the West in The WIzard of Oz.[/li][li]The evil queen in Disney’s Snow White.[/li][li]Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians.[/li][li]Eve Harrington in All About Eve.[/li][li]Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) in Double Indemnity.[/li][/ul]
And, I’ll second Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction.
Mrs. Tate - Antwone Fisher’s sadistic, abusive and manipulative foster mother. Played to damn near perfection by actress Novella Nelson, who gives a chilling performance as an emotionally and physically abusive, dominating, self-loathing and emasculating religious zealot who reigns terror on the three boys in her care, who exhibits such warm and loving charming beliefs in child-rearing such as pitting the boys against each other, playing favorites based on skin tone and tying the young Antwone to a pole in the basement of her home and beating him senseless before finally putting him out of her house when he finally finds the courage to stand up to him. (Where Mr. Tate is, God only knows, but she seemed awfully fond of doing bad bad things in that basement of hers.) Vicious and hateful – one of a kind in cinema among black women, who have rarely had anyone depicted as being this evil. A personal aside: anyone who would like to take issue with the intraracial namecalling of “nigga” vs. “nigger” among blacks as being a meaningless difference needs to listen closely to Mrs. Tate. She says nigger. She means it, too.
Maddy from Body Heat.
General Kala from Flash Gordon.
Crystal Allen from The Women.
Mother Gin Sling from The Shanghai Gesture.
The Extremely Hot Chicks and the Chinese Foooooood Lady from Dude, Where’s My Car?
Leslie Crosbie from The Letter.
Regina Giddens from The Little Foxes.
Mildred Rogers from Of Human Bondage.
Mary Tilford from The Children’s Hour.
Rhoda Penmark from The Bad Seed.
That was definitely the first I thought of when I saw the title. And then every character I’ve read mentioned so far, I’ve thought, “yeah, maybe, but she’s not as bad as the mother from The Manchurian Candidate.” The brainwashing scenes are supposed to be the creepiest in the movie, but they just seem dated and kind of silly now. It’s all the scenes with Angela Lansbury being just balls-out evil (so to speak) that still just send a chill right down your spine.
Close runner-up is Lady Kaede from Ran.
Based on my choices, it’s deceit and manipulation out of self-interest. Taking advantage of their roles as wives/mothers and perverting that to get what they want.
Heather Chandler from Heathers
The Borg Queen
Elaine Wournos from Monster
Piper Laurie and Amy Irving in Carrie
Cathy Bates in Misery
Gee, evil men sure seem to live larger and cause more misery to more people than evil women in movies (who typically devote their lives to harrassing the shit out of one or two people). Where are the cinematic counterparts to Imelda Marcos and Ilsa Koch?
The other Livia, Livia Soprano, does her best to live up to the name, and her daughter Janice ain’t far behind.
Yzma, played by the wonderful Eartha Kitt in The Emperor’s New Groove, easily takes her place beside Cruella DeVille.
Speaking of Cruella, Glenn Close has done pretty good with villans, from Cruella to Alex Forrest (Basic Instinct) to Marquise de Merteuil (Dangerous Liaisons), she delivers the evil quite deliciously.