Andrew Z. Ho

Writing 39B

Professor Ludisaca

Maleficent Movie Review: A Must Watch if You Enjoy Dark Fairy Tales

Overall, Maleficent as a whole isn't great. Besides award-winning actress Angelina Jolie, most of the cast is pretty plain and pale in comparison. The overall use of CGI and the acting, in general, is pretty par with no real standouts besides Jolie. However, if you're a fan of dark fairy tales, this might just be your movie to watch. 

While on the surface, the movie might seem subpar and lacking in many areas, where it shines is in the dark hidden elements scattered through the film. While the viewer only gets exposed to 100 minutes of viewing, the history of the story the film is based on is what makes it so attractive. The story is Sleeping Beauty.

One of the first versions of Sleeping Beauty, known as Basil's version, follows the story of a girl who falls into a deep sleep due to pricking her finger on a piece of flax. As a result of this, her father would be overcome by grief and leave as a result.

One day, a king was hunting nearby when his falcon flew through the house's window. The king followed, trying to retrieve his bird, was surprised by a sleeping woman instead. He wanted to wake her, but nothing worked. Overcome by her beauty, he raped her and impregnated her while she was still asleep. She would give birth to twins, and as they were playing around, they sucked on her fingertips and removed the piece of flax stuck initially in her finger, breaking the Curse.

This tale would be later redone by Charles Perrault, where he takes a slight twist with the story as it removes rape and pregnancy. Instead, a prince falls on his knees in adoration, ultimately saving her.

Now see a modern-day rendition of this tale with the movie Maleficent (2014), directed by Robert Stromberg. This adaptation of the story replaces the prince's kneeling adoration with a true loves kiss. In this new rendition, we get the perspective of Maleficent, the original antagonist, a fairy queen who puts the sleeping Curse onto the princess. This new perspective puts a nice spin on the original story and gives us something refreshing. This story is also told through a much darker perspective, closer to Basile's version. \Through exploring the history of the fairy tale, gender, and trauma recovery, we see how the film deals with the topic of rape and how it fits into the genre of the dark fairy tale.

The story starts with us getting introduced to Maleficent as a child, and we watch her grow up and meet a human, Stefan. Despite everyone else fearing her, Stefan chooses to befriend her and eventually falls in love. Unfortunately, this doesn't last as they go their separate paths in life, with Maleficent growing stronger and protecting her land, the moors. Meanwhile, King Henry of the human realm seeks to eliminate the fairy realm and tries to take it out multiple times. While on his death bed, he promises that any man who can defeat Maleficent will become the next king. Stefan's dream has always been to become the king, so he goes to the Moors seeking Maleficent once again. However, he manipulates her by spending quality time with her before drugging her and cutting off her wings, which he would use as proof that he killed Maleficent. As a result, Stefan becomes king and marries the king's daughter. As Maleficent would eventually find out, this enrages her, and she places a curse on the kingdom as a result. Eventually, the queen would give birth to a girl, Aurora. After hearing about this, Maleficent would go over to the human realm and curse her. The Curse was that she would fall into an eternal slumber after her 16th birthday if she got pricked by a spindle. The only way to release the Curse would be through a true loves kiss.

Now that we see the tale's history, drawing parallels between Basile's version and the movie becomes very obvious. As previously mentioned, in Basile's version, sleeping beauty gets raped and impregnated, which becomes her saving grace in the end. While the story has taken lighter tones over time, the act of rape has been replaced by more innocent actions. In the movie, we see this action being replaced with Stefan removing Maleficent's wings. Before you think I'm wrong, think about the scene and what the wings represent. While first watching the film, I was sure that Stefan would kill her in this scene as he drugged her and could kill her at the moment. However, he chose not to and instead just took her wings. Now, replace stealing her wings with rape, and this parallel becomes obvious. When I first watched this scene, I was so relieved that she didn't die, but after further analysis, I realized I was only playing into justifications used in rape culture.

When she awakes, we can see that she's in tremendous pain, showing how much the actions of Stefan hurt not only physically but also mentally. While she's still alive, the pain of having her wings being stripped from her will last for a long time. While a physical part of her was stripped from her, an emotional aspect has also been stripped from her as her trust in people, and those around her have changed. Since we've established that this directly correlates with rape mentioned within previous renditions, we see Maleficent act as a survivor in this situation. This makes the story a lot deeper, and you start to see all the layers that allow this film to be considered a dark fairy tale.

We can also dive into gender roles and how they affected the film through these actions. After seeing the abuse within the film, we get a glimpse into the role gender plays in the big picture of the movie. In most traditional fairy tales, we see a male lead coming in to save the day. However, in the case of Maleficent, she doesn't have anyone but herself. She doesn't have a prince charming to help in the end, no kiss or man will save her at the end of the day.

When looking at previous versions of the story, we usually see a man come in to save the girl, regardless of whether they did the right thing or not. When it comes to Basile's version, we see sleeping beauty being "saved" after getting raped. Perrault's version shows something similar where she is saved after being praised for her beauty. In both of these versions, women were viewed very materialistically and as objects in a sense rather than humans. Within Basile's, the king used her for sex and left her right afterward. Similarly, in Perrault's, we see that the man didn't think ab helping her initially but fell to his knees. We can also see this in maleficent, where Stefan initially befriends her based on her beauty just to use and eventually leave her in the end. This pattern of having men use women within these tales shows how women were perceived and treated back then.

From these gender norms, we see how the characters choose to deal with their trauma and recovery process. After getting her wings stripped and getting betrayed by the person she loved, she started to isolate herself from everyone around her. She would befriend a raven that would become her wings as he would gather information for her, but it was several years before she would open up again. It isn't until she starts to connect with Aurora that we see her heal. While initially despising the child and cursing her, we see her slowly grow closer to her as she would use magic to look after and protect her and mess with her fairy godmothers at the same time. While she did most of this in the background, it eventually led to her meeting Aurora and forming a special bond with her. While she did curse her in the beginning, she was ultimately what saved her in the end. This all leads up to the final fight, where we see the mentally broken Stefan have his last fight with Maleficent. After all this time, she's finally healed again and now can fight back the trauma that once haunted her. 

We clearly see this rise out of her trauma during the last fight scene between Maleficent and Stefan. The film chooses to shoot it from a low angle during this scene, demonstrating the power dynamic between the two. Having Stefan above maleficent shows that he is stronger and better than her as she is on the floor wingless. This changes as her wings get unlocked from where they were held, and Maleficent gets her wings back. Not only does this allow maleficent to win, but it also represents all the progress she made in the healing process, and the wings are a way to show that she's been fully healed. 

The movie's ending is also pretty interesting compared to the traditional ending of sleeping beauty. In this instance, it's maleficent who wins instead of the king and prince. While the prince does end up with sleeping beauty, he played no part in really saving her as it was Maleficent's kiss that woke Aurora up. We also see the king lose in the film's final fight, where usually the king, the typical good guy, wins. 

At this point, it's obvious how Maleficent falls into the dark fairy tale genre. Through looking at the way rape is portrayed, gender rales, and trauma within the film, many underlying dark elements were brought to light. While I don't think the movie as a whole is great, I would definitely say it's a must-watch for fans of the dark fairy tale genre as it explores complex topics and brings light to the reality of rape and the effect it has on people.

Rating: 3.5/10

Annotated Bibliography

Perrault, Charles. "Sleeping Beauty and the Wood." SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Web. 11 Nov 2012. <http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sleepingbeauty/index.html>

This source provides information about Charles Perrault’s variation on Sleeping Beauty. It also provides context to the history I would be discussing within the film review and allows me to make points regarding parallels between the film and previous texts written.

Disney; directed by Robert Stromberg; screenplay by Linda Woolverton; produced by Joe Roth; a Roth Films production. Maleficent. [Burbank, Calif.]: Disney, 2014.

I used this as the movie I would be analyzing about. This source gives me all the information I talked about regarding the movie maleficent. The source is also credible as it’s published by Disney a credible source. This is also where I got all the visuals for my essay and served to be very valuable for incorporating multimodal aspects into this essay/movie review.

Basile, Giambattista, and Christopher Stace. A Translation of Giambattista Basile's The Tale of Tales. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018. 

This source also gives me background information regarding the history of the fairy tale I discuss within this paper. It allows me to make comparisons between texts and draw conclusions I make in my paper regarding Maleficent.