Gender Transgression and Villainy in Animated Film

Recently, I read a text called "Gender Transgression and Villainy in Animated Film," by Meredith Li-Vollmer and Mark E. Lapointe. The text is an observational study that is looking to conclude whether gender transgression and queering are utilized in animated children's movies to signify villainy. The study used ten movies - both Disney and non-Disney movies - as evidence to ultimately conclude that gender transgression and queering are utilized in animated children's movies to indicate deviance. The study classifies whether villains illustrated gender transgression using physical characteristics, costuming, nonverbal gestures, activities(or lack thereof), dialogue, and queering.

There are a couple of issues that I have with the evidence presented by Li-Vollmer and Lapointe:

1) The movies that are utilized as to display that queering is used to display villainy are not randomly selected at all. Therefore, the sample that is presented is teeming with bias. The only conclusion that Li-Vollmer and Lapointe should be able to make is that queering is present in the selected sample of movies, since the bias makes the sample not representative of the population of movies. There is no opportunity for those movies who do not relate gender transgression to villainy to have representation in the sample. What if Mulan had been used in the sample? Shan Yu is certainly not in the "villain-as-sissy" archetype, but this is in the population of movies that Li-Vollmer and Lapointe are studying. In a random sample, this movie could have appeared and presented an accurate counter to their conclusion, along with all of the other movies that are not represented. Li-Vollmer and Lapointe make sure they are not mentioned in the study, however.

2) Li-Vollmer and Lapointe are clearly grasping at straws to make parts of their argument, which is truly concerning considering the bias that their sample holds.  I figure that if they hand-picked their sample, they should not have to resort to the evidence presented from The Lion King in queering. For example, Li-Vollmer and Lapointe reference that Zazu says "There's one in every family, sire, two in mine actually. And they always manage to ruin special occasions," when consoling Mufasa after a face-off with Scar. Apparently, this hints at the closeted homosexual identity of Scar. I do not know if I am the only person who does not see how this hints at his "closeted identity," but to me it appears as if there is an array of things that he could be referencing. Maybe he is saying that he has two people in his family who cause trouble, which I personally believe would be the logical conclusion. In my opinion, this is clearly a grasp at thin air to create an argument.

Ultimately, I agree that gender transgression and queering indicate villainy and deviance in children's animated films. I simply just believe that there are more accurate and convincing ways to get the point across to the audience. If I could find the bias and misrepresentation in this study as a college student who has not even delved into the depths of academia yet, I could only imagine how roughly the critics tore apart this study. Since this study is pertaining to a relevant and influential issue in society, I would expect better execution and planning.