As with her predecessors The Evil Queen in Snow White and The Wicked Stepmother in Cinderella, Medusa shows that the tainted love of an unfit and evil parent is the most vicious abuse to force on any child. Her relationship with Penny, that of an illegitimate “foster mother”, is particularly disturbing. The fact that Medusa is looked over as a prime example of a villainess on the edge is disheartening, just as The Rescuers is seen as a lesser submission in the Disney catalog.
Indeed, to Champlin’s point, Medusa’s first scene is like watching a cheap actress in a melodramatic play go through her playbook of emotions, in the best way possible:
#Madame medusa full#
The Medusa that Milt Kahl summoned from the ashes was, as Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times “commented that she looked more like a frowzy, over-the-hill nightclub singer than an intimidating villain.” Johnston and Thomas counter that “literature is full of soft and pudgy women who are absorbed with evil thoughts, so should not have mattered.” (Johnston 162)
The initial concept art, once the Cruella idea fizzled out, showed Medusa as a frump, Margaret Dumont-like matron with furs and opera glasses (as seen in the concept art to the right.) Indeed, both Medusa and Cruella are sisters in a way: both are incredibly unattractive, yet vain, are greedy to a fault, are reckless drivers, and, according to Johnston and Thomas, “would kill anyone who confronted them, destroy any device that hindered them, fight with anything in their power to get them what they wanted” including Medusa who “wants the largest diamond in the world.” (Johnston 19) Medusa and Cruella’s reckless driving skills are one in the same, begging the thought that they must have shared the same, devil-like driving teacher (Cruella’s driving scene follows this note, Medusa’s is included in the introduction clip below): (Medusa’s literary counterpart in the novels is The Duchess of Diamonds, who is not as overtly multi-faceted, but is more evil and humorless than the fire-breathing gorgon we end up with!) According to Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, Milt Kahl, Medusa’s animator, “considered using Cruella de Vil again, but preferred not to make a sequel to any of pictures.” (Johnston 159) Indeed, several pieces of concept art survive that show Cruella in the realm of The Rescuer’s, decked out in a crocodile stole and leather-lined coat.
#Madame medusa series#
Medusa, oddly enough, wasn’t the first choice for a villain in Disney’s The Rescuers, based on Margery Sharp’s series of novels about two intrepid mice who do good deeds around the world as part of The Rescue Aid Society. Medusa is a harridan in a red dress, careening wild-eyed on a swamp rover, and strong-arms a little girl into plunging into a dark well to get her the world’s largest diamond, yet is able to retain the greasy charm of a pit viper in the process. Madame Medusa is one of the Disney oeuvre’s most chilling, and underrated, villains in a crowded field known for its innovation and deviation. The way that Milt Mahl accents Geraldine Page’s fruity, cruel voice by making her tug extra hard at her false eyelash until her eyelid snaps back like a rubber band is like a drawing from Daumier’s Sketches of Expression series – but in movement!” – (Grant 293)
She also has the two alligators named Brutus and Nero as her pets, and Mr. She is the opprobrious and manipulative proprietor of a pawn shop in New York City, which she uses as a cover for her criminal endeavors. Madame Medusa (also simply known as Medusa) is the main antagonist of Disney's 23rd full-length animated feature film The Rescuers.
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