{"id":244,"date":"2025-02-04T17:43:33","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T17:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/chapter\/heroes-and-villains\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T21:52:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T21:52:42","slug":"heroes-and-villains","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/chapter\/heroes-and-villains\/","title":{"raw":"Heroes and Villains","rendered":"Heroes and Villains"},"content":{"raw":"Now ask students:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>What is a <em>villain<\/em>?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Who are some of their favourite villains in media?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>What makes someone a villain?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>When you imagine a picture of a villain in your mind, what do you see?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nAgain, there is no need to reach a consensus on this point. If students start suggesting examples of real-world villains steer them back to media, as this may lead the conversation off-topic.\r\n\r\nNow have students access the student chapter <a href=\"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discovering\/chapter\/heroes-and-villains-2\/\">Heroes and Villains<\/a> or display it on a screen or digital whiteboard.\r\n\r\nShow the first four slides (ending with Aladdin and Jafar) and ask students to imagine, in each case, that they had never seen the movies represented before and did not know anything about the characters.\r\n\r\nFor each of the hero and villain pairs, ask students:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Which of these is the hero?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Which is the villain?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>How do you know? (Remember to base your answer only on what you can see in the image.)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--exercises\"><header class=\"textbox__header\">\r\n<p class=\"textbox__title\"><strong>Prompt students to think about:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Colour: What colours are the heroes\u2019 skin (or fur) and clothes?\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>What are the villains\u2019 colours?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>How do those communicate either heroism or villainy?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Shape: Remind students what they learned about shape language in the <a href=\"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/front-matter\/introduction\/\">Comic Book Characters<\/a> lesson.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Which characters are mostly made of pointy shapes like triangles?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Which are mostly made of rounder shapes?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Bodies: Which characters have slender or muscular bodies?\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Which ones have larger or unusually-shaped bodies?\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Do any characters have disabilities? (Point out that a facial deformity, like the scar on the face of one of the lions, is a disability.)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Faces: How are the heroes and villains\u2019 faces shaped differently?\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Which are more realistic and which are more cartoony?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Which facial features are exaggerated?\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Point out that three of the four villains are smiling, while their paired heroes are not.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Do we normally think of smiling being something nice people do?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>What about the villains\u2019 smiles makes them seem more villainous instead of nicer? (You can have students try to mimic the villains\u2019 smiles, which are all turned up sharply at the back of the mouth. Does it feel like a sincere smile? How would you feel if you saw someone smiling at you like that in real life?)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Aladdin, in slide five, is the only one of the heroes who is smiling and whose villain is not. What might that tell you about him? (He is a bit roguish, not entirely a hero.)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nAsk students if they know what the word [pb_glossary id=\"746\"]stereotype [\/pb_glossary]means. Make sure they understand that a stereotype is an image or picture of a kind of person that makes it seem like they are all the same: all stepmothers are wicked, all princesses are kind and beautiful, and so on. Ask if they know the word [pb_glossary id=\"747\"]prejudice [\/pb_glossary]and make sure they understand that it means believing that there is something bad about a whole group of people, based on who they are.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\r\n\r\nFor older students: Have students compare the villains\u2019 noses in particular. How are they similar? (All of them\u2014even the lion!\u2014have sharply downturned or \u201chooked\u201d noses.)\r\n\r\nAsk students: Can they think of other cartoon villains with noses like that? (A few examples: Captain Hook in Peter Pan, the Evil Queen\u2019s disguise in Snow White, Mother Gothel in Tangled.)\r\n\r\nWhy might that kind of nose be used to show that someone is a villain?\r\n\r\nNow explain that for many years there was a stereotype of Jewish people as all looking a particular way, including having a hooked nose. Because of prejudice against Jewish people, when people drew villains they would often make them look like that stereotype. That included illustrations in the collections of fairy tales that many Disney movies were based on, such as the drawing of the witch. As a result, people started to think of things like hooked noses as meaning \u201cvillain\u201d even when they didn\u2019t recognize it as a Jewish stereotype.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nNow ask: Imagine that something about you\u2014your hair or eye colour, what your ears look like, et cetera\u2014was often used as a sign that a character was a villain. How do you think that would make you feel? How do you think people whose bodies or identities are often used this way, like people with disabilities or people with larger bodies, feel when they see villains like them on screen?\r\n\r\nGo to slide 6 and explain that the image on the left is an early design of Anna and Elsa from the movie Frozen, made when the writers intended Elsa to be a villain.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>This sketch is from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.claireonacloud.com\/frozen\">Claire Keane\u2019s website<\/a>, which hosts many of her sketches for films such as Frozen, Tangled and Enchanted. If you have time to explore with students, it can provide opportunities to explore the Key Concepts that media are constructions and each medium has a unique aesthetic form. Point out that very little changed in the Anna design between the early sketch and the final 3-D rendering.)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nAsk: What was changed in the Elsa design to make her look less like a villain?","rendered":"<p>Now ask students:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is a <em>villain<\/em>?<\/li>\n<li>Who are some of their favourite villains in media?<\/li>\n<li>What makes someone a villain?<\/li>\n<li>When you imagine a picture of a villain in your mind, what do you see?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Again, there is no need to reach a consensus on this point. If students start suggesting examples of real-world villains steer them back to media, as this may lead the conversation off-topic.<\/p>\n<p>Now have students access the student chapter <a href=\"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discovering\/chapter\/heroes-and-villains-2\/\">Heroes and Villains<\/a> or display it on a screen or digital whiteboard.<\/p>\n<p>Show the first four slides (ending with Aladdin and Jafar) and ask students to imagine, in each case, that they had never seen the movies represented before and did not know anything about the characters.<\/p>\n<p>For each of the hero and villain pairs, ask students:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Which of these is the hero?<\/li>\n<li>Which is the villain?<\/li>\n<li>How do you know? (Remember to base your answer only on what you can see in the image.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--exercises\">\n<header class=\"textbox__header\">\n<p class=\"textbox__title\"><strong>Prompt students to think about:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\n<ul>\n<li>Colour: What colours are the heroes\u2019 skin (or fur) and clothes?\n<ul>\n<li>What are the villains\u2019 colours?<\/li>\n<li>How do those communicate either heroism or villainy?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Shape: Remind students what they learned about shape language in the <a href=\"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/front-matter\/introduction\/\">Comic Book Characters<\/a> lesson.\n<ul>\n<li>Which characters are mostly made of pointy shapes like triangles?<\/li>\n<li>Which are mostly made of rounder shapes?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Bodies: Which characters have slender or muscular bodies?\n<ul>\n<li>Which ones have larger or unusually-shaped bodies?\n<ul>\n<li>Do any characters have disabilities? (Point out that a facial deformity, like the scar on the face of one of the lions, is a disability.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Faces: How are the heroes and villains\u2019 faces shaped differently?\n<ul>\n<li>Which are more realistic and which are more cartoony?<\/li>\n<li>Which facial features are exaggerated?\n<ul>\n<li>Point out that three of the four villains are smiling, while their paired heroes are not.\n<ul>\n<li>Do we normally think of smiling being something nice people do?<\/li>\n<li>What about the villains\u2019 smiles makes them seem more villainous instead of nicer? (You can have students try to mimic the villains\u2019 smiles, which are all turned up sharply at the back of the mouth. Does it feel like a sincere smile? How would you feel if you saw someone smiling at you like that in real life?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Aladdin, in slide five, is the only one of the heroes who is smiling and whose villain is not. What might that tell you about him? (He is a bit roguish, not entirely a hero.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Ask students if they know what the word <a class=\"glossary-term\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-describedby=\"definition\" href=\"#term_244_746\">stereotype <\/a>means. Make sure they understand that a stereotype is an image or picture of a kind of person that makes it seem like they are all the same: all stepmothers are wicked, all princesses are kind and beautiful, and so on. Ask if they know the word <a class=\"glossary-term\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-describedby=\"definition\" href=\"#term_244_747\">prejudice <\/a>and make sure they understand that it means believing that there is something bad about a whole group of people, based on who they are.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\n<p>For older students: Have students compare the villains\u2019 noses in particular. How are they similar? (All of them\u2014even the lion!\u2014have sharply downturned or \u201chooked\u201d noses.)<\/p>\n<p>Ask students: Can they think of other cartoon villains with noses like that? (A few examples: Captain Hook in Peter Pan, the Evil Queen\u2019s disguise in Snow White, Mother Gothel in Tangled.)<\/p>\n<p>Why might that kind of nose be used to show that someone is a villain?<\/p>\n<p>Now explain that for many years there was a stereotype of Jewish people as all looking a particular way, including having a hooked nose. Because of prejudice against Jewish people, when people drew villains they would often make them look like that stereotype. That included illustrations in the collections of fairy tales that many Disney movies were based on, such as the drawing of the witch. As a result, people started to think of things like hooked noses as meaning \u201cvillain\u201d even when they didn\u2019t recognize it as a Jewish stereotype.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Now ask: Imagine that something about you\u2014your hair or eye colour, what your ears look like, et cetera\u2014was often used as a sign that a character was a villain. How do you think that would make you feel? How do you think people whose bodies or identities are often used this way, like people with disabilities or people with larger bodies, feel when they see villains like them on screen?<\/p>\n<p>Go to slide 6 and explain that the image on the left is an early design of Anna and Elsa from the movie Frozen, made when the writers intended Elsa to be a villain.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This sketch is from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.claireonacloud.com\/frozen\">Claire Keane\u2019s website<\/a>, which hosts many of her sketches for films such as Frozen, Tangled and Enchanted. If you have time to explore with students, it can provide opportunities to explore the Key Concepts that media are constructions and each medium has a unique aesthetic form. Point out that very little changed in the Anna design between the early sketch and the final 3-D rendering.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ask: What was changed in the Elsa design to make her look less like a villain?<\/p>\n<div class=\"glossary\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\" id=\"definition\">definition<\/span><template id=\"term_244_746\"><div class=\"glossary__definition\" role=\"dialog\" data-id=\"term_244_746\"><div tabindex=\"-1\"><p>An image or picture of a kind of person that makes it seem like they are all the same.<\/p>\n<\/div><button><span aria-hidden=\"true\">&times;<\/span><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Close definition<\/span><\/button><\/div><\/template><template id=\"term_244_747\"><div class=\"glossary__definition\" role=\"dialog\" data-id=\"term_244_747\"><div tabindex=\"-1\"><p>Believing that there is something bad about a whole group of people, based on who they are.<\/p>\n<\/div><button><span aria-hidden=\"true\">&times;<\/span><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Close definition<\/span><\/button><\/div><\/template><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-244","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":241,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1604,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/244\/revisions\/1604"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/241"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/244\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/textbook.mediasmarts.ca\/discoveringstudent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}