A Labyrinth to Become Principessa

It seems like every good has to go through an attractive curse to defeat the evil. The tales of growing up pain have always been slumbering next to us and every attempt to ease them apart is nipped in the bud. After two centuries of Sleeping Beauty, a folklore, Maleficent (2014) surprised the world with its much more progressive characterization in the Modernist line while comparing it to the Little Briar Rose from Brother Grimm’s tale under the title of Dornroschen. Maleficent (2014) shows that the traditional norm of male oppression over females is no longer a norm. Women can fight back for their values, unlike Briar Rose, where women were passive and dependent on men for their resurrection. Above all over alteration in both tales, despite its development, it offers that feminine empowerment is entrenched to break the “magic spell” of gender ideology. Postmodernism is an era where “Meta-Narratives” are seen through different lens from the past and original fairy tales have been interpreted in contemporary norms by changing its title, plot, and role of characters by postmodernist movie creators e.g., Maleficent, an antagonist of the Sleeping Beauty story now owns the title of story. Kevin Paul Smith’s the element of Re-vision in the text circulates around giving new meaning to old ones. To remove the patriarchal authority, certain revisions are done to pursue feminist agenda by bringing powerful position to the women.

The perception of Sleeping Beauty tale depends on which version you have read, entitled under strikingly different characters as Sleeping Beauty, Talia, Little Briar Rose, Rosamond or Aurora. The protagonist Talia from the original version of story Sun, Moon and Talia was written by Italian author Giambattista Basile’s book The Tale of Tales in 1634. Later on, Charles Perrault in the late seventeenth century wrote its prequel, Mother Goose Tales, protagonist named Sleeping Beauty and the Brother Grimm version came in late nineteenth century heroine Little Briar Rose. However, Basile’s version is darker than the Disney version (1959). Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent totally symbolize a conflict between good and evil. No story is possible without the conflict of a beautiful good girl and a wrecked evil who can be a witch, mother figure, step sisters. The good girl faces the social challenge of evil which is inseparable from her. The evil characters have their specific evil villainess attribute which makes them a different way of their shades. The little girl or protagonist finds it hard to muster up evil but the construction of the story itself provides her ways to get rid of it. The perplexity of an unsure and inexperienced mind is put to rest through the magnanimous execution of the omnipotent power.

Fairy tales and myths provide an open ground for the study of character’s collective unconscious archetypes and their observation. Carl Jung, a Swiss Psychiatrist, who’s in-depth observation of fairy tale archetype is quintessential to understand it. While reading Grimm Brothers fairy tale with categorizing archetypes begins a gender binary of male and female. Like the female archetype in Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent’s collective psyche being good and then turning into evil is affected by external force. Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent can be interpreted as historical representation along with changes in narrative, representation of human and Maleficent’s flying ability. In Sleeping Beauty (1959), Maleficent is a true evil who ruthlessly does whatever to achieve her evil goals. Underneath the stoicism Maleficent unleashes her brunt with a smile. In Maleficent, she is more complex and she became a kind hearted fairy towards Diaval and Aurora. Her ways of behavior are different in both movies. She is the most popular villain of Disney Villains by possessing an unlimited arsenal of magic powers with dark elegant design.

The journey from seventeenth century Basile’s version of Sleeping Beauty to the late twentieth century new versions of same tale demonstrate huge change in their characterization, in rescuing agent, feministic rise, revolution in characters, construction of plot and its alteration, filling the gap between earlier version of the tale and Maleficent. The feminist ideology was in emerging state in twentieth century which took part in transforming these tales in other way around from the traditional Sleeping Beauty. The revision of the tale outshines assertive protagonists who help other women, their fictional sisters to emulate. The critical transformation of the tale manifests the de-victimization of women, and divulges morally ambiguous male.