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Roles

Relationships

-Maleficent and Stefan

-Protagonist

-Antagonist

-Both

The Deconstruction

True Love's

Kiss

The Loss of Wings

Childhood Loves

Maleficent, who is perceived as the villain, becomes the protagonist, proving that a character can be both good and bad. This holds true for Stefan, whose roles are also reversed from good to bad.

Stefan reunites with Maleficent when they are older. However, in order to ascend the thrown, Stefan puts Maleficent to sleep and cuts off her wings. What happens to Maleficent is similar to rape because she was drugged and taken advantage of by someone she cares about. This person violated a part of her body (wings) even though she trusted him. This deconstructs the audience's expectations of a relationship because it doesn't work out like one usually does in a fairy tale.

Meaning Produced:

Despite the fact that Maleficent was a fairy and Stefan was a human, the two enjoyed each other's company and were best friends. This builds a relationship that the audience expects to last, as most do when the characters grow up together.

As teenagers, Maleficent and Stefan share their first kiss, an indication that their friendship has developed into something more. This sets the scene for true love's kiss being a myth because Maleficent does not believe in it after she is betrayed.

Individuals can be good and evil. No one is born evil and often times there is a lot of gray rather than black and white.

Antagonist

People mainly identify Maleficent as the antagonist because of the role she plays in Disney's Sleeping Beauty. In this scene when she sets a curse on Aurora, she lives up to her reputation as the villain she is known to be.

Antagonist

The Deconstruction

Maleficent and Stefan have a childhood friendship that develops into a relationship, but the relationship does not work out the way one expects it to.

Protagonist

Stefan establishes himself as the antagonist when he decides to cut Maleficent's wings to gain power. He makes it his life mission to kill Maleficent, who has taken his child from him. Viewers lack sympathy for him because of the way he has let this vengeance consume his life. This deconstructs the idea of distinct roles because Stefan was a good person, but became corrupt and took on the role of the villain in the movie.

Meaning Produced:

After Maleficent realizes that she really cares for Aurora, she tries to lift her own curse, which shows that she no longer has villainous intentions. This deconstructs the idea that every movie has a designated protagonist and antagonist. Maleficent has shown that a character can be both.

Love for power can overpower love for a person. When this happens, we really witness the divide between good and evil. Someone good loves for the sake of love. Someone evil loves for the sake of power.

Protagonist

Although he is not the main character, Stefan initially appears as a good guy. He is a good human and becomes great friends with Maleficent. He is accepted in The Moors and eventually becomes Maleficent's love interest.

Structuralism in Maleficent

Background

-Character based on villain from Sleeping Beauty

-Portrayed by Angelina Jolie

-Film released in 2014

-180 million budget and made 750 million

-Got mixed reviews, but commercial success

Julie Linh Nguyen

Research Question

What myths are identified and deconstructed in Maleficent and what does this teach the audience?

Method

Use structuralism to analyze the film and deconstruct the structures.

Synopsis

Maleficent is a powerful fairy who lives in The Moors next to a human kingdom.

She falls in love with a human, but when they are older, Stefan betrays her to become king.

She curses Stefan's daughter, Aurora, to fall into a deep sleep on her 16th birthday. Three fairies take care of Aurora, but they are incompetent, so Maleficent watches over her and cares for her.

She develops a maternal love for Aurora and tries to take back the curse, but cannot.

Synopsis Cont'd

Maleficent tries to have Aurora awakened with a kiss from Prince

Philip, but he fails. She kisses Aurora on the forehead and is the one who wakes her. Aurora releases Maleficent's wings and she defeats King Stefan. Maleficent and Aurora return to live in the Moors, which have once again become cheerful and bright. The Moors and the human world are united.

Bibliography

Bone, Kristin L. "Dark Side of a Hero: The Villain in the Role of the Protagonist." Interdisciplinary (2014): 1-8. Web.

Hastie, Amelie. "The Vulnerable Spectator: Acting Marvelously." Film Quarterly 67.4 (2014): 52. Web.

Maleficent. Dir. Robert Stromberg. Perf. Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning. Walt Disney Studios, 2014. Film.

Nelson, Thomas A. "Darkness in the Disney Look." Film Quarterly 6.2 (1978). Web.

Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Conclusion

Maleficent is not a typical fairy tale like the Disney movie it is based on. The first thing that's different about it is that it's from the perspective of someone who is perceived as the villain. After identifying and analyzing four different structures in the movie, we see that the film produces meaning in unconventional ways. Two things the film redefines are love and good vs. evil.

Love

Good vs. Evil

-King Stefan lacks love for his family

-Characters aren't born evil. There has to be a reason for them to become evil. Maleficent became evil because she was hurt and betrayed. Stefan became evil because he valued power.

-Prince Phillp does not love Aurora because he just met her. He's merely smitten.

Myths

-Maleficent's maternal love for Aurora is enough to sustain them as a family as well as break the curse that says true love's kiss is the only thing that can awaken Aurora.

-Characters can be both good and bad. Maleficent was the protagonist and antagonist in her own movie. When she is empowered again with her wings, she has a different relationship to power than Stefan does. She uses her power to do good things and protect The Moors and Aurora. Stefan uses his power to try and destroy, which separates the two characters between good and evil. At the end of the film, the Moors and the human world are united by both hero and villain.

-Love cannot exist between two people when one person has a greater love for power.

Family

Structures in Maleficent

-One can be woken up by true love's kiss

-Archetype of a prince who is the only one who can save the princess

-Family

-Myth

-Relationships

-Roles

-King Stefan and royal family

-3 fairies and Aurora

-Maleficent and Aurora

True love's kiss

Not true love's kiss

In Disney's version of Sleeping Beauty, Prince Philip is able to kiss Aurora awake, despite having known her for less than a day. In Maleficent, Prince Philip kisses Aurora, but she remains asleep. This plays with the audience's expectations because those who are familiar with Sleeping Beauty or fairy tales in general expect the princess to wake up.

The movie further plays with the audience's expectations by having Maleficent be the one to wake Aurora when she kisses her forhead. They know that she is typically seen as the villain, so it's a surprise that her kiss wakes her. It's also different that Maleficent breaks the curse because "true loves kiss" is often perceived romantically, but people forget that a kiss spurned from care can also be considered true love.

King Stefan's Family

Maleficent and Aurora

3 Fairies and Aurora

The Deconstruction

Maleficent was the one who cursed Aurora, but eventually developed a motherly love for her. She saw that the fairies could not care for her, so she secretly watched over Aurora with the help of Diaval, her crow. The relationship between Maleficent and Aurora reflects one of a single mother. Single parents often have a hard time raising a child alone, but ironically, Maleficent as a parental figure for Aurora is the strongest relationship. Aurora has a close attachment to Maleficent than she does to her own biological parents or the fairies, her designated care takers.

While growing up, the three fairies are Aurora's family, but they are fairies, not humans, so they cannot properly raise a child. Their lack of attention puts Aurora in danger many times and for a long portion of the movie, they do not even realize that Aurora is missing. Although the fairies have good intentions, they don't know what they're doing and do not make an adequate family for Aurora.

Although King Stefan's family is the most whole, with a father, mother, and child, it is not functional or healthy. Baby Aurora must be cared for by 3 fairies, and when the Queen falls ill, Stefan is delusional and does not care for the person he married and has a child with. When Aurora finds her way to the castle one day before her birthday, Stefan does not rejoice over her return and instead demands that she is locked up until her birthday is over. Stefan has become so obsessed and even a little crazy over destroying Maleficent that he tears his own family apart. This is ironic because his family is who he was trying to protect in the first place, but it has become more a matter of revenge for him.

Having Maleficent be the one to wake Aurora deconstructs the myth that a romantic kiss is the one the breaks the curse. It also deconstructs the archetype of the savior, who is a prince who comes to the rescue.

The Deconstruction

Meaning Produced:

Although there is a nuclear family in the movie, the relationship that most closely resembles that of a single parent is the healthiest one.

The idea of romantic love is not the only love that is powerful. A maternal love is just as powerful, if not more. This also shows that people are not inherently evil and that they can grow to be good.

Meaning Produced:

Love can come from what we least expect. We are shown what love really is by comparing these three different models of a family.

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