ptain Von Trapp's Heart, A few questions sprang to mind: 1) why are female villains always the best dressed characters in films and 2) What even makes Elsa Schräeder such an “evil” character?
If we allow ourselves to reinterpret the wicked stepmother characters that we all know, surely we’d end up understanding their wicked behaviour.
It spawned the thought that these Stepmothers symbolise a general problem with how media and culture narrates women. One small fault and women are labelled “witches” or “wicked stepmotherss” or “whores” or “gold diggers” or “prudes” or…
This project aims to celebrate wicked stepmums, to characterize them using different perspectives and hopefully flip our common perception upside down. After all, Shouldn’t these ambitious women be admired for taking action and fighting for what they want?
If the stories hadn’t been told through a patriarchal narrator, perhaps these female characters wouldn’t have been shamed, but admired for stepping out of the norm and being more of an activist than what was (and is) expected of the second sex. Perhaps they could even be considered feminist icons.