Green is Evil!
The Use of Green in the Disney Villain World
What do the Evil Queen, Lady Tremaine, Scar, and Mad Madam Mim all have in common? Well, yes, they are all unsavory characters. That’s a given. But they all also have green eyes. I took note of this when I was pretty young. Not because I was observant (I wasn’t), but because I, too, have green eyes. Then I began to notice just how often the color green was associated with the antagonist. Turns out, it plays a prominent role in the Disney villain universe. Green is evil.
The reason for the use of green eyes for villains could be that green eyes are rare. It is estimated that less than 2% of the world’s population have green eyes! Many Medieval Europeans equated green eyes with magic and witchcraft. And evil. Green is also widely associated with greed and envy–not the best traits!
But Disney doesn’t stop with eyes. Maleficent’s eyes were yellow (another color that Disney uses often for antagonist eye color, and one which I find considerably more alarming than green eyes) but still green was continuously used as a harbinger of her evil. Specifically lime green. Her castle is enveloped in a green glow:
Also, the orb she hypnotizes Aurora with is green:
She even bursts into (when she leaves the Christening) and breathes (as the dragon) GREEN fire!
Additionally, the Evil Queen’s potion to turn her into an old hag is green, as is the coating on her poison apple before she turns it into a more enticing red color.
While the hands that Urusla conjures up to snatch Ariel’s voice are a menacing lime color.
Oogie Boogie in the Nightmare Before Christmas is, for the most part, just a creepy bug-filled burlap sack. BUT, in the right lighting, he glows a sinister lime green.
Hercules is tasked with swimming through the River of Souls in his attempt to save Meg’s life. The current was, unshockingly, green.
When Dr. Facilier is conjuring his friends “on the other side,” what is the color of the glow around him? Surprise! Lime green.
Even the lantern that Mother Gothel carries shines an odd lime green light.
The first non-evil Disney character to have green eyes was Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Claude Frollo considered her to be an evil temptress, so there the green ties in with evil, or at least perceived evil, again.
It wasn’t until Rapunzel in Tangled that we see a complete break from the negative connotations. We are talking about THREE QUARTERS OF A CENTURY!
So, suffice it to say, if you ever find yourself in a Disney movie (or, heck a real life situation, just to be on the safe side) and you see someone mysteriously shrouded in lime green, hightail it out of there. Most likely, danger lurks!