The Infantilization of Charlie Morningstar (A feminist critique of Hazbin Hotel)
One of the many issues I have with Hazbin, both its show and fandom, is that Charlie, despite being an adult demon princess who’s allegedly over 200 years old, is heavily infantilized.
Now, I honestly don’t blame the fandom for perceiving Charlie this way. Her character design has elements associated with youthfulness and innocence: wide big eyes, light color palette, a round face with rosy cheeks. The writing also doesn’t help her in that department. Charlie is very cheerful, naïve, literally draws pictures with crayons whom look like a child made, and is obsessed with sunshine and rainbows and stereotypical fluffy childlike things. She thinks the way to redeem Angel is to play pretend as a Saturday morning cartoon villain ala Snidely Whiplash.
Now, I don’t think being into girly things or liking stuff meant for kids or being cheerful inherently makes someone person childish or is a bad thing. I love dolls and am a doll collector. I am a fiend for girly stuff like pink. I also love cheerful girl characters.
But where the difference actually lies is narrative intent and context. Charlie isn’t written as an adult who also happens to enjoy childish things, but is still an adult who acts like an adult. She is written as unironically childish and infantilized by the other characters.
Case in point: Charlie is protected and shielded by the other characters like she can’t handle herself: Angel shields her from Valentino, Vaggie dedicates herself to protecting Charlie, and does stuff/hides things behind her back since she thinks Charlie can’t handle herself.
Charlie is literally fought over by two men to be her father figure despite the fact she’s a grown woman and one of them is YOUNGER than her. You can argue that Alastor was bluffing, but Charlie is passive in all this: she expresses no desire for a father figure to compensate for her daddy issues, she just wants her father to believe in her. She goes along with it and never objects or seems confused by what’s going on. She never brings it up again. It has no real impact on the plot or her character, nor does she have any say in what goes on.
This passiveness is infantilization to me: throughout the song, Charlie never objects, or seems confused. She has no real strong emotions about this weird situation she is forced into. She just goes along with it and seems into it. She is reduced to a prop in a song number for two men who just met to fight over.
Despite being in a position of power, and being at the top of Hell’s hierarchy: Charlie is not respected by her people, and her role as Princess has no real true importance on the world or people around her. Charlie also doesn’t use her authority as she sees it as “too mean.” She is passive, rarely ever gets mad, and
The Chaggie relationship also infantilizes Charlie: Vaggie is seen as Charlie’s strong protector/caretaker who Charlie would fall apart without. Vaggie protects and fights for Charlie. Vaggie runs the hotel while Charlie sulks in season 2, Vaggie wipes Charlie’s tears and is always the one to comfort her. She literally holds Charlie in a bridal carry while Charlie sobs like a child and takes her to bed, like a mother figure. It’s very cringey to watch?
Do I think this was intentional? No, But it fuels the infantilization of Charlie. Vaggie is always the one to comfort Charlie, in season 1, and in season 2. Sure, Charlie may defend Vaggie once, but it’s Vaggie who is the definitive protector/emotional support to Charlie. Vaggie is positioned as the more mature, levelheaded one in the relationship, while Charlie is the childlike, cheerful one with wild ideas who needs to be brought down to earth by her more mature girlfriend.
Charlie is also used as a leverage for her dad. In the season one finale, Charlie never gets to defeat Adam by herself, her father swoops into save her and they both defeat Adam while again, someone holds her bridal style. The main female character is beaten by the main male antagonist, and must be saved by her father.
Charlie can never stand on her own. She must be taken care of and looked after by other characters. If Vaggie isn’t around, who will take care of the hotel and most importantly, take care of Charlie? Charlie can’t fight her own battles, or manage her own hotel, other people must do it for her.
My point is not that female characters can never be vulnerable, or have help: but that female characters are are treated as helpless and unable to do anything with the presence of a more traditionally masculine role in their lives. Vaggie, while a female character, is the more traditionally masculine role (assertive, pessimistic, no nonsense, keeps the more traditionally feminine Charlie in line) it doesn’t matter that Vaggie is more traditionally feminine dressing, it is purely just visual. It wouldn’t change if Vaggie dressed more masculine or if Charlie more feminine: She is ultimately still presented as the stereotypically masculine presence who grounds the stereotypically feminine Charlie.
Another small tidbit: based on a potrait in Lucifer’s office, it is implied the blazer Charlie wears is her father’s. Now, this is meant to be just a cute tidbit, but I think it adds to Charlie’s infantilization. Charlie doesn’t even wear her own clothes, she wears the small clothes of her father: like a child playing dress up with their parent’s clothes to seem grown up.
The fandom is no better: Charlie is often sidelined into a prop for the male characters, especially as the innocent, cute daughter of Lucifer and Alastor. She is seen as too innocent and easy to be manipulated. I’ve seen people decry ships such as Charlastor or Staticbelle on the pretense that Charlie is too “young” and shouldn’t be shipped with more “mature” men, or have resistance to Charlie ships (doesn’t matter the gender) outside of Vaggie.
It’s interesting to see how the fandom treats Charlie versus Lucifer. Despite being rather childish characters: Lucifer is still usually treated as an adult while Charlie is treated more as a child. Not that Lucifer isn’t infantilized himself, but he often still gets to retain his adult autonomy and have more mature introspection into his character and analysis in a way Charlie isn’t usually afforded by the fandom.
It’s frustrating that such a so called progressive fandom is resistant to critiques of sexism. I’ve seen too many excuses for Charlie’s passivity as a character, to the male favoritism in favor of the women, to the sidelining of women. As a female fan of the hellaverse, I’m tired of sexist writing. I’m tired of female characters getting half baked character arcs and being sidelined or treated as props for male characters. There is no excuse for bad writing of women, especially for a so called female led show, in 2026.
blakekathryn
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