Cruella De Vil: The Nasty Woman Role Model We Need.

So many puppies, so little time.

Brit McGinnis
6 min readMar 10, 2017
Source: Gurl.com

Do you remember the first time you saw what female pleasure looked like? Real, raw, feminine lust. When did you see it first?

Chances are you didn’t see it in a Disney movie. But for a great many young women coming up in the 1990s, that first time came in the 1996 adaptation of 101 Dalmatians. But it wasn’t between a woman and a partner. It was between a woman and a particularly illegal fur coat. A Siberian tiger, to be exact.

Cruella’s short, halted breaths were unmistakable when she unwrapped that fur coat. She was unbelievably excited to receive it and exclaimed that it was magnificent. She had to have it in her hands, around her body. It was imperative. Nothing would stop her. And when it was finally around her, the first words out of her mouth were, “You were a big bad boy, weren’t you darling?”

Glenn Close brought this sinister lust to Cruella de Vil in 1996, reviving a beloved character for a new generation. The 2018 film Cruella, starring the ubiquitous Emma Stone, is set to do the exact same thing. We just can’t get rid of Cruella de Vil.

And why would we want to? Cruella is rare in the media landscape because she is the female id, snuggling her coat and laughing at the world. She’s been a…

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Brit McGinnis

Copyeditor. Copywriter. Community Manager. Your horror hostess. Writer of romance novels. Golden Rose Judge. Cited Cruella de Vil expert. Feeder of crows.