And they aren’t just removed from us physically. The Minions rely on the same absurdity.Īlthough we’re all probably a little slightly desensitized by now, there’s no escaping that Minions are objectively strange little creatures, with their giant eyes and mouths and their otherwise largely featureless capsule-shaped bodies.
Given the film’s everyday setting, his over-the-top misbehavior is funny, not intimidating. He commits to evil as an aesthetic more than anything else - as in Megamind, it seems that Despicable Me’s brand of supervillainy prioritizes presentation over doing actual harm to people. There’s no better example than Gru’s house, a hyperbolically horrific structure sandwiched between generic bungalows on an otherwise completely ordinary suburban street.
The writers reserve all his villainy for scenes where they can hold him at a distance. In contrast, although Gru attacks everyone at his local coffee shop, he still tips the poor underpaid worker at the till. While it’s unlikely that any audience members will have been trapped in ice by an impatient supervillain while waiting at Starbucks, many of them will have had an unkind teacher or guardian or been denied a bank loan. They abuse their positions of authority in a way that feels more familiar than Gru’s comical evil. Perkins (Will Arnett) - are also designed to resonate with viewers, in the opposite way. He’s carefully constructed to appeal to viewers - the more soulless of us look at the screen and wish that we, too, had a freeze ray to solve all of our problems.Ĭharacters in the franchise that seem truly malevolent - like orphanage director Miss Hattie (Kristen Wiig), or Bank of Evil director Mr. In fact, he’s relatable in the way he resents long coffee queues and unmannerly neighbors.
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But, although he starts off petty and cantankerous - living in a dark lair full of trophies to his callousness, driving a monstrous, rocket-esque car, and plotting future crimes while relishing the old ones - he never feels truly wicked. Gru (Steve Carell) introduces himself by destroying the hopes of a crying child in that film’s opening, so there’s a definite shift in his character when he comes to care for his adopted daughters. The basic premise of the first Despicable Me film - in which a supervillain becomes a doting dad - rests on the comforting idea that there is good in every bad person. The Minions offer a master class in our cultural boundaries around evil - the creators know exactly which lines they’re not allowed to cross. These films haven’t inspired moral panic, with the kinds of online petitions, letter-writing campaigns, and inflammatory tweets that usually greet even the most benign cultural creations. Why is that? These movies actively encourage viewers to root for the bad guys, but parents willingly show them to their children.
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