Cruella’s Biggest Retcons Hurt 101 Dalmatians

Cruella de Vil is one of Disney’s greatest villains, iconic for wearing fur, smoking a long red cigarette, and wanting to murder puppies to make a fabulous coat – which is why the new Cruella‘s retcons only serve to harm the previous film. In an attempt to make the legendary antagonist the sympathetic center of a kid-friendly movie, the filmmakers ultimately changed pretty much everything that made the character special, thus hurting 101 Dalmatians in the process.

101 Dalmatians began life as a 1956 novel by Dodie Smith, before being scooped by Walt Disney and adapted into one of the studio’s most financially successful and beloved films. That film’s villain, Cruella de Vil, became an instantly classic character, with her dangerously sharp cheek bones, pale face, and black-and-white hair. While the original animated performance earned the character the 39th spot on AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Heroes and Villains list, she was soon resurrected in a Golden Globe-nominated performance by Glenn Close in a 1996 live-action remake.

Through the original animated film and Close’s master class in camp performance (reprised in 102 Dalmatians), Cruella de Vil has endured as one of Disney’s wildest and deliciously nasty villains. Therefore, it stands to reason the studio would want to give the big bad her own origin story. Unfortunately, these retcons neuter the character to an almost absurd degree.

Cruella’s Name is Made Up

There’s a lot going on with Cruella’s name, none of it particularly subtle. When Dodie Smith created the character for the 1956 novel, she was of course working off a pun of the words “cruel” and “devil,” while also referencing a “de ville” car, meaning one with a separate compartment for the driver. Such ostentatious luxury fit perfectly for the overprivileged, glamorous character, and the on-the-nose, wickedly self-aware name fit like a glove for one of cinema’s most enduring villains. Alas, similar to the origin story given Han Solo’s name in 2018’s Solo, Cruella’s name is given a largely unnecessary backstory.

In the film, the character is born Estella Miller, “Cruella” being a nickname given by her mother Catherine for her bolder, nastier side. Once Estella’s rivalry with Emma Thompson’s Baroness begins, however, she embraces the alter ego with manic glee. By film’s end, she has effectively killed Estella, adopting the nickname as her own and tacking on “de Vil” as a reference to a Panther De Ville she steals. This renders the character’s name no longer a perfectly wicked piece of nomenclature as befits an iconic film baddie, but instead merely an alter ego adopted by a mostly kind-hearted woman wounded by society. It’s a perfect example of a prequel explaining something that never needed to be explained, and hurts the original source material in the process.

Cruella Wouldn’t Kill Dalmatians

As originally written, Cruella de Vil is driven by one single-minded desire: to skin a bunch of puppies and make a fierce coat. As bizarre as it may seem, Cruella completely abandons this significant plot point, painting instead the picture of a woman who adamantly opposes canine murder. This Cruella is actually distinctly pro-animal, taking in a stray dog early on in the film. When the dalmatians swallow an important necklace stolen by the Baroness from Cruella’s mother, the worst she does is kidnap and take care of them until they can pass the necklace.

By film’s end, Cruella has entirely tamed the dalmatians, adopting them as her own, ending this self-styled prequel with a character with barely any resemblance to the iconically mad woman audiences would meet at the start of 101 Dalmatians. She hates the people who have wronged her, but not the innocent dogs, which is something of a problem for a film whose existence is to set up a woman who wants to murder puppies. This might be fine if the film’s perspective was that this anti-dog characteristic of Cruella’s was no more than a smear job, but a mid-credits scene directly setting up 101 Dalmatians makes it clear that’s not the intention. The result is the feeling that Disney wanted to make their “heroine” sympathetic, and that puppy murder would work violently against that. However, this is an absolutely integral part of the character in the first place, and thus removing it entirely creates a fundamentally different figure.

Roger Knew Cruella’s Mother

Roger Radcliffe is one of the principal characters of 101 Dalmatians. A single songwriter living in his London flat with his dalmatian Pongo, he soon meets and falls in love with Anita. Anita’s dalmatian, Perdita, similarly falls in love with Pongo, and the foursome soon move in together until they are terrorized by the machinations of Cruella de Vil. In the original film, Cruella is a former classmate of Anita’s, and Roger’s introduction to her is by name only. He quickly begins improvising a song about her, the iconic “Cruella de Vil,” which compares her to a whole host of awfully monstrous creatures.

In Cruella, Roger works as the Baroness’ personal lawyer and is fired when her competition with Cruella becomes too much. As such, he is aware not only of Cruella, but also of the malevolence of her birth mother (the Baroness). This complicates their relationship in the original story to an unnecessary degree; while it’s implied Roger blames Cruella forever for being fired, it stands to reason he’d also have a bit of sympathy for her, understanding just how cruel the Baroness could be. Add to this the fact that Cruella actually isn’t a monstrous woman at all, but instead a wronged woman wounded by society, and it just seems unmotivated for Roger to make up such a biting song at her expense.

Pongo and Perdita Were Cruella’s (And Are Siblings)

Cruella adopts the Baroness’ three dalmatians, one of whom gives birth to a litter of puppies. Two of these puppies are then gifted to Roger and Anita in a mid-credits scene, the implication being that they are Pongo and Perdita from the original film. As fans of that film will know, Pongo and Perdita eventually give birth to a litter of 15 puppies, which Cruella soon joins with 86 others in an attempt to make some truly fabulous winter apparel. It doesn’t take much to piece this all together and realize that Cruella has implied that Pongo and Perdita entered into an incestuous relationship, and that the 15 puppies from 101 Dalmatians are subsequently all inbred.

Even putting that aside, the development that Pongo and Perdita initially belonged to Cruella is more damaging than helpful to a story that purports to be setting up a film where this same woman wants to abduct these same dogs and skin them alive. Why gift them at all, and why to Anita and Roger, who Cruella barely knows?

About The Author

Kyle Wilson
(56 Articles Published)

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Kyle Wilson is a writer for Screen Rant. Originally from Pennsylvania, he graduated Carnegie Mellon University in 2014 and since then has been based in Brooklyn, NY. He is a big fan of Paddington and Joe Pesci’s performance in “The Irishman.”

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