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| “ | Father is finally allowing me to venture beyond the castle walls, as long as no one puts their fingers in me. Whatever that means. | „ |
| ~ Clara |
Princess Clara was one of the eight housemates and one of the deuteragonists of the cartoon Drawn Together. Out of the housemates, she was the most likely to be portrayed as an antagonist, though she did have heroic moments and episodes, as well.
Princess Clara is a parody of the Disney Princesses. She most closely resembled Ariel from The Little Mermaid. She was drawn in a style similar to Disney animation. She was also similar to Snow White, which was mostly expressed in the episode "Requiem for a Reality Show" when she was singing a song and forest animals came out and danced with her.
She was voiced by Tara Strong, who also played Toot in the same show, as well as Lena Dupree in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and Ferra in Mortal Kombat X.
Biography[]
Clara is a closeted bisexual pampered, naïve, racist member of royalty and a spoof of the Disney Heroines. Her features (her hair and eyes in particular) are based on Ariel from The Little Mermaid, while her outfit suggests Aurora from Sleeping Beauty; another noticeable influence is Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Like many Disney Heroines, Clara has a beautiful singing voice and has many animal friends who like to join her while she sings — at least until Spanky kills most of them for food. (In an in-joke, Clara is revealed to be friends with several of the actual Disney Heroines, including Ariel herself.) Clara is also the only character drawn without a black outline, another reference to her Disney origins.
Clara has a cousin named Bleh who is mentally retarded and speaks only in blurbs taken from critical reviews of the film I Am Sam. Clara is initially ashamed of (and exasperated with) her cousin until the other housemates come to accept Bleh. Clara then becomes overprotective of Bleh when she realizes that the men of the house - particularly Captain Hero - consider her sexually desirable. Clara seems to have inherited many of her basic personality traits from her father, the King but has become more independent since she has been living in the Drawn Together house, and with the help of her housemates (particularly Foxxy Love), she has worked on correcting many of her character flaws.
Clara's father, the King, is the ruler of a medieval-type kingdom. Her mother died when Clara was young as a result of her father driving a carriage while intoxicated. The King remarried, and Clara's new stepmother (a reference to the wicked stepmother, a stock character from fairy tales), for reasons unknown, placed a curse on Clara's vagina, causing it to turn into a giant, tentacled monster (called the Octopussoir) which can speak and appears to have his personality. Clara's attempt to remove the curse resulted in Prince Charming's genitals turning into a similar monstrous creature. Though it becomes hysterical and vicious when frightened by loud noises, the Octopussoir, for the most part, is quite gentle and kind. In "Alzheimer's That Ends Well", Clara had Octopussoir surgically removed, but after undergoing numerous plastic surgeries to correct every little flaw she perceived her vagina as having, she ended up with a vagina resembling the late Joan Rivers. Clara tried to get Octopussoir back, but he had graduated from college and married a Jewish woman in the time Clara was gone and informed Clara that he was happy with his new life and did not wish to go back to her. Clara eventually came to accept her new Vajoana (as she calls it) after it saved the housemates from the murderous intentions of some angry senior citizens.
Clara is very proficient in biochemistry, as seen in "Mexican't Buy Me Love" and "Requiem for a Reality Show".
According to creators Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein, Clara is partially based on Julie Stoffer from The Real World: New Orleans, a Mormon girl who had little experience dealing with gays or people of other races, and who tended to make offensive remarks without realizing it.
Personality[]
Clara represents a stereotypical upper-class WASP and is insensitive toward other cultures and those less fortunate than her. She is also very anti-Semitic, which is ironic considering her voice actress is Jewish. In this manner, Clara often acts as the (also Jewish) producers' vehicle for Jewish humor on the show. Though she makes the occasional spiteful comment, on the whole, she doesn't seem to hate or look down on people of other communities and countries, but she cannot seem to let go of the stereotypes she holds; for the most part, she is completely unaware that she is being a bigot. The episode "Hot Tub" suggests that these beliefs were ingrained in her by her father. Later episodes have furthered the notion that Clara maintains these attitudes because she is simply behind the times, and has yet to recognize the social advances recent years have brought. She overcomes her prejudice to form a friendship with Foxxy Love, though her repeated mention of stereotypes sometimes puts a strain on that friendship. In the first season, Clara's racism was the source of most of the character's humor; however, beginning in the second season, her bigotry and xenophobic tendencies would be largely de-emphasized, and instead, Clara's narrow and unbending religious views would become the character's driving force. (See Religion below.)
Though she is tolerant and supportive of her gay housemate Xandir (though at one point, when he was suicidal, she encouraged him to kill himself), Clara is also severely homophobic, her homophobia being the product of her conservative religious views. Ironically, Clara herself exhibited bisexual/demisexual behavior at the very beginning of the series, though she does not seem to realize the implications of this (or realizes but is in denial). She is in a state of bliss after Foxxy Love kisses her in "Hot Tub". However, it becomes apparent that Clara is not bisexual herself; she was simply caught up in the moment because it was her first kiss, and did not yet understand the importance of gender roles in the romantic process, a fact the second episode makes clear. In that episode, after learning the differences between men and women, Clara begins seeking love with the opposite sex. To date, there have been no further serious implications of bisexuality on Clara's part. The show has featured occasional references to the hot tub kiss; in "Ghostesses in the Slot Machine", she performs erotic dance with Foxxy Love as part of a strip show, and in "Charlotte's Web of Lies", she and Foxxy are seen getting frisky in the hot tub before they are killed by Captain Hero. However, in the former instance, Clara is simply trying to make her father notice her, and the latter instance is simply part of a running gag where the women of the house act wild whenever the men are not around.
Near the end of Season One, in what Foxxy called a case of "Daddy's Girl falling for the Bad Boy", Clara begins a quasi-relationship with Spanky Ham, though the relationship would prove to be short-lived. Though it has not been indicated there has been any activity between them, The King, behaves in such a way as to suggest he has incestuous sexual feelings for her. Clara doesn't seem to notice these feelings, equating his leering with paternal love. She is also extremely naïve when it comes to sex; after her lesbian kiss with Foxxy, she believes she is pregnant, and it takes a sex ed lesson from Foxxy to make her realize she cannot become pregnant by kissing someone. Clara is the least promiscuous of the eight housemates (in the movie, she mentions that she is still a virgin), and the only one who seems to possess any sense of modesty about his or her body. In Season One, it was suggested that this was because of her character's innocence (and her unusual vagina situation), but as the series has progressed, her religious nature has also become a significant factor.
Aside from her prejudices, Clara is usually depicted as a very warm and caring person with a genuine love for most living creatures. She occasionally shows a quick temper and fits of anger, though these outbursts are seldom long in duration. Though she is frequently guilty of insensitivity and closed-mindedness, she usually realizes when she is wrong about something, and always tries to make amends. Clara is often characterized as being well-educated and sophisticated, but lacking in common sense. In this regard, she is the complete opposite of Foxxy Love, who is unsophisticated and poorly educated, but with a great deal of common sense and practical wisdom.
Clara's darker side[]
While the first episode of the series designates Toot as the house's "bitch" character, that designation has begun to shift to Clara over time. While Toot is portrayed in Season Three as more sympathetic and less malicious, Clara's darker personality traits have begun to take on greater prominence than her positive personality traits.
Originally, while Clara was portrayed as being extremely bigoted, she never seemed to be genuinely hateful; for example, she seemed to get along with both Foxxy and Xandir despite being both racist and homophobic and acted surprised and confused when they were offended by her behavior. However, later episodes have her as harsh, strident, and intolerant; concerned solely with crusading against sinfulness, her desire to quench sin is so strong that she shows no concern for the happiness or well-being of others. In "Foxxy vs. the Board of Education", she vows to stop Spanky's gay marriage to Xandir despite Spanky's life being in danger without the insurance Xandir can provide. In "Clum Babies", she crusades against both Wooldoor's masturbation and the use of the Clum Babies to heal the sick despite the number of lives that are being saved and diseases that are being cured, but ultimately, and hypocritically, disguises herself in an attempt to procure a Clum Baby to cure her tuberculosis. On her behavior in this episode, Executive Producer Bill Freiberger stated, "Clara's attitude about it all is completely in character for her as a character and for her as a symbol of the religious right. She's a meat-eater as we've seen in the past. And she's not above killing animals. But she is against harming embryos no matter how much good it will do for the living... unless it benefits her directly, then she's more than willing to be a hypocrite to save her own life."
This version of the Clara character is used to satirize right-wing Christianity; thus, Clara goes into evangelical mode whenever that angle is needed for a story. To this purpose, she serves as the villain in these episodes, trying to foil whatever she objects to. In fact, in some episodes, she is depicted as having witch-like powers (most notably the ability to teleport in a flash of black smoke).
In the episode "Ghostesses in the Slot Machine", Clara seems to be aware of how her behavior comes across to others, and she wants to let everyone know this is not all there is to her character. In that episode, when Foxxy thinks she plans to object to exotic dancing, Foxxy sarcastically says, "I know, there's probably something in the Bible about 'Thou shalt not grind thou's coochie into thy neighbor's boner tent,'" to which Clara responds, "You have me all wrong - I'm more than just the same joke over and over! You're thinking of Toot." Clara even parodies this aspect of her character in the episode '"Wooldoor Sockbat's Giggle-Wiggle Funny Tickle Non-Traditional Progressive Multicultural Roundtable!" Convinced that Wooldoor Sockbat's new children's show will turn the world gay (a charge which turns out to be accurate), she angrily bursts onto the set of Wooldoor's show and shrieks, "What is the name of one-dimensional characters and predictable reactions is going on here?"
In the third season, Clara's characterization took on a decidedly negative turn. For several consecutive episodes at the beginning of the season, Clara was shown treating her housemates quite harshly. In the past, Clara had been sweet on the surface and insulted people mainly through ignorance. In Season Three, however, she was shown behaving with actual malice and spite. Additionally in the first two seasons, whenever Clara behaved badly toward one of the other housemates, she was usually allowed to realize she was wrong and given the chance to make amends; however, in Season Three, she shows little or no remorse for her behavior, and her character receives no real redemption. In "Spelling Applebee's", she coldly manipulates Captain Hero into satisfying her sexual fetish for car crashes, realizing--but not caring--that he has real feelings for her. However, she is overcome with grief after her closest friends are killed in one of the crashes; Hero states he did it to "teach [her] a lesson," but it was revenge-based punishment. (See the "Spelling Applebee's" article for Executive Producer Bill Freiberger's explanation on her character there). In "Unrestrainable Trainable," she mistakes Wooldoor for a Jew and pushes him into the pool to baptize him. When Wooldoor contracts hypothermia, Clara expresses obvious annoyance for being forced to take care of him, despite having played a big sister role to him in earlier episodes, and even though his condition is her fault, to begin with. When she begins receiving accolades for taking care of him, Clara develops Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and deliberately keeps him sick and/or injured to keep him in her care; when he later confronts her about this, Clara becomes remorseful and promises to make amends, but then has him step into a bear trap while she is helping him recover. In "N.R.A.y RAY", she spitefully insults Toot seemingly for no reason, interrupting Toot's happy mood to say, "What are you so happy about, do you know how fat you are?" (However, it should be noted that most of the other housemates treat Toot very poorly as well, often making cruel comments about her weight.)
No specific explanation is given for this trend in Clara's behavior, though the episode "Unrestrainable Trainable" gives some possible insight into Clara's mindset on the issue. When her housemates first begin praising her for taking such good care of Wooldoor, a surprised Clara exclaims, "Gosh, my roommates always hated me." This seemingly indicates some ongoing tension between Clara and her housemates that the show never fully explores.
Clara hits her lowest point in the episode "Lost in Parking Space, Part One". In that episode, Clara, believing that the Rapture came and left her behind, signs away her soul to a man she believes to be Satan (though he is a delivery driver who merely wants her to sign for a package). Shortly after doing so, she embraces the dark side and rededicates her life to hurting others. She goes on a murderous rampage through a sanctuary for handicapped people, then, craving chocolate heads for the mall. There she encounters a torture enterprise (similar to the film Hostel) and eagerly takes part in it. However, when her would-be victim turns out to be Foxxy Love, Clara realizes the mistake she made, and after rededicating her life to God, helps Foxxy escape. For the rest of the season, the darker elements that dominated Clara's portrayal in the first half of the season are gone. Clara becomes much nicer than she had been previously, and behaves with genuine concern for her housemates' happiness and well-being, suggesting that the ordeal Clara went through may have been a real turning point for her character.
Family[]
Clara is an only child who was raised in a castle by her father, who is known as The King. The King raised Clara all her life and he kept her very close to the religion of Christianity which caused her to have very strong beliefs and faith in the religion. He also fed her a lot of bad information about many groups of people such as African Americans, Jews, and Homosexuals, teaching her all sorts of racist and bigoted things about them which has a major impression on her. In the episode Ghostesses in the Slot Machine, it was shown that when Clara was about 9 or 10 years of age, The King started to neglect her more and more, leaving her very sad and alone. What he was doing at this time was going to strip clubs and watching the girls there and spending the majority of his time there. In the episode Dirty Pranking No. 2, The King expressed more of a sexual attraction for Clara and was seen making out with her multiple times. It can be implied that once Clara started growing older, and going through puberty, she became more attractive to her and she began to arouse his perversions more, and so he took advantage of her and it can be seen that she still obliviously takes this today. Not much is known about Clara's mother because she was only mentioned in the episode Clara's Dirty Little Secret, where it was mentioned that The King was drunk while he was driving with her in the carriage and got into a crash, which killed her. He later remarried a woman whose name hasn't been mentioned either. Clara has always hated her stepmother from the very start because she isn't her real mother. In the same episode, it was also revealed that Clara's stepmother got angry at Clara one time for unknown reasons and punished her by putting an evil magic curse on her vagina, turning it into a monstrous tentacled beast known as the Octopussoir. In the episode Dirty Pranking No. 2, The King was seen making out with Clara and on a few occasions, he would say "You smell like your mother." He could have either been referring to her biological mother or her stepmother when he said this but it was most likely he meant her original mother because he didn't say "stepmother". This means that Clara's mother was very appealing to the king and she always put out and addressed his interests in him. The King must have loved her so much that he got drunk on a night out with her and accidentally killed her, as mentioned before. It is unknown if he feels the same way about her stepmother, but it's most likely that he doesn't.
Princess Clara
Villainous Acts[]
Clara is often the designated villain due to her bigotry and religious fanaticism.
In "The Other Cousin", she poisons Captain Hero.
In "Foxxy vs. The Board of Education", she vows to stop Spanky's gay marriage to Xandir despite Spanky's life being in danger without the insurance Xandir can provide.
In "Clum Babies", she crusades against both Wooldoor's masturbation and the use of the Clum Babies to heal the sick despite the number of lives that are being saved and diseases that are being cured, but ultimately, and hypocritically, disguises herself in an attempt to procure a Clum Baby to cure her tuberculosis. On her behavior in this episode, Executive Producer Bill Freiburger stated, "Clara's attitude about it all is completely in character for her as a character and for her as a symbol of the religious right. She's a meat-eater as we've seen in the past. And she's not above killing animals. But she is against harming embryos no matter how much good it will do for the living... unless it benefits her directly, then she's more than willing to be a hypocrite to save her own life.".
In the third season, Clara's characterization took on a decidedly negative turn. For several consecutive episodes at the beginning of the season, Clara was shown treating her housemates quite harshly. In the past, Clara had been sweet on the surface and insulted people mainly through ignorance. In Season Three, however, she was shown behaving with actual malice and spite. Additionally in the first two seasons, whenever Clara behaved badly toward one of the other housemates, she was usually allowed to realize she was wrong and given the chance to make amends; however, in Season Three, she shows little or no remorse for her behavior, and her character receives no real redemption.
In "Spelling Applebee's", she coldly manipulates Captain Hero into satisfying her sexual fetish for car crashes, realizing — but not caring — that he healings for her. However, she is overcome with grief after her closest friends are killed in one of the crashes. Hero states he did it to "teach [her] a lesson", but it was based on punishment.
In "Unrestrainable Trainable", she mistakes Wooldoor for a Jew and pushes him into the pool to baptize him. When Wooldoor contracts hypothermia, Clara expresses obvious annoyance for being forced to take care of him, despite having played a big sister role to him in earlier episodes, and even though his condition is her fault, to begin with. When she begins receiving accolades for taking care of him, Clara develops Munchhausen Syndrome by Proxy and deliberately keeps him sick and/or injured to keep him in her care; when he later confronts her about this, Clara becomes remorseful and promises to make amends, but then has him step into a bear trap while she is helping him recover, grinning evilly as her trick works.
In "N.R.A.y Ray", she spitefully insults Toot seemingly for no reason, interrupting Toot's happy mood to say, "What are you so happy about, do you know how fat you are?" (However, it should be noted that most of the other housemates treat Toot very poorly, as well, often making cruel comments about her weight.) She is subsequently punished when Foxxy's nephew, Ray-Ray, who has fallen in love with Toot, kills her overnight to punish her.
No specific explanation is given for this trend in Clara's behavior, though the episode "Unrestrainable Trainable" gives some possible insight into Clara's mindset on the issue. When her housemates first begin praising her for taking such good care of Wooldoor, a surprised Clara exclaims, "Gosh, my roommates always hated me.". This seemingly indicates some ongoing tension between Clara and her housemates that the show never fully explores.
Clara hits her lowest point in the episode "Lost in Parking Space, Part One". In that episode, Clara, believing that the Rapture came and left her behind, signs away her soul to a man she believes to be Satan (though he is a delivery driver who merely wants her to sign for a package). Shortly after doing so, she embraces the dark side and rededicates her life to hurting others. She goes on a murderous rampage through a sanctuary for handicapped people, then, craving chocolate heads for the mall. There she encounters a torture enterprise rarely a Hot Topic Manager (similar to the film Hostel) and eagerly takes part in it. However, when her would-be victim turns out to be Foxxy Love, Clara realizes the mistake she made, and after rededicating her life to God, helps Foxxy escape. For the rest of the season, the darker elements that dominated Clara's portrayal in the first half of the season are gone. Clara becomes much nicer than she had been previously, and behaves with genuine concern for her housemates' happiness and well-being, suggesting that the ordeal Clara went through may have been a real turning point for her character.
Trivia[]
- Ironically, Princess Clara is voiced by Tara Strong, who also voiced Melody, Ariel's daughter in the Disney film The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea.
- She is also known by her stripper moniker "Hitlerian".
- She and Captain Hero are both considered the main antagonists of the show, even though the other housemates have antagonistic traits (mainly Spanky Ham and Toot Braunstein).
- The fact that Clara hates Jews is ironic, because her voice actress, Tara Strong, is Jewish.
- It's believed that the reason for which Clara's dress was purple was that by the time Drawn Together was made, there was no Disney Princess who had purple as her signature color. However, this changed when Tangled was released in 2010, with Rapunzel getting a purple dress.
- From all the housemates of Drawn Together, Princess Clara could be possibly the one who isn't really and/or permanently dead, given that while she is the first housemate to die in the movie, Clara was killed through tradionally means instead of being wiped out with one of I.S.R.A.E.L.'s eraser bombs, which are the way in which the rest of the housemates were killed. However, as the movie served as the series finale, it's likely we will never learn if Clara survived or not.
See also[]
- Princess Clara - Heroes Wiki
- Princess Clara - Drawn Together Wiki
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 Villains
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Housemates Main Antagonists Parodied Fictional Characters Supervillains/Captain Hero's Enemies Other | ||