Wonka Isn’t the Villain of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’

The big picture

• Wonka was not a monster, but the children's disregard for the rules led to avoidable accidents.
• The parents failed to discipline the children and blamed Wonka for the consequences.
• Only Charlie deserved to inherit the factory, as the other children were selfish and scheming.

If there's one thing people know about Willy Wonka, it's that he's a pretty dodgy guy. He must be; after all, he lets loose a bunch of kids in his factory just to find a successor. In the two years 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wonka is introduced to us as an eccentric and seemingly cruel man who doesn't quite blink as the children he invited to the factory meet grim fates (though those fates are supposedly not fatal). Just move on. to the next zone and the next tragedy. Their factory isn't even OSHA compliant! What an idiot, with his blatant disregard for children's lives and his unfair trials for them! Because really, Wonka should never have been called a monster in the first place. While it's definitely a little weird and maybe a little too indifferent to the things that happen during the movies, everything that happened to these kids could have been avoided if they and their parents weren't so damned. If anyone is a monster in these movies, it's not Wonka, it's the kids.

The kids are not okay, and that's on them

Twhat most people point to when they call Wonka a monster: his treatment of children. Gene Wilder's Wonka tends to get more hate than Johnny Depp's in this department, most likely because Wilder's portrayal was more exaggeratedly misguided. Most people say that Wonka is a madman who stood by indifferently while the accidents happened and didn't even lift a finger to help them. While “he didn't lift a finger to help” is accurate – he got the Oompa Loompas to do the cleaning – “neglect” is not. In fact, Wonka warns the children not to do certain things, such as leaning over the chocolate river and eating certain candies, probably because he cares at least a little about his safety. It gives them the tools to avoid problems. Even if he does it to cover his back, he still pays attention to precautions.

The really dirty word, though, is “accidents.” Not one thing that happened to any of the kids was an accident. They were completely avoidable. Despite this, the children did not heed any of the warnings they were given. Augustus was told not to mess with the Chocolate River, but he let his greed get the better of him and climbed the tubes. Violet is told not to chew the gum, but insists she must and turns into a giant blueberry. Every child is selfish, greedy, spoiled and ill-mannereddoing exactly what they're told not to because they've never been told no and they think they're above following the rules. Even Charlie Bucket, our main character, makes this mistake, although he is smart enough to find a way out when he is in trouble, unlike the others.

Wonka may seem cold or indifferent as he continues after these events, but why shouldn't he be? He has done nothing wrong. He did his due diligence. It is the children who were wrong to blatantly ignore the rules because of their own selfish desires.

Parents are not out of the game either

Of course, children are by-products of the people who raise them. Every child that entered the factory had to be accompanied by an adult to take the tour, someone to act as their guardian. However, none of them did their job. If they had, none of these children would have walked away with life-altering side effects. It was their job to keep the kids in line and make sure they followed Wonka's warnings, but instead, they acted like the kids themselves, sometimes goading their kids as they misbehaved and then crying when something bad happened. He explains where his children got it.

However, the real reason parents are in trouble here is that they raised their children to act like brats. They enable their bad behavior by rewarding it and blaming Wonka for his bad actions and their consequences, even though it has nothing to do with his son's inability to follow basic instructions. It's ridiculous that people blame Wonka so much, and it's a parent's job to take care of their child, not anyone else's. No worker is paid enough to do this job on top of what they were hired to do. Wonka is a touring businessman, not a nanny.

All these children do not deserve to visit the factory

In the end, not a single one of these little monsters deserved to even be in the running to succeed Wonka, except for Charlie. Besides their general selfishness, rudeness and lack of self-control, they were all ready to sail Wonka upriver after they had spoken to Slugworth. They didn't care at all about Wonka's factory; they only cared about having something that so few people had. When Slugworth offered them what they wanted in exchange for the Everlasting Gobstopper formula, little did they know that he was actually an employee of Wonka (at least in the 1971 film). They seemed totally in agreement with helping him rob the man who had quite generously allowed them to tour his factory, something that wasn't even in Wonka's best interest when it came to trade secret theft issues. Charlie, of course, made the right decision in the end, proving himself worthy as Wonka's successor. However, the other four golden ticket winners – especially Veruca, since she couldn't even find her own ticket – tRuly didn't deserve to be there.

Wonka is not a monster. He's just a guy looking for a successor, and he didn't just bring the kids to his death. His warnings were clear, and the children – and their parents – simply ignored him. The children were spoiled, self-centered and treacherous. They took opportunities to sabotage Wonka despite his hospitality. Parents do nothing to keep their kids in check, but they think they have the right to get upset when something bad happens and point the finger at Wonka. If anyone in the movies is the bad guy, it's the Golden Ticket winners and their guardians, not Wonka.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is available to rent on Amazon in the US

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