Hollywood’s the villain over skin disease
Giving baddies disfigured faces fuels prejudice, say researchers
FROM Darth Vader to the Wicked Witch in The Wizard Of Oz, cinema’s biggest villains often come with an added feature — a skin condition.
Now Hollywood’s habit of depicting skin disease as evil has been criticised for helping fuel prejudice against people with dermatological problems.
Researchers who studied a list of the greatest heroes and villains found that six of the top 10 villains had some sort of condition, compared with only two of the leading 10 heroes.
Darth Vader, Queen Grimhilde from Snow White And The Seven Dwarves, and The Exorcist’s possessed child Regan MacNeil all have periorbital hyperpigmentation, or dark circles under the eyes. Vader and the queen also suffer deep rhytides, or wrinkles, while the Sith Lord and Regan have multiple facial scars as well.
Both the Wicked Witch of the West, who brought fear to the land of Oz, and Snow White’s evil stepmother have verruca vulgaris, or facial warts. Added to this Queen Grimhilde also has rhino- phyma — a bulbous nose. The study also points out that Hannibal Lecter from The Silence Of The Lambs and Mr Potter from It’s A Wonderful Life both have alopecia — an autoimmune condition which causes hair loss and can bring emotional distress to sufferers.
The research was carried out by Julia Croley of the University of Texas medical branch and her colleagues. Writing in the journal JAMA Dermatology, they said: “The results of this study demonstrate Hollywood’s tendency to depict skin disease in an evil context, the implications of which extend beyond the [cinema].
“Unfairly targeting dermatologic minorities may contribute to a tendency toward prejudice in our culture and facilitate misunderstanding of particular disease entities among the general public ... filmmakers are tasked with addressing biased portrayals of dermatologic disease.”
The two top heroes with facial disfigurement were Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones and Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine from Casablanca — both had facial scars. The study was based on the American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Heroes and Villains list. @RossLydall