PEER REVIEWED
https://doi.org/10.51897/interalia/IUSJ1913
Cuntification and Camp: Unleashing Queer Agency Through Disney’s Ursula
Aaron Kharkamni
Abstract
Disney’s animated villains have long been infused with queer-coded traits, often characterised by flamboyance, theatricality, and a transgressive allure that unsettles the heteronormative order. Scholars argue that such portrayals perpetuate pejorative stereotypes by pathologising queerness as deviance. However, this paper contends that queer villainy can be reclaimed as an act of defiant spectacle, where marginalisation is reconstituted as power through camp aesthetics and performative excess. Using Ursula from The Little Mermaid (1989) as a case study, this paper interrogates the dual function of Disney’s queer-coded villains as both instruments of oppression and emblems of resistance. Inspired by the drag queen Divine, Ursula epitomises a legacy of gender subversion and theatrical villainy, defined by her exaggerated mannerisms, sultry vocal inflections, and seductive cunning. This study further examines Drew Sarich’s 2022 Hollywood in Vienna performance of “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” which accentuates Ursula’s queerness through hyper-stylised gestures and vocal camp. In doing so, Sarich reconfigures villainy through a process I term cuntification, an embodied aesthetic that transforms otherness into agency, exalting glamour, audacity, and unapologetic nonconformity as forms of queer resistance. Drawing upon queer theory, camp aesthetics, and performance studies, this paper contends that rather than perpetuating the stigmatisation of queerness, performances like Sarich’s demonstrate how villainy can be wielded as an instrument of empowerment, subverting normative readings and celebrating defiant self-fashioning.
Keywords: queer villainy, camp aesthetics, performativity, gender subversion, cuntification, drag spectacle
