Maleficent
I didn’t want “The Prince” to be for longer than necessary, so here is another posting. Even though I am too tired to read more political analysis articles on the results for the Congress vote yesterday, I decided that I will write “Maleficent” after all, especially since I feel like I have something to say about the film. So, spoilers ahead!
It all started with an e-mail I got today. I mentioned the film to this friend who is one of those cases where I don’t actually talk to him a lot but conversations tend to be rather personal, because I thought “Maleficent” was a stand-out film that fit all the criteria for polite conversation: A well-known Hollywood film which I like and thus were able to say something positive about, inviting the other person to say something about it too. (Nothing is as impolite as negativity, seriously.) Yes, I like small talk (to some degree at least) and honestly, I am not interested in more than small talk with most people. I like conversations to be fun and pleasant and I will only allow anyone to deviate from that if 1) this person means something to me and 2) I feel like deeper conversations right now.
But I digress. In aforementioned e-mail, the friend replied that he thought “Maleficent” was a terrible movie because it “villifies men and glorifies women” and he called it sexist. To be honest, that comment sent me into inexplicable anger. After thinking about it, I think I understand what bothered me about it so much (aside from the fact that the rest of the e-mail was decidedly not nice): It’s simply not true. “Maleficent” is not some modern-day feminist “Birth of the Nation” in which men are portrayed as evil and females as good. In fact, only one male character is portrayed as evil and two female characters are portrayed as good, they just happen to be the main character. All other male characters (Maleficent’s servant, the prince who falls in love with Aurora) are quite nice people whereas the females (the fairies) are idiot aunties who are literally incapable of raising a child. I don’t think there is any generalization on men or women here, it’s just a story about one man capable of betraying a woman’s love. If “Maleficent” generalizes men and women, then “Romeo and Juliet” generalizes relationships and all lovers actually want to kill themselves if the other one is dead. In reality, some do, most don’t. Similarly, some men rape women, most don’t. To be honest, saying or showing that men can rape, abuse and betray women within a relationship is a sad fact. I think making a movie revolve around the consequences of such betrayal is grand, not sexist.
I am done ranting now. When I read the Wikipedia article afterwards, I was surprised to see that the betrayal was supposed to symbolize rape. I think that went a little bit too far, but I can see how it was intended that way. Angelina Jolie certainly did a good job showing Maleficent’s change towards an evil self, and her screams after realizing that betrayal were quite memorable. However, what happened afterwards was what made this film precious to me. To me, “Maleficent” is an ode to a mother’s love, even if she is not even her real mother (who conveniently abandoned her with those dumb fairies). In fact, the film shows how motherly feelings are unrelated to blood, which I thought was awesome. My favorite scenes in the film were how she watched over Aurora from the distance and was not able to hide her feelings for her. I didn’t know how the story would unfold beforehand, so I was surprised that such love grew, and it did so in a believable way. Personally, I like the message that a parent’s love is true love whereas love between men and women is just love, but not as true. When I look at other parents and other couples, I find that concept quite realistic, whatever the definition of “true” may be.
Instead of a rape or a feminist or whatever story, I found “Maleficent” to be a better “Brave” which also surprised me with its treatment of the mother-daughter relationship. Disney really seems to like its mother and daughter stories these days, and if they are all like “Maleficent”, I’d be happy.