Movie: Sleeping Beauty 1959
Age: 16
Common Complaint: Sleeping Beauty is a dumb blonde with zero agency who gets saved when she is kissed while unconscious and unable to consent. (see also my previous blog post from a few years ago, I was not a fan)
I think it is worth pointing out that Sleeping Beauty is only the 3rd major Disney Princess since 1937. So for the first 22 years of Disney Feature Animation, we only have 3 of 16 films being "princess" movies. I just like to remind people that there was a time when Disney Princesses were a minor part of the Disney Canon, so there must be a reason that they still feature so prominently in our pop Culture history. Something about these movies connected with people, and I don't believe it is just because all little girls want to be princesses. There has to be something more there.
In the case of Sleeping Beauty, the obvious appeal lies in one of the greatest movie villains of all time, and the astonishingly detailed animation. This movie almost bankrupted the studio, and every penny made it to the screen. I frequently find myself wishing the characters would move off screen so I can just examine the set animation.
But what of Princess Aurora? Of all the princesses, she seems to have the least amount of screen time. She's an infant in the beginning of the movie, and we barely get to know her at all before her world is turned upside down and she is almost killed. The good fairies don't help things when the first gift they give her is the gift of beauty, and then the gift of song. Right off the bat, it seems that the movie is telling us that the best thing a woman can be is beautiful and entertaining. We never learn what Merriweather's gift would have been, but we can hope it would have been something a little more useful, like a the gift of advanced mathematics. So before we even meet a more grown up Aurora, she has been put into the box of a pretty little object to be admired, and not to have any thoughts or opinions of her own. I'm hardly the first person to bring these issues up, but if I'm going to try to defend Aurora as a character, I thought I should at least acknowledge that the movie doesn't make it very easy.
When we finally meet 16 year old Aurora (now called Briar Rose), we find a young woman who does have the gifts of beauty and song, but like most Disney characters, what she longs for is to be allowed to explore her world. She laments still being treated like a child and longs to meet different people. Her whole world is herself, and three eccentric ladies, so it's not surprising that she is interested in meeting a boy. I would argue that a lonely girl longing to find a companion isn't a sign of being an empty headed bimbo, but rather a natural response to a lifetime of isolation. When she meets a handsome stranger in the woods, she seems to be excited and frightened at the same time. Phillip is a little grabby initially, which seems a little creepy, but he does let her leave, and it is after she has put distance between them that she decides she would like to see him again, as soon as possible. I think the order of this sequence is important because if the order had been any different, Phillip becomes a villain and Aurora is just a woman acquiescing to a man. As the film shows it though, Phillip's initial handsiness feels more like the awkward romantic gesture of a young man in a patriarchal medieval society. He lets Aurora go and then woos her in the traditional Disney courtship ritual of singing with animals. He does not try to grab her again, even after she panics and starts to run away, he respects her enough to let her leave, only asking to see her again, and it is Aurora who invites him to her home, setting her own terms. Given her panic at being asked her name, it would be perhaps understandable if at this point, Philip attempted to find the source of her fright and save her, but he lets her leave, and doesn't impose himself upon her. It's a small moment, but given the short amount of time we have for courtship, I have to try to make the most of what is there.
Upon returning to her home, Aurora, after attempting to share with her guardians the exciting day she has had, is blindsided with the news that she is an adopted princess and will be leaving everything behind to live in a castle that night. So here we have an incident in which Aurora's individuality and desires (wanting to invite a new romantic interest to her home to meet her family) is suddenly disregarded by the only family she has ever known and she is stripped of any agency in her own life. Where Philip showed himself (albeit very briefly) to be a person who would allow her to come and go as she pleased and possibly treat her has an equal and a companion, her own family has suddenly betrayed her, wanting to shackle her in a dress and send her off to be married to a complete stranger. "Happy 16th birthday! You're being married off to a monarch and will never see your family or home again!" Aurora is understandably mortified by this news and flees to her room in tears. While it would be easy to criticize her for not simply running away, I empathize with her reaction. A person's bedroom is often a place where they can feel safe to be completely themselves. Visit almost any teenager's bedroom and you will see a shrine to their own sense of self. I spent enough time in my own room as a teenager to know that it can be a place of refuge when faced with difficult, or in Aurora's case, devastating news. Aurora's near catatonic state as she is led to her new home is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of her humanity. Her world has been shattered and she's barely had any time to process this before being ushered away to her new stone prison.
Her guardians, showing a stunning lack of understanding, attempt to cheer her up with a crown, which, being a symbol of the new life she's been forced into, only serves to cause her to break all over again, putting her in a highly vulnerable state. This is a woman who DOES NOT want to be a princess! Honestly, the three Good Fairies show such a tremendous amount of stupidity here that they practically do Maleficent's job for her. By the time Aurora is guided to the spinning wheel, she looks to be almost suicidal. The "good" fairies then compound the issue by knocking out everyone in the kingdom to cover up their failure rather than owning up to it and asking for the whole kingdom's help to solve the issue. They are so dumb, I don't really blame Maleficent for hating them.
Now the movie shifts to the part of the story where the heroic male must save the helpless woman. It should be noted that he wouldn't need to act alone if the fairies hadn't roofied all of his back up, also making him the only viable option to break the spell. At no point did any of them stop to consider the fact that true love's first kiss does not have to be romantic love. Maybe Aurora's parents should have been able to give it a shot. After all, her father attempted to do everything he could, including crippling his kingdom's fabric economy by destroying all the spinning wheels, just to save his daughter's life. So now we've been forced into a story of romance due to the incompetence of the political and magical leadership of this world, and Phillip must save the day, because so far, he is essentially the only one who has treated Aurora as a human being instead of some object to be used as a political chess piece.
Unfortunately, he is currently chained in a dungeon, to be kept prisoner until he is a crippled old man, only then to be released to break the spell as some sort of sick game Maleficent is playing, reminding the audience that Philip is almost just as much of a pawn in this whole thing as the woman he has fallen in love with. Philip has the benefit of at least being conscious though, which enables him to receive help from the "Good" fairies, who are struck by a sudden bout of practicality and usefulness. Philip and the fairies (but mostly the fairies and their magic) kill Maleficent and Phillip gives a closed mouth kiss to the magically sleeping woman he has a crush on, something he knows he has to do in order to break the spell. This is a medicinal kiss, not a creepy abuse of a sleeping woman. Anyway, Aurora chooses to be with the one person who has treated her with any respect in the whole movie, which is not the worst thing in the world, while her former guardians, having learned nothing from their failures, argue over fashion choices. Aurora ignores her ever changing dress, because her looks do not define her. The movie concludes allowing the audience to begin debating whether or not the fairies should be jailed for their crimes against the kingdom, or if their eventual heroism excuses almost 2 decades of incompetent and dangerous abuse of power.
For a more honest treatment of the Fairies, I highly recommend the live action version of this story, Maleficent.
UP NEXT:
The Little Mermaid - 1989
Beauty and the Beast - 1991
Aladdin - 1992
Pocahontas - 1995
Hunchback of Notre Dame - 1996
Mulan - 1998
Lilo & Stitch - 2002
The Incredibles - 2004
The Princess and the Frog - 2009
Tangled - 2010
Brave - 2012
Frozen - 2013
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