The best way to approach life is how I approached seeing
Maleficent: sans expectations. Sleeping Beauty was one of my favorite
Disney movies as a child. It was not
due to the storyline of Sleeping Beauty (a.k.a. Aurora) herself. She is a typical blonde princess who, due to
a curse, pricks her finger on a spinning wheel, falls into a deep sleep, and
needs a prince to rescue her.
Yawn. Instead, I liked the
little trio of guardian fairies, but the woman whom I loved most of all? Maleficent, of course. In the cartoon, she was intriguing in that
charismatic and terrifying way that the best villains are.
In the live-action version, Angelina Jolie as Maleficent
does not disappoint. In fact, she is
downright fierce. Those horns. That smirk.
The cape. The storyline is
simple. We follow Maleficent from a
naïve girl to a brutal woman. The
scenery is stunning, a superb fantasy fairy forest. I admit, I’m a sucker for anything with wings. And, Maleficent’s got them—until she
doesn’t.
SPOILER: Maleficent
gets her wings chopped off. We do not
see the act—which makes it all the more heinous in one’s imagination. When Maleficent awakes, she cries out with
an animalistic howl; she is sore; she is broken. Rapes can take different forms.
For example, in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a character is raped by men who
suck milk from her breast. She is
violated. She is harmed. The same sort of rape occurs here for
Maleficent, which serves to explain to a degree her need for vengeance and her
distrust for the world.
Throughout the film, we see Maleficent soften and reconcile
her station and the consequences of that violent act. She is, after all, able to overcome her sorrow and open her heart
again—this time, to a young woman.
For that, Maleficent, the movie, turns feminist and
woman-supporting in a cruel “man’s world.”
Yes, princesses still exist, but that seems beside the point. The women here support each other and rescue
themselves. Maybe, just maybe, some
young girls will understand the importance of self-salvation and how a prince
will never save you. That’s your own
job, after all.
