The Darker Origins of Maleficent

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl who pricked her finger on a piece of flax and fell into a deep sleep. Her father, overcome with grief, proceeded to place her on a throne, locked the door, and left his home forever.

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 early version of Sleeping Beauty was originally printed in 1634 as part of a collection by Basile, the first great Italian collector of fairy tales. 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.

We 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 the movie, the roles are reversed and we get the perspective of the antagonist Maleficent, a fairy queen who puts the sleeping curse onto the princess. In this version we see the story being told from a much darker perspective, one that’s 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 with her. This doesn’t last as they go their separate paths in life with Maleficent growing stronger and being the protector of her land, the moors. Meanwhile, King Henry of the human realm seeks to get rid of the fairy realm and tries multiple times to take it out. While on his death bed, he promises that any man who can defeat Maleficent will become the next king. As it has always been Stefan’s dream to become the king, he goes once again to the Moors seeking Maleficent. 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 place a curse upon her. The curse was that she would fall into an eternal slumber after her 16^th birthday if she got pricked by a spindle. The only way to release the curse would be through a true loves kiss.

We first see how Maleficent fits into the dark fairy tale genre by looking at the history of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. We can draw many parallels between Basile’s version and this modern-day rendition. 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. Here we see this act of rape being replaced with the scene where Stefan removes Maleficent’s wings. When first watching the film, I thought Stefan was going to kill her this scene as felt relieved when he didn’t. However, when taking a step back I realize the action of Stefan removing her wings was the thing that replaced rape. Through my initial thought process, I realized that my relief that he only stripped her of her wings and didn’t kill her was only playing into justifications seen within rape culture.

When she awakes we can see that she’s in tremendous pain. This is significant as it shows how much this changed and hurt her both physically and 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.

Next, we can see how this fits a dark fairytale through gender norms presented throughout the story. 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 fairy tales, we usually see a male lead come in to save the day, however, when it comes to Maleficent, she doesn’t have anyone to save her but herself. This time no kiss or man will be able to come to save her at the end of the day.

With the context of the other variations of the story, we see a man come in to save the girl at the end of the story, regardless of what they did was right or not. When it comes to Basile’s version we see sleeping beauty being “saved” after getting raped. In Perrault’s version, we see something similar where she is saved after being praised for her beauty. In both of these versions, women were viewed very materialistically and as more as objects in 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 the way that women were perceived and treated back then.

From these gender norms, we see how the characters choose to deal with their trauma and their recovery process as well. 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 was a number of years before she would open up again. It isn’t until she starts to connect with Aurora is when 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. During this scene the film chooses to shoot it from a low angle, demonstrating the power dynamic between the two. By having Stefan above maleficent it shows that he is stronger and better than her as she is on the floor wingless. This of course changes as her wings gets unlocked from where they were being held and Maleficent gets her wings back. Not only does this allow maleficent to win but 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 ending of the movie is also pretty interesting when 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 in the end, he played no part in really saving her as it was Maleficent’s kiss that woke Aurora up. Also, we also see the king lose in the final fight of the film, where usually the king, the typical good guy, win.

Overall, Maleficent follows the conventions of the dark fairy tale genre through its interpretation of rape gender roles, and trauma within the film. This is also shown through the dark tones of the movie as well as the increased violence portrayed within the film. It brings to light many realities when it comes to rape and the effects it has on people.