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Matilda’s outstanding features (both magical and mundane) and intellect, together with her adamant stand against adults’ oppression have turned her into one of Dahl’s greatest heroines (West, 1992: 90). However, this apparently obvious assertion has been challenged by scholars like Petzold (1992: 185–191), who states that Dahl’s unconditional siding with children seems to foster their most harmful instincts as it undermines natural parental authority, or Hunt (2001: 57), who claims that the driving forces behind most of Dahl’s protagonists (including Matilda) are hate, violence, and a taste for callousness. Under this light, their fair fight would be overshadowed by a relentless and sometimes gratuitous thirst for revenge. If we were to accept this train of thought, certain passages and attitudes in the book could be interpreted as examples of unnecessary and blatant cruelty. In this respect, some of the punishments Matilda inflicts on adults could be understood as excessive and her revenge considered far more violent than the actions that provoked it.

This could be the case, for instance, of the episode in which she hides the parrot in the chimney. This happens as a reaction to the negative answer of Matilda’s father when he denies her the possibility of having dinner alone in her bedroom so that she could read her book. It is true that his manners are objectionable and far from the regular treatment children deserve, but the action is not that serious for him to receive such a punishment. What is more, by hiding the parrot, Matilda eventually terrifies her whole family, not only the person responsible for the affront. In a similar way, it could be considered that the pain and humiliation his father had to endure when the hat with the superglue was stuck to his head is disproportionate and especially degrading for someone whose image is important for his job. Likewise, according to Hunt’s tenets, the punishment inflicted on adults and the protagonist’s behavior in this short list of events would depict Matilda gloating over others’ humiliations, an assumption that would add “sadism” to her inventory of attributes.

In line with the above, it can also be said that Matilda’s actions lead others to perform wicked vengeful acts and therefore, our protagonist may also be considered as a pernicious influence for other children. There is a clear instance in the book that proves this point. Placing the newt in the water is not Matilda’s idea even though it is her who moves the glass so that the newt goes into Trunchbull’s clothes. It is another child, Lavender, who comes up with the plan. Lavender’s wish to be a heroine like Matilda makes her catch the newt and premeditatedly put it into the jug: “She [Lavender] longed to do something heroic. (…) It was her turn to become a heroine if only she could come up with a brilliant plot” (Dahl, 1988; 2016: 130). It is then when she goes and catches a newt from the pond near her house and decides to put it into the jug the following day.

The aforementioned and other examples helped build the already-cited ambivalence of a character that apparently assumes the role of undisputable heroine whereas, at the same time, reveals a dark side that somehow qualifies her notable and laudable attributes. Conveying a clear portrait of this facet in the film would be a decision that may flout audience expectations of morality and innocuousness, thus jeopardizing the production’s global reception. In spite of the risk, the film decides to maintain these traits of ambivalence in Matilda’s character, albeit this feature is shown through different examples from those included in the book. Even though the newt scene is here portrayed as an on-the-spot decision that Lavender takes instinctively and without much thinking, or despite the fact that her father is just punished twice as the event with the parrot is omitted, the dark side of Matilda’s character and the negative influence she could exert on other children can be appreciated in the movie through other scenes that are not present in the book. As described in previous sections, it is Matilda the one who first and relentlessly encourages Bruce to eat all the cake, regardless of the boy’s obvious signs of distress and of what may happen to him if he goes on. Another example comes at the end of the film, when Matilda takes Miss Trunchbull to the school corridor so that the other children can throw food at her, being again the leader of the revolution against the tyrant.

Consequently, as opposed to what happened to the treatment of violence against children, punishment on adult characters becomes even more obvious in the film. This factor may make the result less politically incorrect, but it definitely helps perpetuate the debate about whether the protagonist should be considered a knight in shining armor or a little bully with an angelical face. The purpose of this paper is not to side with either one or the other standpoint, but to underscore a decision that, in our view and to a certain extent, clashes with the traditional parameters of the family film. As stated in previous sections, this genre tends to convey a very clear distinction between good and evil, and Matilda, the motion picture, blurs this line by featuring a protagonist that, at some points, mirrors the behavior of the villains she is allegedly trying to fight.