Film Writing

Understanding Social Life 4 March 2020

Minions: The Culture of Evil

The animated film, Minions, follows the story of a tribe of little yellow potato-like

creatures who live for the purpose of serving the evilest boss they can find. The film begins with

a timeline of minion history, following the minions as they serve evil dinosaurs and medieval

kings, until they fail as henchman for Napoleon and are chased into an icy cave. Here they find

solace from the angry Frenchman and build a flourishing civilization. However, their tribe starts

to suffer without the ability to fill their basic need of serving an evil boss. The rest of the film

tells of the exciting journey that three brave minions, Stuart, Kevin, and Bob, undertake to find

the evilest boss to bring back to their tribe and save the minions. On their adventure, they end up

in the US at a villain convention (Villain-Con) where Scarlet Overkill rules over all the other

supervillains. She offers a reward to the three minions on the condition that they steal the crown

of England for her so she can become queen. However, on their mission, Bob frees the sword in

the stone, thus accidentally becoming King of England, making Scarlet Overkill furious. Chaos

ensues as she attempts to kill the three Minions in her rage. In the end, Scarlet is defeated, the

queen gets her crown back, and everything seems to be resolved. Suddenly, a child (Gru from

Despicable Me) runs in with his freeze ray, takes the crown, and inspires the Minions as their

ideal evil boss.

In the world of Minions, the institution of evil strongly influences the ideas, behaviors,

and meanings of the members of villain society. In “You May Ask Yourself,” Conley defines

culture as “the sum of the social categories and concepts we embrace in addition to beliefs,

behaviors, and practices” (84). In the film’s creative approach, evil assumes its own culture,

exhibiting all the hallmark characteristics of culture, including material culture, and nonmaterial

values, beliefs, behaviors, and ideologies. Material culture consists of the constructed physical

environment, including physical artifacts like books, movies, celebrities, cars, and fashion

(Conley 88). Much of the material culture of evil can be easily recognized in the many gadgets of

the villains. At the international Villain-Con, inventors display their freeze rays, and time

machines which speak to evil culture and its values of innovation for the sake of nefarious

agendas. Scarlet Overkill’s husband, Herb, is one of these evil inventors, reflecting and

propagating the culture of evil with contraptions like lava guns and nuclear-armed clothing.

Fashion is another evident piece of evil material culture consisting of the stereotypical

evil-scientist lab coats and trench coats, along with high-tech gadget-filled wardrobes. For

example, the minions use a hypnotic hat and robot “stretch suit” during their mission to steal the

crown, while Scarlet Overkill zooms around in a jet-propelled ball gown. Specially designed by

Herb, the dress is “a blend of taffeta and high-density body armor, fully armed and loaded.”

The Nelson family of villains helps demonstrate further instances of evil material culture.

Tina, the daughter, eagerly flips through her supervillain magazine, filled with articles about the

meanest, most famous villains like “Dumo the Sumo” and “Freaky Fishlips,” alongside

advertisements for disguises and stolen rubies, which glorify lawlessness and harmful ways of

acting.

More importantly, all of these artifacts reflect the nonmaterial culture of evil: the values,

beliefs, behaviors, and norms shared by a group of people (Conley 88). Conley explains that, on

one of its most basic levels, nonmaterial culture embodies ideology, or “a system of concepts and

relationships, an understanding of cause and effect” (90). A large driving ideology in the villain

culture is the concept that the ends justify the means. At her big rally at Villain-Con, Scarlet

Overkill addresses her fanatic crowd with this sentiment, asserting that “We all have one thing in

common: we have big dreams and we will do anything to make them come true!” This, of

course, is further reflected in the actions of the villains. When Scarlet offers a henchman position

to anyone who can take the ruby from her hand, the crowd of villains is more than ready to

tackle, bite, and fight their competitors for their objective. Similarly, the Nelsons embody this

ends-means ideology when they are in a car chase with the police after robbing a bank. They go

as far as toppling miles of telephone wires and a water tank to cause the police cars to crash

because their ends- them escaping with money- justify any destructive means.

Even more prominently, the minions internalize this evil understanding of the world

when they show that they will stop at nothing to get what they want- an evil boss. They

undertake the task of stealing the crown from Queen Elizabeth, without considering any

repercussions, dangers, or harm it might cause others. This is because they have been taught by

evil culture that if they complete this task, they will be rewarded, and that’s all that matters.

“Steal me the Crown,” Scarlet tells them, “and all your dreams will come true! Respect! Power!

Bananas!”

Many distinct values originate from the evil culture. Conley explains that values - our

moral beliefs - are shaped by our culture, and these values are played out through norms (95-96).

We see the values of selfishness, hatred, and greed externalized by the behaviors and norms of

the villain world.

How did all these individuals adopt such norms and behaviors? The culture of evil

employs a number of institutions to socialize villains so that they internalize evil ideologies and

values. A social institution is defined as “a complex group of interdependent positions that

together perform a social role and reproduce themselves over time” and ‘works to shape the

behavior of the groups or people within it” (Conley, 17). Institutions such as family, peers, and

media act as agents of socialization and help instill a society’s culture. Socialization is “the

process by which the individual internalizes the values, beliefs, and norms of a given society and

learn to function as a member of that society” (124). The family acts as a primary institution of

evil in the Minions film. The dynamics of the Nelson family exemplify such socialization, when

the parents instill norms of criminality into their kids. They all rob a bank as a family, and as

they peel away in their car, the daughter is sad that she tripped the alarm. She shows shame that

she isn’t a good criminal, revealing that she is already internalizing some of these evil norms.

The father comforts Tina, assuring her that “We all make mistakes, sugar plumb, you’re still

learning,” while the mother chimes in, “Your father’s right. He wasn’t this good at being evil

overnight! Your time’s coming!” The Nelson family illustrates the way in which many villains in

the evil community likely came to operate in such evil ways starting from an early age.

The mass media is another institution that propagates evil culture. Tina’s magazine, the

“Top Secret Villain Network Channel,” and the international Villain-con reaffirm norms like

“being bad,” and acting in criminal ways. By emphasizing certain values and marketing to

certain statuses, the media reaffirms evil behavior and ideas, while quashing non-evil sentiments.

The villain industry also acts as a social institution to instill evil ways. Villain-con

exhibits the workings of industry, where scientific technology is geared towards use for

treachery, and employment largely focuses on villainy. Supervillain bosses hire henchman in a

competitive marketplace requiring a henchman placement specialist that seek special villain

talents. The evil economic organization shapes the way people think and behave, and what their

goals are. For example, villains are encouraged to act with cutthroat intentions, vying for the

esteemed status of serving the meanest supervillain, Scarlet Overkill.

Finally, the institution of language operates as an agent of evil socialization by

emphasizing certain values and normalizing certain ways of thought. Terms like “evil,” “bad,”

and “supervillain” all carry connotations of greatness. Scarlet Overkill gets a standing ovation for

her statement “Doesn’t it feel so good to be Bad?” juxtaposing this sentiment with words like

“greatness” and “success.” More subtly, written language emphasizes the high appraisals of

inconsiderate values with signs stating “Shut up! And wait your turn!,” and license plates

displaying “LUV-2-ROB.” In conversation, too, evil culture is verbalized and propagated to

others. For instance, the way Scarlet offhandedly calls the queen of England a “pale drink of

water” in the same sentence as “I’m her biggest fan” suggests that degeneracy has been

normalized with such casually harsh and judgmental language.

As both the technology developed and the system of beliefs, ideologies, and symbolic

representations that these technologies reflect, evil certainly creates a name for itself as a

powerful culture in Minions. Through pervasive communication of evil values and norms in

families, media, industry, and material culture, villains internalize evil culture and reproduce its

effects in their own ideas, behaviors and relationships. In this way, Scarlet’s pursuit of the crown

and the Minion’s reckless quests to serve a boss are looked upon as acceptable and even

comenndable.

Literature Cited

Conley, D. (2019). You may Ask Yourself: an introduction to thinking like a sociologist. New

York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Meledandri, C., Healy, J & ; Janet Healy (Producers) & Pierre Coffin, P. & Kyle Balda, K.

(Directors). (2015). Minions [Motion Picture]. United States: Illumination Entertainment.