From Sharpay Evans To Lavender Brown, People Are Sharing The "Villains" They Now Realise Were Kind Of Right

Justice for Wilhemina Slater!

Recently, Reddit user u/Wonderful_Living_623 asked the people of r/Popculturechat, "who did you realise in hindsight wasn't actually the villain?" Here are some of our fave responses...

1. "Ken from The Bee Movie. That lady tried to make him think she wasn't leaving him for a bee."

Paramount Pictures

—u/miamouse5

"Was his behaviour towards Barry in the bathroom a little bit unhinged? Absolutely. But his girlfriend was cheating on him with a literal bug and trying to make it seem normal. I'd probably go a little nuts if I were in his situation, too."

—u/TameTheDonut

2. "Squidward. Poor dude just wanted to play his clarinet and have a moment's peace. Instead, he had to put up with the shenanigans of a couple boneheads nearly 24/7."

Nickelodeon

—u/AMissKathyNewman  

3. "Emily from The Devil Wears Prada."

20th Century Studios

—u/faerie-kadoatie

"I think her character was meant to be a ghost of Christmas future. A vision of what happens to you working there. Stressed, lonely, and ultimately f*cked over."

—u/missanthropocenex 

4. "Miranda Hillard in Mrs Doutbfire."

20th Century Studios

—u/Intelligent-Put-1990

"God, yes. Imagine coming home from a long day at work to a house full of farm animals and cops? She deserved to move on with '90s-era Pierce Brosnan."  

—u/fuckthisfuckinghell

5. "The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. Some bitch kills her sister and then steals the shoes right off the dead body."

MGM

"She rightly becomes grief-stricken and annoyed about the body's desecration, and then gets killed. Rude as hell..."

—u/NadjasLife

6. "Betty Draper from Mad Men. Her husband is a serial cheater and liar, she's disconnected from her children, and no one ever takes her seriously, they just talk down to her like a little girl."

AMC

"I'm not saying she's a precious baby who's done nothing wrong (all of the characters on Mad Men can be pretty horrible people at one point or another). But in terms of the worst people on the show, Betty doesn't even crack the top ten."

—u/just_justine93

7. "Janice Hosenstein in Friends."

NBC

—u/Yo-Friendly-Reaper

"I was an adult when I figured out Janice wasn't a villain. Friends first came out when I was in fourth(?) grade. Since the main characters found her annoying, I did too. During one of the many re-runs on TBS I saw in college, I realized Janice is pretty cool."

—u/woulddiefcftbatk

"I never thought about this before, but they're kinda classist toward Janice. She's the only one with a real New York accent. I definitely don't think the Friends writers meant to say all that, but it's interesting."

—u/inevertoldyouwhatido

"Besides the unnecessary cheating arc, I always liked her."

—u/flutteringfeelings

8. "The Mummy in The Mummy. Homie just missed his boo thang and would do anything for her."

Universal Pictures

—u/_big_fern_

"I always felt so bad for him at the end of the second Mummy movie. His love abandons him in the Scorpion King's temple, and he realizes she doesn't love him the way he loves her, so he just gives up."

—u/sharksarentsobad

9. "Skyler from Breaking Bad is literally a victim, but so many people act like being against your husband becoming a drug lord and killing people is villain material."

AMC

—u/Blessed_BeTheFruit

"I'd never watched the show until this past summer and I was genuinely shocked to discover that people hated Skylar! As someone with anxiety, I couldn't imagine living with the constant fear of, well, everything that Walt was doing.

Who's the first person cartels usually go after when they're trying to send a message to folks in the drug trade? The family. The wife and kids. She had every right to not be okay with what was going on."

—u/_banana_phone

10. "Lavender Brown in the Harry Potter movies. Sis was just in love..."

Warner Bros.

—u/periwinkle-_-

11. "Sid Phillips in Toy Story. He's just a kid who plays with toys in a rough way, he didn't know they were alive!"

Walt Disney Pictures

—u/Wonderful_Living_623

12. "Wilhemina Slater in Ugly Betty. I rewatched Ugly Betty recently and realised how pro-Wilhelmina I am. Yes, she did some sketchy things, but she deserved the editor-in-chief job much more than nepo-baby Daniel."

ABC

"I didn't like how the show made her first issue as editor-in-chief a flop when she's so competent in every other episode."

—u/redpanda793 

13. "Sharpay Evans from High School Musical. She was really good at her extracurriculars, gave her classmates summer jobs, and tried to get her crush a scholarship, but still never got the role she worked hard for."

Disney Channel

 —u/Wonderful_Living_623   

14. "Cordelia from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. She was supposed to be a 'mean girl', but the main cast was actually really messed up to her and Buffy even almost stabbed her with a wooden stake on one of their first meetings. I'd be salty too."

The WB

—u/AlienMoonMama 

15. "Summer from 500 Days of Summer. A lot of people saw her as the 'villain' in the film, but growing up is realising that she had laid out her terms in the beginning, and he wanted things from her she could never provide."

Searchlight Pictures

—u/Aquametria

"Yeah, that movie's actually a pretty good litmus test of how well you can listen to a woman. Summer never deviates from the boundaries she lays out at the beginning, Tom just keeps hoping that if he's 'nice enough', she'll change her mind and suddenly want a fully committed relationship.

I'm immediately wary of anyone who doesn't understand the point of that movie — they even tell you flat out in the first two minutes that it isn't a love story!"

—u/epk921

16. "She did have her moments of arrogance & snobbishness, but I don't think Jackie from Yellowjackets was nearly as bad as what she's made out to be. I think she still genuinely cared for Shauna and her fellow teammates, and being stuck in the woods post-crash started to cause mental cracks."

Showtime

"Especially considering the pressure for her to conduct herself as a 'captain' figure, which she was most likely raised to be by her parents and others. If she survived longer, I wonder if she would've coped with going down the path of the rest of the team."

—u/Upbeat_Tension_8077

"Wait, people thought Jackie was the villain?!?! Her best friend got knocked up by her boyfriend. She slept with Travis, yes, but she was being a normal teenager in an extreme situation and their reaction was to make her sleep outside in the freezing Canadian winter where she literally fucking died. I loved her. I was hoping she somehow ended up being the one blackmailing them all, but I get why it had to go down how it did."

—u/owntheh3at18

17. "I feel so bad for Emily Gilmore in Gilmore Girls. I think Lorelai had little patience for her, and was more judgemental when Emily fucked up than any of the other girls (even though they all made mistakes)."

The WB

—u/babalon124 

H/T to u/Wonderful_Living_623 and r/Popculturechat for having this discussion.

Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.   

Do you have a TV or movie "villain" you only now realise isn't so bad? Let us know in the comments!