The Strongest of the Fairies: Walt Disney’s Feminist Fairy Tale Maleficent
Feminist discussions of the different variants of “Sleeping Beauty” have generally
concentrated on the title character as a paradigm of female passivity (e.g.: Barzilai,
2015), whereas the other female character in the story, the female villain, has been
largely overlooked. The tale of “Sleeping Beauty” has been retold multiple times, in
both film and literature, and, with each retelling, the female villain has undergone
transformations that point toward a cultural shift in how we represent women in fiction
aimed at younger audiences. In fact, since Perrault‟s nameless villainess to Walt
Disney‟s fully fleshed-out Maleficent, it can be affirmed that this character has suffered
even more alterations than Sleeping Beauty herself. This paper examines how Disney‟s
2014 movie Maleficent, written by Linda Woolverton, revises and rewrites female
antagonism, turning the wicked fairy into Aurora‟s helper, rather than her opponent, as
she originally was in older versions of the tale, and especially in Disney‟s 1959
adaptation. We therefore aim to look into how Disney rewrites not only this highly
popular fairy tale, but also their own previous adaptation, in an attempt to infuse
feminist thinking into their new productions, and thus please contemporary audiences
with a film in which female characters start out as enemies, but evolve to become allies.
In The Hard Facts of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Maria Tatar states that
There are three types of ogres in [the Grimm‟s] Nursery and Household Tales. The first
comprises beasts and monsters (…). The second group consists of social deviants (…).
The third (and this group easily outnumbers the members of both other categories) is
composed of women. These are the various cooks, stepmothers, witches, and mothersin-law with voracious appetites for human fare, sometimes even for the flesh and blood
or for the liver and heart of their own relatives. (2003: 139)
In the case of “Sleeping Beauty”, and particularly in its three best-known versions
(Basile‟s, Perrault‟s and the Grimms‟), the main character‟s opponent is indeed a
woman (or even more than one woman): a jealous queen in Basile‟s “Sun, Moon and
1
Talia”, a wicked fairy and an ogress in Perrault‟s “Sleeping Beauty in the Woods”, and
an evil „wise woman‟ in the Brothers Grimm‟s “Briar Rose”. In these different variants,
the female villain is a secondary character. In Perrault and the Grimms, the wicked
fairy‟s only purpose in the story is to utter the curse that will unleash the subsequent
events. After the baby princess‟s christening she disappears and is never mentioned
again. She is not even punished for her evil deeds. It is in Tchaikovsky‟s ballet, which
premiered in St. Petersburg in 1890, that this character is given a name for the first time
(Carabosse), as well as a more prominent role in the plot. For the first time, the evil
fairy is punished in the end.
Drawing heavily on the “Sleeping Beauty” ballet, in Walt Disney‟s 1959
adaptation, Carabosse becomes Maleficent, who possesses all the characteristics and
conventions of a Gothic villain: she is clad in dark robes, she is an outcast living in a
dark ruined castle, she has demonic powers, and, just like Carabosse, she is duly
defeated and punished in the end. This final eradication of evil is, according to Bruno
Bettelheim, a necessary ingredient:
The happy ending requires that the evil principle be appropriately punished and done
away with; only then can the good, and with it happiness, prevail. In Perrault, as in Basile,
the evil principle is done away with. But the Brothers Grimm‟s version [of “Sleeping
Beauty”] (…) is deficient because the evil fairy is not punished. (1991: 230)
Bettelheim is not the first to highlight the importance of the happy ending in fairy tales.
In his essay “On Fairy Stories” (first published in 2008), J.R.R. Tolkien already claimed
that “all complete fairy-stories must have it” (2008: 75), and this is a convention that
Disney complies with in all his children‟s movies. Accordingly, Disney‟s 1959
adaptation of “Sleeping Beauty” recovers this eradication of the evil principle, absent in
the Grimms, so that the joy of the happy ending can be properly delivered. Yet, this has
other effects on the story that cannot be overlooked. On the one hand, it strengthens the
moralizing dimension of fairy tales and kids‟ movies, and, since the evil principle is
2
embodied by a woman, it reinforces and perpetuates the sexual stereotyping that is
already present in its fairy-tale precedents. As Shuli Barzilai affirms, “This motif of
intra-female hostilities carries over into the canonical versions. Unlike male aggression,
a need to elide it never seems to arise” (2015: 64). By „male aggression‟, Barzilai refers
to the rape scene in “Sun, Moon and Talia”, which did not make it to either Perrault‟s or
the Grimm‟s retellings, not to mention Disney‟s.
The representation of women in Walt Disney‟s classic children‟s movies has
been largely criticized. Jack Zipes, for example, points out how “The Disney films
repeatedly tend to demonize older women and infantilize young women” (2015: 214).
Yet, this is precisely the motif that Maleficent attempts to rewrite. This modern retelling
of “Sleeping Beauty” opens with a woman‟s narrative voice addressing an imaginary
audience: “Let us tell you an old story new, and we‟ll see how well you know it”, she
states. With these opening lines, the movie not only alludes to its folktale precedent and
the oral tradition to which it belongs, but it also clarifies that this time the story will be
told from a woman‟s point of view, for in the end we find out that this narrative voice
belongs to Aurora herself (Elle Fanning), who claims that “The story is not quite as you
were told. And I should know, for I was the one they called „Sleeping Beauty‟”. In
Linda Woolverton‟s reimagining of this classical fairy tale, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie)
was not always an evil fairy. In line with a contemporary tendency to sentimentalize
villains and complicate the roles of victim and villain, Maleficent‟s cursing Aurora in
Woolverton‟s script is motivated, not just by not being invited to the christening, but by
a far greater offense: in the past, Maleficent fell in love with King Stefan (Aurora‟s
father), who not only broke her heart, but also stole her wings, leaving her maimed and
powerless. Maleficent, however, soon regrets what she has done and becomes Aurora‟s
protector, eventually developing motherly feelings for the young girl and taking on the
3
role of the fairy godmother. The focus in the story thus shifts from heterosexual
romantic love to maternal love, from sexual awakening to reconciliation between the
two female characters, and from female passivity to female agency. In fact, Aurora‟s
love story with Philip is granted very little attention and very little screen time, and it is
altogether forgotten when Philip‟s kiss does not manage to wake Aurora. Villainy, on
the other hand, is attributed, not to a female character, but to a man, Stefan. As for
Maleficent, she is described in the movie as being “both hero and villain”: she does
commit an act of villainy when she curses Aurora, but this is justified by Stefan‟s
treason, and Maleficent herself is redeemed by her repentance.
At this point, it is relevant to examine how Disney‟s philosophy and the
relationship that the company aims to establish with its audience have motivated these
plot changes. Walter Elias Disney once said that “You can design and create, and build
the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality”
(Kohl & Solga, 2008: 59). The owner of the Disney Empire always tried to make
audiences enter and discover new lands filled with kings and queens, princes and
princesses, ogres and fairies, talking animals, dragons, and spells. Having all this in
mind, Disney and his team aimed to make fairy tales accessible for both young and
adult audiences, who would become passive participants in the story.
Although animated movies have been the essence of Disney‟s main project to
make people forget about a real world and enter fantastic places for one hour and a half,
the gate to imaginary kingdoms and landscapes was also left open thanks to the release
of live-action movies that reimagine classic stories without the use of animation,
particularly in the twenty-first century. In these movies, real actors and actresses walk
hand in hand with special visual and acoustic effects to recreate parallel realities for the
audience. This is the case of Walt Disney Pictures‟ Into the Woods, Cinderella, and
4
Maleficent. These audiovisual productions also seem to be a perfect excuse to reinvent
old plots and introduce new morals for a new society. Contemporary audiences,
particularly adults, clearly expect politically correct language and a more critical and
complex perspective of actions and characters but, at the same time, they do not want to
lose classic fairy-tale elements. These are still sought particularly by children, such as
castles, battles, swords, and magnificent dresses, as they represent a perfect way to enter
daydream and wonderful places to which Walt Disney referred to some decades ago. As
Elena di Giovanni points out, “Disney‟s microcosm offers a clever balance between
realism and fantasy, novelty and standardization, up-to-date as well as timeless
references, thus appealing to young but also adult viewers in every corner of the earth”
(di Giovanni, 2003: 207).
Maleficent is a renewal of the old story about an innocent Princess who falls
asleep after being cursed by an evil fairy and wakes up after receiving the Prince‟s true
love‟s kiss. Fifty years later, it is Maleficent who feels this true love. She curses the
Princess, but finally they come to understand each other. This last revision is written
and told by audiovisual professionals who are used to spreading Disney's ideology
worldwide: among other things, the company expects to turn classic books for children
into movies for all audiences. And they know that modern and feminist reinterpretations
of classic tales meet the needs of present-day viewers. Thus, the screenwriter adapted
the famous tale to make a whole revision of every single element in the story—
protagonists, antagonists, motivations and even powers. In Maleficent the villainess
becomes both the protagonist and the hero, while the antagonist is the King; real
motivations are now known by the viewer; and the Prince‟s objective is not saving the
Princess, but falling in love with her in the future, after the spell is broken. However,
some scenes and elements from the 1959 movie have been kept in the 2014
5
reinterpretation, such as the christening scene, which is a nearly word-by-word
reproduction of that in Sleeping Beauty, the green color of Maleficent‟s powers, her
horns and facial expression, or the innocence of Princess Aurora. Audiences also expect
to detect some similarities between both movies.
Maleficent is without a doubt a successful, subversive and daring choice made
by the Disney team, the result of new times and a modern reinterpretation of the fairy
tale. As Patrick Zabalbeascoa states, the subjectivity of interpretation plays a key role in
audiovisual adaptations from a written work, although the team‟s objectives may also be
taken into consideration (2000: 21). Maleficent‟s screenwriter, Linda Woolverton, was
aware of the needs of twenty-first-century viewers, and she realized that women's roles
in contemporary societies have evolved after more than five decades. In fact, most
recent animated movies released by Disney try to show how princesses become
heroines. This is the case of Merida in Brave, the Scottish princess whose mother is not
proud of her at the beginning, because of her tomboyish behavior. There is no male hero
in this movie, as the main characters are Merida and the Queen. It is also the case of
Frozen, where Princess Anna does not turn out to be as delicate and sweet as other
previous Disney princesses, and where she becomes the heroine that tries to save her
sister Elsa. In both cases, as in Maleficent, there is a relationship between two female
family members: mother-daughter, sister-sister, and fairy godmother-princess. Men act
only as secondary characters: fathers, friends, princes, or kings.
In conclusion, recent Disney fairy-tale adaptations show an effort to revise, not
only the sexual stereotyping that several scholars have identified in the classical fairytale tradition (e.g.: Tatar, 2003; Barzilai, 2015), but also Disney‟s own misogynistic
tendencies, recently criticized by adult viewers and critics. We believe that Linda
Woolverton‟s reimagining of “Sleeping Beauty” clearly illustrates this two-fold
6
ideological and marketing agenda. Last but not least, evaluating the extent to which
modern fairy-tale retellings like Maleficent actually succeed in spreading a feminist
ideology is outside the limited scope of this paper, but this is certainly an aspect that
deserves further attention and which we intend to consider in future research projects.
Bibliography and filmography:
Barzilai, Shuli. “While beauty sleeps: The poetics of male violence in Perceforest and
Almodóvar‟s Talk to Her” in Maria Tatar (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Fairy Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 60-78.
Basile, Giambattista. “Sun, Moon and Talia” in The Pentamerone. Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2198/2198-h/2198-h.htm
(last
access:
01/02/2016).
Bettleheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy
Tales. London & New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Brave. Walt Disney Pictures. 93´ 2012. Dir Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman. Prod
Katherine Sarafian. Scr Brenda Chapman.
Cinderella. Walt Disney Pictures. 97´ 2014. Dir Robert Stromberg. Prod Joe Roth. Scr
Linda Woolverton, based on Charles Perrault‟s “La belle au bois dormant” and
the motion picture “Sleeping Beauty”.
di Giovanni, Elena. “Cultural Otherness and Global Communication in Walt Disney
Films at the Turn of the Century” in The Translator. Volume 9, Number 2
(2003) 207-223.
Frozen. Walt Disney Pictures. 102´ 2013. Dir Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. Prod Peter
del Vecho. Scr Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and Shane Morris, based on Hans
Christian Andersen‟s “The Snow Queen”.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. “Briar Rose” in Fairy Tales. Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2591/2591-h/2591-h.htm#link2H_4_0008 (last
access: 01/02/2016).
Into the Woods. Walt Disney Pictures. 124´ 2014. Dir Rob Marshall. Prod Rob
Marshall, John DeLuca, Marc Platt, and Callum McDougall. Scr James Lapine,
based on Grimm‟s Brothers “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Cinderella”, “Jack and
the Beanstalk”, and “Rapunzel”, and on the musical play Into the Woods by
Stephen Sondheim (1986-nowadays).
7
Kohl, MaryAnn F. and Solga, Kim. Great American Artists for Kids: Hand-on Art
Experiences in the Styles of Great American Masters. Bellingham: Bright Ring
Publishing Inc., 2008.
Maleficent. Walt Disney Pictures. 97´ 2014. Dir Robert Stromberg. Prod Joe Roth. Scr
Linda Woolverton, based on Charles Perrault‟s “La belle au bois dormant” and
the motion picture “Sleeping Beauty”.
Perrault, Charles. “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” in Tales of Times Past. Project
Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33511/33511-h/33511-h.htm (last
access: 01/02/2016).
Sleeping Beauty. Walt Disney Pictures. 75´ 1959. Dir Clyde Geronimi. Scr Erdman
Penner, based on Charles Perrault‟s “La belle au bois dormant”.
Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2003.
Tolkien, J.R.R. “On Fairy Stories” in Verlyn Flieger & Douglas A. Anderson (eds.),
Tolkien: On Fairy Stories (Expanded edition, with commentary and notes).
London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008. 27-84.
Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. “Contenidos para adultos en el género infantil: el caso del
doblaje de Walt Disney” in Veljka Ruzicka Kenfel, Celia Vázquez García and
Lourdes Lorenzo García (eds.), Literatura infantil y juvenil: tendencias actuales
en investigación. Vigo, Servicio de Publicacións. Universidade de Vigo, 2000.
19-30.
Zipes, Jack. “Media-hyping of fairy tales” in Maria Tatar (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Fairy Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 202219.
8