Maleficent: rewriting history

Maleficent (2014) caused a sensation in movie theaters, viewers applauded the new proposal of an iconic Disney character. However, the criticism was not unanimous. The excess of the film, the endless war scenes and the sugar overdose with which they characterized a character who, originally, had nothing good, were pointed out.

When updating a classic it is very difficult to find the right note. In advance, we can anticipate that there will be people who don’t like it. Furthermore, in the case of a character as well-known as Maleficent, we can end up “destroying” the childhood of many and the image they kept of the character in their memories.

Disney, in recent years, has “put the effort” to try to fit its classics into a more updated mold., more in line with the needs and models we are looking for now. The new generations no longer belong to royalty, and no longer need princes to save them, but rather they fend (or try to do so) on their own.

Disney realized that classics, like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty either Cinderella, They continued to make the little ones fall in love with them, but this old formula no longer worked as well as before. Disney needed princesses who were strong, brave, who did not worry so much about finding a prince, who represented the new female icons of the 21st century.. Thus, names like Mulan (1998) and Pocahontas (1995), whom we can consider pioneers of change, and Elsa (Frozen2013) or Moana (2016), emblems of the future.

There is no princess more dull than Aurora (Sleeping Beauty, 1959), she sleeps through most of the film, barely has any dialogue, and falls in love without meeting the prince. Of course, it’s 1959, so it’s no surprise that the only task in these princesses’ lives was to find a good husband and live happily ever after.

The Maleficent of the 21st century brings us a slightly different story; Aurora herself is the one who narrates the story and says that, perhaps, it was not told completely well before.. Neither the good ones are so good, nor the bad ones are totally bad; These nuances, this gray scale of evil that presents Maleficent It made many not fully accept the change, as they expected to find the purest and unjustified evil that characterized the 1959 Maleficent.

The evolution of Maleficent

We are very accustomed to Disney presenting extreme characters: some represent goodness in its purest form (reaching the extreme of naivety) and others, on the contrary, are the personification of evil, an evil that has never been explained to us.

For many, this essence has been lost, we all love to see bad guys who have no motive or that our imagination is the one that plays to invent their 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 is going on in the minds of the characters. and what motivates them to act in one way or another. We live in the age of real-time information, we want a why, a cause… we want to believe in the story we are seeing.

Thus, in this new version of the classic, We discover Maleficent’s past and, although her name is not very good, she is not as bad as they had portrayed her to us.. Maleficent was nothing more than an orphan fairy who lived in the wasteland, a kingdom where other fantastic creatures lived; On the other side was the kingdom of men, where greed took over their souls. Maleficent befriends a boy named Stefan who lives on a farm; He is also an orphan and the two will begin a friendship.

Stefan continues to visit Maleficent and, when they turn 16, gives her a kiss (a supposed symbol of their true love). However, Stefan is ambitious and aspires to become king despite his humble origins; This ambition will cause him to distance himself from Maleficent and, finally, to betray her by tearing off her wings.. The king will name him his successor and Stefan finally achieves his long-awaited goal; and Maleficent takes refuge in her hatred and her thirst for revenge, becoming the villain we met in Sleeping Beauty.

Tying up loose ends

The movie Maleficent is responsible for “fixing” and filling in the gaps that were left loose in the past. Maleficent is now not a character we hate, but rather we understand and strive to understand why she acted the way she did.

It is true that the idea of ​​revenge and hatred are still closely linked to the character, but, Upon meeting little Aurora, he will end up becoming fond of her and will try to correct his mistake.. In addition to the evolution of Maleficent, we witness some changes that explain gaps in the first version:

The fairies: It is true that they were the characters that the public fell in love with in Sleeping Beautybut in Maleficent, we see that they are much more clumsy than we expected and can hardly take care of a baby. Something that has bothered and pleased in equal measure.dawn: he is still innocent, but he is much more adventurous than the previous version. He sees Maleficent as her fairy godmother and her role will be fundamental in the protagonist’s redemption. Likewise, the love story with the prince will no longer be relevant to the plot.The Raven: Has always been an important character for Maleficent in both versions. But in this one, we discover that, having been stripped of her wings, she needs someone to keep watch from the air. The choice of the crow is not coincidental, since they are animals that are associated with great intelligence. Maleficent transforms him into a human to give him orders and a strong understanding will emerge between them. The raven, Diaval, will become a kind of conscience of Maleficent.

A kiss of true love

Maleficent does not believe in love, Stefan betrayed her at the age of 16; Therefore, he will punish her daughter with the same sentence as hers. Stefan himself knows that true love does not exist, since he has never professed it, only he knows greed. Maleficent was carried away by the hatred and resentment she had for Stefan, but upon meeting Aurora, she sees that she is not guilty of her father’s actions.that she does not deserve that punishment and, although she tries to revoke the spell, she does not succeed and the only solution is for her to receive a kiss of love.

Skepticism about Maleficent’s love will make her believe her salvation is impossible, but Diaval and the fairies believe that Prince Philip’s kiss will be able to wake her up. However, Philip, although he is attracted to Aurora, is not yet in love, he barely knows her and his kiss fails to wake her up.; And love is something much more complex than what Disney taught us in its classics.

So, a Maleficent, repentant and hurt by what she has done, gives him a kiss, a totally maternal kiss, but true love without any doubt, causing Aurora to wake up from her dream of death. Thus breaking the cliché of all Disney classics.

Screw up or reinvent a classic, that depends on opinion. There is no doubt that, with these new versions, we are getting closer to less tragic, less vulnerable stereotypes.

They reflect an idea that materializes every second in the world: neither evil nor goodness are born from nothing and they are also not usually extreme. In this sense, we all have a series of nuances within us, we can all trigger hate and love in certain situations. AND, Finally, women do not need princes to rescue them, love is built little by little and, for it to be solid, it takes something more than simple initial attraction.

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