La Ron S. Readus
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The Bad Guys: The Gay Liberation of Wolf and Snake (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2022-06-08 20:00:04 +0000 UTCEver since the first trailer came out for it, I’ve been incredibly interested in watching Dreamworks latest original animated movie, “The Bad Guys”
No, I didn’t know it was an adaptation of a children’s book series when I first learned about it. Hell, I didn’t even know that aspect about the film until after I finally sat down and WATCHED it!
But considering Dreamworks’ track record of their animated films that HAVE been adapted from children’s books, I think calling it an original is still a fair statement.
And while the idea of a group of anthro animals voiced by a good mix of newcomers, pretty recognizable names, and that one living bottle of water nobody likes talking about that ISN’T Dasani was definitely a selling point, what REALLY caught my interest was the character every furry I knew immediately start thirsting after, Mr. Wolf, voiced by Nando v Moives’s celebrity avatar Sam Rockwell, and seeing that the plot was going to revolve around him receiving positive praise for the first time.
Ever since I saw that this was the angle the movie was going to go in, I immediately became intrigued.
I was interested in how they were gonna handle it, how the overall story was gonna shape up with it in mind. The allegorical possibilities!
My God, the ALLEGORICAL POSSIBILITIES!
So I shared the trailer with my immediate close friend group. And after watching it, my one friend who is and will be forever smarter than me went:
“...Okay, so it’s Lupin the Wolf with a Praise Kink. So what?”
And I reacted with
“Well damn. I mean, you right. But God damn...”
But did I let that stop me watching it myself when it was available to be rented digitally? No siree.
Because one of the things I was excited to see about Wolf’s reaction to being called a good boy for the first time was if queer theory could be applied to it. ESPECIALLY after seeing the furry community happily ship him with the cantankerous Mr. Snake, voiced by my favorite middle-aged currently unproblematic white comedian, Marc Maron
And while I personally ship Wolf with Diane Foxington -- because god damn am I a sucker for the type of chemistry these two types of characters have -- I must say that there are in fact ways one can translate the setups in The Bad Guys’s story with that of queerness
And not just in Wolf’s character being the most prominent, but in Snake’s as well.
And while the “You’re such a good boy” moment plays heavily into that as well, I wanna spend today’s lesson dissecting that and how ANOTHER important element in the story allows that to translate the film as a way of promoting queer expression and exploration in a world that doesn’t necessarily want you to according to its rules
Am I talking about the world of the movie, or that of real life? The answer? Yes. Let’s begin.
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Hey, Readers. La’Ron here. Offering you analysis and perspective on your favorite bits of geek and pop culture media
If it wasn’t obvious from the intro, this video will in fact contain spoilers for the Dreamworks animated movie, “The Bad Guys.” It’s currently available to be rented or owned digitally, so give it a watch before continuing here if you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want me to spoil pivotal points of it for you in this video.
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That’s the syllabus. Now onto the lesson.
___________
So What’s The Hidden Element?
By paying close attention to how The Bad Guys are treated in this film -- and, in turn, how they treat themselves -- it actually reveals a lot about what stirred Wolf’s spirit over the course of the movie after experiencing “goodness” for the first time.
/The beginning of the movie actually helps paint a pretty perfect picture for it. When we see Wolf and Snake leave the diner, literally EVERYONE is afraid of them, despite doing everything they’re supposed to do regarding proper compensation for their meal. Yes, they IMMEDIATELY rob a bank afterward, but that’s how the bit works in order to establish they’re thieves, which just so happens to be the SECOND factor we need to take into consideration./
The third and final one is that not just Wolf and Snake, but every member of the Bad Guys -- including Diane Foxington and Rupert Marmalade...
/Are the only anthros in this universe’s version of Los Angeles; everyone else is human. And it just so happens that every anthro in the movie has dabbled in a type of collar crime./
Noticing all of these points over the course of the movie while also taking into consideration Wolf’s want to change and experiment with “goodness,” I was able to sense a pattern.
A group of what looks to be the only anthros in this version of Los Angeles -- each member being animals that the general human public has shown to be terrified of -- partake in crime because they are already looked at and perceived as dangers to a mostly human society.
They’re being “bad” on purpose because not only are they good at it collectively, but because it’s what’s EXPECTED of them FROM said society because of who they are.
/And then when Wolf starts dabbling in what’s considered “goodness” once he gets a taste, he begins to realize that the expectancy isn’t what he actually wants/
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an allegory of someone struggling to break free of the patriarchy to me. Specifically a man trying to break free of a simplified version of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, finally realizing the system is truly doing him more harm than good.
This is the same kind of patriarchy that makes the practice of hegemonic masculinity to men just as important as needing car insurance in order to get your license plate tags renewed every year.
It affects both men AND women, no matter the ethnicity, because it’s founded on the systemic control that has oppressed them and gives them the illusion that said dominance and indoctrination can be harnessed and used themselves among their own; very much a “let’s use The One Ring against Sauron” type deal.
And because they THINK it can be established within their own communities and cultures, it does nothing but perpetuate more division and destruction.
Men are allowed no emotional or expressive freedom for anything that doesn’t promote the duties of the heteronormative masculine, resulting in the insecure and toxic “red pill” debates and situations about masculinity that we have today.
Women are either forced to be confined to conservative gender roles that are archaically associated with their sex according to said white supremacist rootings, or idealize it in their own household because it’s all they know.
/The form of patriarchal society that we deal with is -- to quote the late Bell Hooks -- dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence/
Now it’s obvious that this extent of what patriarchy does isn’t depicted in a Dreamworks Animated rated PG-ass movie meant for kids. But it’s ALSO obvious when looking at what Wolf and Snake go through that aspects about what it does is present.
As a matter of fact, a lot of what the Bad Guys go through mentally is thanks to a form of patriarchy that fits the world of the movie, but isn’t necessarily all that different from the patriarchy that’s present in real life.
Because Wolf, Snake and the others are the only anthros in a world of humans and said humans react the way that they do while in their presence because the animals that they represent are traditionally dangerous, there’s already a specific role assigned to them that has stuck since childhood for a lot of the gang.
/Society views them as scary monsters, treats them like scary monsters, and expects them to be scary monsters. So they end up conforming to that role, even if that’s not who they truly are at their core, or either wish to or are capable of experiencing more outside of it. This is no different than real life patriarchy assigning us gender roles at birth and it constantly grooming us over the course of our lives in how to appropriately carry out those duties, despite the HIGH possibility of us being built differently./
And ALSO like the real-life patriarchy, this type of indoctrination has caused some pretty hefty damage in how the main characters of this story operate and see themselves.
Yes, they’re all good at something that as a collective makes them a pretty good gang of thieves. But thanks to this world’s equivalent of patriarchy, they all have to repress aspects of who they are that don’t fit into what’s expected of them, and are indoctrinated into its rules -- presumably at a young age considering the types of animals that they are.
/And as psychotherapist John Bradshaw states in his book Creating Love, the main rule that drives patriarchy is blind obedience./
So now that we know that the main hindrance to Wolf and Snake is a unique fictional reflection of patriarchy, we now have something to go off of regarding how to go about answering the main question that’s being discussed regarding this analysis:
What Makes The Bad Guys Queer?
As you can imagine, how The Bad Guys delivers the concept of “goodness” is done so broadly that it can be interpreted as it’s initially displayed, or used as an allegory for multiple things.
Thanks to how the movie plays around with this simplistic variant of challenging patriarchy and what society expects of you, comparing the movie’s handling of “goodness” to that of queerness -- or at least queer exploration -- kinda go hand-in-hand the further you get into the story.
/We definitely have Wolf to thank for that in that regard. Sure, the old lady he decided to save was part of Marmalade’s plan to frame the gang so he could steal the meteorite later on for his own heist, but the experience Wolf gained from being praised made him feel something he never did before being under the thumb of what those in the movie expected from him. It was so different from anything he allowed himself to experience before. So much so, that he sought it again on his own accord, unmanipulated by Marmalade. And it felt just as good and right to him as it did at the gala./
Seeing Wolf go through this transition over the course of the movie, knowing that he and every other member of the gang has that same expectancy placed upon them by the humans of Los Angeles to act a certain way...
Easily allowed me to view the picture of Wolf being a thief in a society that expects him to be a villain in the same light of man in a society that expects him to follow the indoctrinated guidelines of what they expect a man to be; straight, dominant, and cut off from any traditional emotions or feelings that would otherwise make him be depicted as soft and weak, les he’s viewed as emasculated.
So when one either expresses themselves in ways not traditionally associated with the hegemonic masculinity that capitalist patriarchy tells us we should, and it feels RIGHT to them...
We either experiment and act on it further to see if it's something we truly want, or we deny it and push it somewhere out of mind because this is what society expects of me; this is what patriarchy demands of me.
/But we’ll talk more about Snake in a minute./ (black boy burn video)
Now those of us who know anything about identity and self-discovery know that interpreting Wolf’s situation in The Bad Guys and translating “goodness” to “queerness” isn’t that farfetched.
Discovering sexuality and gender isn’t a thing that only happens during puberty, and there are plenty of individuals who have genuinely realized as such later on in life.
Hell, I presently have two cis male friends my age who identified as straight for the longest time, had “You’re such a good boy” moments of their own, and at their own time and pace realized that they...weren’t.
And as you can imagine, you can apply this same logic to individuals living out the majority of their adult lives under the impression that they were the gender that they were born as, and realize late in life through that same instance that they’re actually a different gender, or feel right living outside of the binary and proceed to do so.
But while there’s truth in comparing Wolf’s willingness to explore “goodness” after an enlightening experience in spite of everyone expecting him to be bad and translating it to a male’s willingness to explore “queerness” after an enlightening experience in spite of patriarchal society expecting him to be masculine in a heteronormative sense...
The same can also be said about how Wolf tries to juggle wanting to experience more “goodness” with that of keeping up his reputation with the gang as a Bad Guy.
Because thanks to how engraved patriarchal indoctrination is in some men’s heads regarding how they’re supposed to act, feel, and present themselves, some actively try to have it both ways.
/In Wolf’s case regarding goodness, he used it as a cover. Assuring the rest of the gang that their rehabilitation was just a ploy to steal the Golden Dolphin from under Marmalade’s nose in order to save face with them, he genuinely wanted to see if what he felt was just a fluke or if his further explorations with goodness just felt right. And as we see by the time we get to the dinner, it felt right enough for him to completely scrap the plan at the last minute and realize that this change -- this decision to no longer be the big bad wolf that this society expects him to be -- was what he wanted./ (I’m giving it all back)
Once again, making the decision to shed patriarchal expectations off of yourself can be hard to do if you’ve been forced to accept that this is who you are for so long.
And in trying to have it both ways regarding exploring things outside those boundaries while living a livelihood loosely associated with them -- regardless if it involves queer exploration or otherwise -- sometimes can cause you to sever the ties you intended to keep from breaking by deciding to play both sides in the first place.
/Kinda similar to what happened with Snake and the others once he said something hurtful in the heat of the moment/
/But while Diane’s words ring true in both scenarios (you’re doing the right thing. And someday your friends, if they’re your REAL friends, I'm sure they’ll understand), there’s one particular friend that was the most hurt when Wolf was forced to reveal the truth. And in it, we’re forced to ask an honest question:/
What’s The Deal With Snake?
Snake was not JEALOUS of Wolf’s willingness to forgo the societal expectations of this movie’s version of patriarchy that their friendship was founded on in favor of nurturing the “goodness” he discovered he was capable of and wanted to nurture. He was SCARED.
The Bad Guys does a great job in displaying Marc Maron’s character as the individual that has been shackled by patriarchal expectations for so long that he literally knows no other way to live.
/He’s been so used to being called scary, a monster, and being isolated and alone for being a snake, that in giving in to this societal expectation, it has altered his attitude and perception of both life and relationships to properly reflect as such./
When it comes to using The Bad Guys to explore how various levels of patriarchy hinders both queer and traditionally non-masculine exploration, Snake represents pretty much everyone who has allowed themselves to be molded by said varieties of patriarchy via the insecure pseudo dominant displays of masculinity and manhood, that’s traditionally birthed by a fear of emasculation.
As I explained earlier on in the video, they are forced into gender norms that reflect that of dominance and authority, and are only allowed to express emotions that align with that mindset.
They don’t know that crying is cathartic and only know it as being a moment of weakness.
They believe it's emasculating to healthily reveal feelings they have for other men even just on a platonic scale, and overall believe that’s something straight men just don’t do.
They believe that choosing not to act on very dangerous thoughts that otherwise would’ve been cathartic to just share with someone who understands them and is willing to listen is the equivalent of keeping your emotions under control...
And are quick to believe both stereotypical and dangerous generalizations of men and women. Hell, they don’t even know that men can suffer from body dysmorphia because of said generalized ways of thinking.
No, I didn’t just make all of that up; I LITERALLY know dudes who have ALL of that toxicity that patriarchal expectations place on them via ethnic-centered hegemonic masculinity; it's both flabbergasting and fucking exhausting.
So when you look at Snake and see that this is what he represents in The Bad Guys, and then you see how he reacts to Wolf’s willingness to step out of what the world of the movie expects from them as the only anthros present in the form of dangerous animals knowing that part of their friendship was established based on how much of their sense of self was rooted in it, you can see where the worry comes from.
/You can see why he reacted the way that he did when Snake goaded Wolf into admitting that he feels like he’s outgrown not only the crew, but Snake as well when he finally “comes out” to the rest of them in prison/
Because while the acceptance of queerness -- at least on the level of friends, family and sometimes coworkers -- is growing more and more frequent...
There’s still a chance even among younger generations that one who is blissfully ignorant of how patriarchy has molded their viewpoints and very understanding of masculinity, manhood, orientation and the like can be intimidated on some “say syke right now” shit when someone close to them decides to unlearn this way of thinking and freely explore more about themselves once they have their “You’re a good boy” moment. They, instead, internalize it, and lash back out in various ways.
/And not only does this happen to Snake, but upon them all escaping prison with Diane’s help, he ALSO has a “You’re a good boy” moment of his own. And that just opens up a whole new can of worms that the movie cleverly takes advantage of, because he rejects it at first thanks to how indoctrinated he is in the movie’s form of patriarchy./
And if it wasn’t for the movie later on revealing that he was playing Marmalade in order to pull the ol’ switcheroo with the meteor...
/Snake’s quote-unquote betrayal and decision to work with him on his guinea pig heist could easily be translated as someone who is willing to, like I said earlier, deny his goodness -- or his queerness in this instance -- and push it somewhere out of mind because this is what society expects of him; what the patriarchy demands of him./
And while I acknowledge that this unlocks the door to discuss DL dudes and the concept of trade, we’re just gonna...we’re just gonna keep it CRACKED for now and then fully open it in another video when I have the mental aptitude to share my thoughts on...all THAT.
Conclusion
Now, I’d be lying if I said I WASN’T expecting to take anything analytical out of this Dreamworks animated movie possibly LOOSELY adapted from the children’s book series of the same name?
Like I stated before; the very concept of a wolf wanting to change his ways after experiencing what it feels like to do it was an interesting concept.
And while it’s not an EXACT translation when you watch it on film considering Marmalade’s manipulation of the situation, and both Diane’s arc and influence in the story making it feel like the gang’s transitioning to societal conformity than anything else...
Trust me, I peeped that too...
/The struggles that Wolf, Snake, and even the rest of the gang later on have to deal when the rest of society that forces them to act a certain way definitely spoke more to me as a black queer man who was once enthralled in aspects of the patriarchy that the film reminds me of. And if watching this movie under this lens can help someone have a “You’re such a good boy” moment of their own and step out of the expectations society has on them, then I have no problem considering that a win./
But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what YOU thought of “The Bad Guys” if you’ve seen it.
Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, what YOUR “Good Boy” moment was that prompted you to explore more about yourself that patriarchy otherwise shamed you for; queer or otherwise.
And make sure you word things in a way that doesn’t get the comment immediately hidden. It be like that sometimes.
Whichever question you decide to answer, I’d LOVE to know your thoughts.
/A HUGE shoutout to my Patrons both big and small for helping make this channel possible.
Make sure you check out the card at the end of the video to see if you want to join, or click the link to it or any of my affiliates in the description box below.
But until then, this is Readus 101. Class dismissed./
