Does Disney Hate Cats?: Searching For The Common Animal Villains In The Disney Universe

​Does Disney have a thing against felines? That's a question I've often wondered about when I rethink about the Disney movies that I grew up on. When I try to conjure up memories of the most memorable animal villains Disney has created over the years, it's the feline antagonists that immediately come to mind.

There are, of course, the big cats: the poised yet lethal Shere Khan from "The Jungle Book" and the dangerously charismatic Scar from "The Lion King," who's equally capable of charm and fratricide. And then there are the smaller but no less devious Disney cats: "Cinderella's" Lucifer, and Si and Am, the sinister pair of Siamese cats from "The Lady and the Tramp."

If there's a face of evil the studio prefers in its animations, that face, at first glance, looks suspiciously feline.

But is that really true or is that just a misconception that has arisen because the aforementioned characters occupy an outsize position in popular memory? Maybe there are other animal species that are just as frequently depicted as the villains in Disney movies, but which are given less attention to compared to the Scars and the Shere Khans in the studio's cinematic universe. And if so, what are those other animals and why have they, along with cats and their bigger, wild cousins, been chosen again and again as the villains?

To answer this question, I looked into every animated movie Disney has produced and distributed, starting from 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" and ending with this year's "The Incredibles 2," to see which animals are most often depicted as antagonists, what might be the reasons behind this and whether or not these depictions are tied to animal stereotypes that are embedded in our culture.

If an animal plays a villain or is defined as an enemy of the protagonist¹, I've included it in my data, regardless of how major or minor that role might be². I've also expanded the definition of "animal villains" a bit to incorporate instances where a human character might transform herself into a certain animal, such as Maleficent's metamorphosis into a dragon in "Sleeping Beauty," or the animalistic form an alien, monster or anthropomorphic character might resemble, such as the shark-like Captain Gantu in "Lilo and Stitch."

While I've anticipated some of these results, there are a few findings that took me aback entirely:

Cats Get A Bad Rap, But So Do — Surprisingly — Dogs

When it comes to the most common villain in Disney movies, dogs, not cats, actually lead the pack. Dogs have played the antagonist in 13 of Disney's animated movies, while domesticated cats claim a close second with 10. The two are the only domesticated animals among the top 15 list; all the other popular animal villains are wild animals, such as snakes, which tie with foxes for third place.

While there's quite a variety in species when it comes to Disney villains — in total, 54 different animals have played antagonistic roles in the studio's animated films — it's clear from this chart that dogs and cats are the frontrunners. Together, the two claim almost a fifth of the villainous roles in Disney's animal movies. A whole range of animals constitute the "Other" category and they ran the gamut from larger beasts such as elephants and rhinos to smaller animals like spiders and rats. Most of the animals in the "Other" category have only played the villain once in a Disney film.

It's perhaps not surprising that cats have such a prominent presence among Disney's animal villains, given that the company's mascot is a mouse. One of Disney's longest-running characters is Pete, who started out as a bear but was later was changed to a cat because the studio wanted to establish him as an arch-nemesis of Mickey Mouse.

While cats don't lack positive representation in Disney's animated movies — there's, for instance, "The Aristocats" and "Oliver & Company," — they're frequently portrayed in an adversarial light. Either they're the main antagonist, as is the case for Mr. Whiskers in "Frankenweenie," or they're the minions/pets of the movie's primary antagonists, such as Lucifer, who's the pet of Lady Tremaine, and Felicia, a cat under Professor Ratigan's control in "The Great Mouse Detective." They're also, interestingly, the form or one of the forms that female antagonists like Yzma from "The Emperor's New Groove" or Madame Mim from "The Sword in the Stone" take when they transform from a human being into an animal, a connection that perhaps derives from cats' long association with femininity.

And what about dogs, man's best friend? Well, the close relationship between dogs and humans might be the reason why canines feature so heavily as antagonists in Disney's movies.

In several of these films, dogs are considered villains because they are the pets and henchmen, so to speak, of human villains and serve the will of their masters. That holds true for the hunter dogs in "Bambi" as well as Scud, the pet dog of Sid Phillips, the main antagonist in "Toy Story."

While Scud and the hunter dogs are depicted as vicious and cruel because of their close alignment with their masters, not all of the canine antagonists in Disney's movies are clear-cut "bad guys." Dogs that may be considered more neutral rather than outright evil include characters such as Alpha, the leader of Charles Muntz's pack of dogs in "Up," and Chief, the oldest pet of Amos Slade in "The Fox and the Hound." Although the temperament of these characters may not be malicious within themselves, because of their loyalty to the movie's main antagonists and their adversarial relationship with the movies' protagonists, they are still considered "villains."

Dogs are also, compared to cats, more often the protagonists in Disney's animal movies. The popularity of Disney's dog-centered franchises, such as "101 Dalmatians" — which spans animated movies, live-action remakes, and TV series — may be one reason why dogs are the most common antagonist in Disney movies. When Disney films have a dog as a protagonist, it is likely that said protagonist will also have a canine opponent. There's, for example, Buster, the leader of the Junkyard Dogs and the nemesis of Tramp and his son Scamp in the direct-to-video "Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure." There's also Lil' Lightning, a canine TV star that betrays Pongo and Perdita's puppy, Patch, in the "101 Dalmatians" sequel, "Patch's London Adventure."

Snakes, However, Can't Catch A Break

Although dogs and cats may be the most popular villains, snakes have really gotten the raw end of the deal in terms of their image in Disney's animated movies.

Apart from Larry the Anaconda in "The Wild" — which was distributed, but not produced by Disney — there is a significant lack of wholesome representation of snakes in Disney movies. When you see snakes or snake-like characters appear in the studios' films, they are almost always the antagonists in the story and never positive supporting characters or the protagonists. They might be minor antagonists like Sir Hiss in "Robin Hood" or villains with a heftier role, such as Kaa in "The Jungle Book."

Kaa is an especially fascinating example of Disney's aversion towards snakes in that the character only became the enemy of Mowgli, the protagonist of "The Jungle Book," in the studio's adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's books.

In Kipling's "The Jungle Book" stories Kaa is depicted as a friend and mentor to Mowgli, rather than his nemesis. The stories differ as to why this was changed in the movie. There are people that suggest it may have something to do with the high number of snake attacks that were being reported in the US during the time of the film's production. There's also the theory that the film's developers didn't have faith that the public would accept a snake as a heroic character, a doubt that was perhaps tied to the negative connotations of the serpent in Christianity.

But speaking of public perception...

Our Ideas Of Animal Villains Have Definitely Changed With Time

As Disney movies have progressed with time, so have its villains. While earlier Disney villains, such as Shere Khan, were animals that were either imposing or malignant in appearance, Disney movies after the 2000s have embraced a different tack in their delineations of villains. Dr. Hämsterviel, the antagonist in the 2003 "Stitch! The Movie," a spinoff of "Lilo & The Stitch," seems to have opened the door for other characters that don't resemble the stereotypical villain in Disney films. Puffy, short in stature and bearing close resemblance to a hamster or a rabbit, Hämsterviel is a far cry from more classical Disney villains like the elegant yet formidable Scar or the aptly-named Monstro in "Pinocchio."

Since Dr. Hämsterviel, Disney movies have opted for animals that would not be conventionally considered as villains or, indeed, much of a threat to humans and other animals. The twist that such a character choice provides for the narrative may be one of the reasons behind the shift in Disney's animal villains, along with the filmmakers' desires to engage with the cultural heritage of Disney's past films and play with its established conventions. In the past, we have had dozens of Disney movies where predatory animals prowl the realm of popular imagination as the quintessential "bad guys." And now, in more recent Disney movies, it looks like the studio is subverting these traditions by having, for instance, a character like Bellwether in "Zootopia," a physically diminutive and deceivingly meek sheep, be the main antagonist.

"Zootopia," along with "The Wild," are two prime examples of a new kind of Disney movie that is exploring a different idea of villainy in its animal characters. Both "Zootopia" and "The Wild" have prey animals as their antagonists — in "Zootopia," it's Bellwether, the disgruntled assistant mayor of Zootopia and a hidden menace dressed in sheep's clothing, and in "The Wild," it's Kazar, a wildebeest that wants to ascend to the top of the food chain.

Both Bellwether and Kazar cite a discontentment with being stuck at the bottom of the food chain and a wish to subvert the established social order as the incentive for their evil doings. Unlike earlier Disney villains, which have largely been composed of predatory animals, characters such as Bellwether and Kazar challenge the audience's preconceptions about what constitutes a Disney villain because they are active subversions of the good vs. bad, prey vs. predator dichotomy that has undergirded most of Disney's animal films³.

Although the top 15 most popular villains in Disney's animated movies remain dominated by predatory animals for now, it would be interesting to see whether this trend holds as the studio produces more movies that resemble "Zootopia" than, say, "The Jungle Book." It seems unlikely that dogs and cats will fall off the charts anytime soon given their proximity to humans and how constant a fixture they are in our lives, animated and otherwise, but the popularity of other animal villains may ebb and flow in the years to come as the studio introduces more variety and nuance to its antagonists.

Maybe more positive depictions of typically villainous animals such as sharks and snakes will be created with the advent of characters such as the fish-friendly Bruce from "Finding Nemo" or Larry, the good-heart anaconda in "The Wild." And maybe one day, who knows, the meek sheep and wildebeests in the Disney universe might actually overtake the animals that prey on them and supplant their place in the charts.