Maleficent and Why It Sucks

Sleeping Beauty was Walt Disney's animated masterpiece. The designs were lavish, the score epic, and the writing crisp. The movie was the most ambitious of the Disney princess movies that Walt Disney undertook, and the last one until the Little Mermaid, made long after his death.

Though not a box office success, Sleeping Beauty is treasured as a Disney classic, and the character of Maleficent is considered arguably the best villain in Disney, inspiring later villains such as Jafar, and appearing as a major antagonist in several other Disney products.

When Disney began its craze of reimagining films as live-action adaptations, the first chosen was a new spin on the tale of Maleficent. While subsequent live action adaptations have been faithful to source material, Maleficent took what could best be described as some massive liberties.

To start, Sleeping Beauty is, of all the princess films, probably the most grounded in the medieval heritage of Europeans and European Americans. It mixes old pagan mythical concepts with subtle Christian imagery and references. The story is one of good and evil through a traditional chivalric lens. The villainous witch fights against a brave and dashing prince in the epic final minutes of the film, which is, I would argue, the greatest sequence Disney ever produced.

In the Maleficent film, the decision was made to make Maleficent the sympathetic character. Thus the focus was changed, giving us a view of Men as a force of destruction and chaos, in conflict with the honorable Fey of the woods. Maleficent's character went from being a fearsome Satan worshipping badass to some kind of Messiah guardian with long black wings who was raped by a man.

What's that about rape? Well...yes. King Stefan, now reimagined from a slightly bumbling King to some kind of crazed ambitious superbastard, befriends Maleficent and, as a price for the throne, cuts off her black wings. It's worthwhile to note here that rape literally means, "to take" and the symbolism of what this represents is obvious, as Maleficent is now damaged and incomplete. Stefan takes her wings and wins the throne. Maleficent adopts her trademark sinister mannerisms and befriends a crow, and begins plotting her revenge, setting up a retelling of the events of Sleeping Beauty with about as much love for the original as Rian Johnson showcases towards Star Wars.

So EVIL

A note about Angelina Jolie - I'm not sure that she does a particularly good job as Maleficent, but the character is so poorly adapted from the original (whom Angelina still does her best to mimic here, despite the radically different character profile) that it probably isn't fair to blame her for the movie's problems, which stem from the odd choice to inject very crass gender politics into the film.

The biggest problem the movie has is that it is correcting a problem which doesn't exist, namely the charge that the original was chauvinist, and in the process makes it worse, like giving a healthy person chemotherapy. I would argue that Sleeping Beauty is one of the most feminist and female-oriented films of the twentieth century, with a strong female villain whose gender is not her principle defining feature, and three main characters who are all women and do not conform to any of the sexy body type images which feminists are always complaining about. The movie passes the Bechdel test in numerous places. In fact, there is no scene in the film where a male character is not talking about a woman.

People often think the story is not feminist because Aurora does very little but fall asleep and wake up, but it isn't really her story. Other people claim it is about Phillip, but he doesn't even have dialogue in the latter half of the movie and is operating completely at the instruction of the Good Fairies. Phillip and Aurora are both integral to the movie (moreso than the remake), but truthfully the story is about the three Good Fairies, who showcase courage, sacrifice, flaws, and genuine love, and are the true protagonists of the film. It is their story. The ending is their triumph.

So STUPID

What happens to the Good Fairies in the Maleficent film is worse than what happens to Maleficent herself. They go from being brave and capable to being morons who can be downright nasty to Aurora (Imelda Staunton, who played Delores Umbridge, plays Flora, still in pink and with obvious callbacks to arguably the most hated character in Harry Potter).

Instead the hero of the story is the villain, attractive A-list actress Angelina Jolie, playing a 'dark' Maleficent who winds up growing close to Aurora as a surrogate mother. She not only curses the princess but also wakes her with a kiss of true love, and at the end she has wings again. It seems like the silly vanity project of an aging actor, insisting on playing Hamlet, Claudius, and Ophelia all at the same time, except my guess is this was driven by the creative team at Disney and not Angelina Jolie.

Disney seemingly has gone all-in on destroying and denigrating the concept of love at first site, describing it as nonexistent in Maleficent and stupid in the movie Frozen, so the audience of 'cool wine aunts' can nod their heads and we can all sit to be lectured about how in a world of fantasy and make believe, we can't for a moment stomach the idea that Fate exists, or that True Love exists, -or heresy of heresies- that the love between a man and a woman is special.

In all cases the film is less 'feminist' than its animated predecessor. In fact the only thing this movie does do is make men bad, and show men being harmed by exotic creatures while the audience is supposed to cheer against them. The movie doesn't uplift women -every female character is a weaker and less capable version of their animated counterpart- but it certainly does denigrate men in fairly cliche ways. Which I think says something about feminism and what its true goals are, and what truly motivates it. It also says something about the company leadership at Disney which aggressively pushing this message.

Maleficent is identity politics masquerading as a remake to push an ideology onto its audience. Sadly, we're all too familiar with this as a practice from Disney, and Maleficent 2: Mistress of Evil (what?) looks to be more of the same.