The Minions movies offer a master class on comedy-friendly evil

The opening sequence of 2015’s Minions It is captivating. It may not be an impressive movie as a whole: The franchise-starter, 2010’s Despicable MeWhile ‘, is an enjoyable film, the series was drawn out by a studio with no incentive to kill its golden goose. Each sequel has therefore been slightly more engaging than its predecessor. The way is still the best! Minions It is notable for its memorable visual gags and how it portrays evil in films.

This introduces key Minion mythology: they are the servants of Gru, an antihero who is most prominently. Despicable Me(as an evolutionary trait. Minions are an immortal, undestructible and banana-colored group of inhuman, infinitely adaptable creatures. They have the instinct to search for evil and help them achieve their goals. That premise, while it may seem frightening from an objective perspective, is a far cry from the comical comedy that this series has. But Minions — and the Despicable Me franchise as a whole — is never truly scary.

Image: Illumination

What is the reason for this? While these movies are designed to encourage the viewer to cheer for the villains, parents will often show their children. These films haven’t inspired moral panic, with the kinds of online petitions, letter-writing campaigns, and inflammatory tweets that usually greet even the most benign cultural creations. The Minions offer a master class in our cultural boundaries around evil — the creators know exactly which lines they’re not allowed to cross.

This is the basic principle of the first Despicable Me film — in which a supervillain becomes a doting dad — rests on the comforting idea that there is good in every bad person. Gru (Steve Carell) introduces himself by destroying the hopes of a crying child in that film’s opening, so there’s a definite shift in his character when he comes to care for his adopted daughters. But, although he starts off petty and cantankerous — living in a dark lair full of trophies to his callousness, driving a monstrous, rocket-esque car, and plotting future crimes while relishing the old ones — he never feels truly wicked. In fact, he’s relatable in the way he resents long coffee queues and unmannerly neighbors. He’s carefully constructed to appeal to viewers — the more soulless of us look at the screen and wish that we, too, had a freeze ray to solve all of our problems.

Characters in the franchise that seem truly malevolent — like orphanage director Miss Hattie (Kristen Wiig)​​, or Bank of Evil director Mr. Perkins (Will Arnett) — are also designed to resonate with viewers, in the opposite way. They abuse their positions of authority in a way that feels more familiar than Gru’s comical evil. While it’s unlikely that any audience members will have been trapped in ice by an impatient supervillain while waiting at Starbucks, many of them will have had an unkind teacher or guardian or been denied a bank loan. Gru, on the other hand, does not attack everyone in his coffee shop but still gives tips to the underpaid employee at the till.

All his evil is reserved by the writers for scenes in which they are able to keep him far away. There’s no better example than Gru’s house, a hyperbolically horrific structure sandwiched between generic bungalows on an otherwise completely ordinary suburban street. He commits to evil as an aesthetic more than anything else — as in Megamind, It appears that Despicable Me’s Supervillainy is a brand that prioritizes appearance over actual harm. Given the film’s everyday setting, his over-the-top misbehavior is funny, not intimidating. They rely on this same absurdity for their Minions.

Image: Illumination

Although we’re all probably a little slightly desensitized by now, there’s no escaping that Minions are objectively strange little creatures, with their giant eyes and mouths and their otherwise largely featureless capsule-shaped bodies. And they aren’t just removed from us physically. They are not just physically removed from us, but they also instinctively search for evil overlords. CouldHowever, the other side of it works just as well. They are completely separated from the human morality understandings, which allow them to exercise their presumption of freedom. If the Minions are biologically programmed to follow evil, it’s slightly silly to hold them responsible for it, right?

They also don’t have personal evil ambitions. They are not trying to be better than Gru or their historical masters. They simply want to serve, even if they aren’t very good at it. The genuine attachment to their masters is quite sweet — so long as you can ignore that “serve” sometimes means “steal the literal moon” — and since they’re not at the top of the hierarchy, we blame them less for the evil undertakings of the actual villains. They don’t have any malice, or even ill will.

They are most human when they have good qualities, just like Gru. He adopts them because they want to give bedtime kisses and make Agnes (one of their girls) a new unicorn after she has lost her old one. It’s clear that they have a genuine capacity for loving relationships, and the only obstacles they actually encounter stem from their own comic stupidity. The Minions’ sheer stupidity is intended to be charming; others find it irritating, but it lowers the fear factor for the franchise.

Image: Illumination

It’s fairly obvious from the beginning that the Minions are hardly the sharpest weapons in any villain’s arsenal. This is the opening MinionsThey jump between masters in a montage. They don’t put much thought into their selection; they’re usually searching because they accidentally killed their old one. The humorous tone of that sequence means that even the most tenderhearted toddler is unlikely to fear any of the scary animals on screen — the T. rex can hardly be considered a particularly vicious predator if it gets taken down by a little yellow guy who’s just trying to help, right?

These writers carefully designed that tone. They show the Minions throughout much of history — however, the script firmly entraps them in an ice cave throughout the entirety of World War II, so no one has to contemplate whether the Minions would have happily served Hitler. It’s not the subtlest of plot points, but it’s hardly surprising that Universal decided against making their beloved mascots Nazis. The alternative would be implying that another villain (presumably of the studio’s own design) was Worse than Hitler — which would not only be extremely ethically questionable, but could potentially require some strange artistic choices for a family-friendly film.

Notably none of the Minions (human supervillains) seem prepared to murder anyone. Gru’s great villainous plot is to steal the moon. It has been since Despicable Me doesn’t delve into the potential consequences of that plan (can’t wait for the gritty live-action remake that explores Gru’s opinions on climate change), it’s vaguely equated to the first actual crime in the film — the theft of the Great Pyramid of Giza. That heist would be culturally devastating and probably upset a lot of invested academics, but it wouldn’t inflict any measurable physical harm. In fact, it actually saves a boy’s life. (Maybe in the horror version of this franchise that exists on the dark timeline, the replacement pyramid wasn’t soft and inflatable.)

It’s true that villain Scarlet Overkill (​​Sandra Bullock), who features in the Minions Film, although Gru is less actively sadistic than Gru is, Gru’s actual evil is restricted to theft. Her actual instructions to the Minions are to steal Queen Elizabeth’s crown. They are sent to an medieval torture chamber if they fail. (Some might argue that that isn’t exceptionally child-friendly, but who didn’tAs a child, you may have a negative attachment to some particular aspect of historical history. MinionsYou can even make fun of them, because their flexible bodies and stretched bodies are incompatible to traditional torture methods.

Because Minions are so cheerfully inept, we aren’t afraid of them. By virtue of their sheer durability, we aren’t afraid For them, either. (It also doesn’t hurt that there are masses of them, making it hard to care about the fate of one individual Minion. It sounds heartless, but let’s be real, Bob really isn’t all that different from Steve.) Their presence reduces the stakes in the Despicable Me Movies completely. This provides low-intensity comedy relief in a series that can easily slide into dangerous and dark places. Although their alien and goggle-eyed characters never quite live up to their creepy potential it is clear that they are Despicable Me films.