Sleeping Beauty

Bomb Rating: 

There's some interesting symbolism in this film. For whatever reason, Aurora is laid to her long sleep holding a flower. It appears to be Prince Phillip's job to come and relieve her of that flower.

Wow, here's a Disney movie where the main character, Princess Aurora, actually has both of her parents. Congratulations to Disney! An actual normal family unit.

Unfortunately, this whole thing quickly devolves into something quite different. While in her crib, Princess Aurora is cursed by the evil Maleficent, destined to "prick" her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a deep slumber before her 16th birthday from which she will never awake. In order to prevent this from happening, the three good fairies, Flora, Merryweather and Fauna take Princess Aurora into the woods, rename her Briar Rose, and beat her ugly (no, actually, they just try to hide her until she turns 16).

Just before Maleficent discovers Aurora's location, Aurora and Prince Phillip meet in the middle of the forest by sheer happenstance because it seems that Phillip is the only male in the forest and it's just sort of inevitable that Aurora, who runs off to sing with the woodland creatures, would run into him eventually. This proves beneficial because after Maleficent discovers Aurora and puts her to sleep, Phillip is the one who can kiss her and bring her out of her slumber.

There's some interesting symbolism in this film. For whatever reason, Aurora is laid to her long sleep holding a flower. It appears to be Prince Phillip's job to come and relieve her of that flower. After all, she is 16. This whole deflowering appears to be of central concern to everyone. The fairy sisters know that if Aurora isn't deflowered, she might end up like them: fat, goofy and bickering about color all the time. Maleficent, obviously steamed that she hasn't got any in so long, puts Aurora to sleep so she can't get any either. Fortunately, Prince Phillip shows up, promptly deflowers Aurora and everyone celebrates.

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My favorite moment

FearlessFreep's picture
Submitted by FearlessFreep on Mon, 07/13/2009 - 22:17.

The moment when the evil fairy says "Now you shall deal with me, O prince, and all the powers of HELL!!" and turns into a big, fire-breathing dragon. It's just about the only use of profanity in a classic Disney movie, and a pretty effective one.

Earlier on, one of the good fairies says about Malificent, "I don't think she's really happy." (How '50s can you get?) But at that moment when she transformed into the dragon, I'll bet she WAS happy!

Scumps!

 

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