Maleficent: rewriting history
(2014) raged in theaters. Viewers applauded the new proposal of an iconic Disney character, however, the reviews were not unanimous. The film was marked by excesses; for endless war scenes and for him?which included a character who, in its origin, was not good.
- It is very difficult to hit when updating a classic.
- Beforehand you can expect that there are always people who do not like it.
- Besides.
- In the case of a character as well known as Maleficent.
- Will it be possible?It destroys the childhood of many people.
- And also the image these people had in their memory of this character.
In recent years, Disney has worked hard to adapt its classics to a more current mold, according to the needs and models we are looking for today, the new generations no longer belong to royalty and no longer need princes for today, princesses are self-sufficient, or at least try.
Disney has realized that classics, such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, or Cinderella, continue to delight children, but this old formula no longer works as well as before. Disney needed princesses to be strong, brave, not to worry too much. about finding a prince, to represent the new female icons of the 21st century, names such as Mulan (1998) and Pocahontas (1995), which can be considered pioneers of change, and Elsa (Frozen, 2013) or Moana (2016), emblems of the future, emerged.
There is no princess more insulsive than Aurora (Sleeping Beauty, 1959) who, for most of the film, sleeps in the tower and simply dialogues and falls in love without knowing the prince. Of course, it’s 1959, that’s right. It is not strange to realize that the sole purpose of these princesses‘ lives was to find a good husband and be happy forever.
Maleficent of the 21st century brings a slightly different history; It’s Aurora he own who tells the story and says that maybe she didn’t do everything right the other time. Neither the good are so good, nor the bad ones are totally bad; These nuances, this grayscale of malevolence presented by Maleficence, have led many not to accept all this change, as people hoped to find the purest and most unjustified evil that characterized the evil Evil of 1959.
We are very accustomed to Disney presenting extreme characters: some represent goodness in its purest state (reaching the extreme of naivety) and others, on the contrary, are the embodiment of evil.
For many, this essence was lost, because they would prefer that there was no reason or that the imagination itself invented the character’s past.
However, the truth is that in the 21st century the demands of the public have also changed: we want to know everything, we want to know what happens in the minds of the characters and what motivates them to act one way or another. We live in the information age in real time, do we want a reason, a cause?we want to believe the story we see.
Thus, in this new version of the classic, we discovered Maleficent’s past and, although his name does not follow much, it is not as bad as we imagined, Maleficent was nothing more than an orphan fairy living in a Peamo, a kingdom where other fantastic creatures lived.
On the other side was the kingdom of men, where greed took hold of their souls. She meets a boy named Stefan, who lives on a farm; he is also an orphan and both begin a friendship.
Stefan continues to visit Maleficent, and at 16 he kisses her (symbol of her true love), yet Stefan is ambitious and aspires to become king, despite his humble origins.
This ambition will lead him to move away from Maleficent and, finally, to betray the character by pulling his wings, the king will name him his successor and Stefan will eventually achieve his goal, Maleficent takes refuge in his hatred and thirst for revenge. , becoming the villain we know in Sleeping Beauty.
The film Maleficent takes care of?Fixing and filling the gaps and gaps that were loose in the past. Maleficent is no longer a character we hate, but we understand and strive to understand why we did it.
It is true that the idea of revenge and hatred is always closely related to the character, but when he meets little Aurora, he ends up loving him and tries to make up for his mistake. In addition to the evolution of Maleficent, we have seen some changes that explain the shortcomings of the first version:
Maleficent doesn’t believe in love, because Stefan betrayed her at 16, then you’re going to punish his daughter in the same way, Stefan himself knows that true love doesn’t exist, because he’s never felt it, he just knows it. Maleficent got carried away by the hatred and resentment she had for Stefan, but when she met Aurora, she saw that she was not to blame for her father’s actions, that she did not deserve this punishment and even trying to undo her fate. Isn’t that right, and the only solution is for me to get a kiss of love.
Maleficent’s loving skepticism will make her impossible to save, but Diaval and the hasdas believe that Prince Philip’s kiss may awaken Aurora, but Philip, though attracted to Aurora, is not yet in love, barely knows her and her kiss fails to wake her up This is because love is something much more complex than Disney’s shows in her classics.
Thus, a Maleficent repentant and wounded by what she did gives her a kiss, a totally maternal kiss, but of true love without a doubt, causing Aurora to awaken from her mortal dream. Thus, the main theme of all Disney classics is broken.
Destroying or reinventing a classic depends on the opinion of the people, there is no doubt that with these new versions we are approaching less tragic, less vulnerable stereotypes.
They reflect an idea that materializes every second of the world: neither evil nor good is born of anything and, moreover, they are generally not extreme, in this sense we all have a series of nuances in us, we can all unleash hatred and love in certain situations.
Finally, women do not need princes to save them, love is built little by little and, to be solid, it takes more than an initial attraction.
“My kingdom was not united by a hero or a villain, but by someone who was both a hero and a villain. Was his name evil?