Maleficent

Angelina Jolie as Maleficent, © Disney 2014.

****

I have noticed reviews dually attacking this film as misogynistic and the reviewers who minimize the vile assault on the titular Maleficent—Angelina Jolie, Changeling—as little better than those who permit our cultural tolerance toward rape to continue. I noticed this before seeing the film and realized that the scene of violation would be something to focus on. Having seen the scene, both sides have their points. The cutting off of the wings, which in my mind was as gruesome as that of the angels in Dogma, actually takes place off screen. The order of events are such:

1. Reconciliation of Maleficent and her human friend and love interest Stefan—District 9’s Sharlto Copley.
2. He fucking drugs her drink like a rapist in a bar.
3. Having taken her away some place private he pulls out his knife to kill her.
4. Unable to go through with it, he spares her life and …
5. She wakes up feeling confused and violated, soon realizing that her wings have been permanently sawed from her bleeding back. She starts to cry.
6. Stefan escapes with the wings.

The size and the power of Maleficent’s wings. © Disney 2014

Well, it was a harrowing and disturbing scene. His means of getting her at his mercy were similar to that of a rapist’s and the knife is phallic, but what other options did the writer or director have, to have him carry an ax? But I do not criticize the film as the anti-misogynists do, but consider it amazing to have essentially placed a sexual assault in a Disney movie. And the victim has her weaknesses and sufferings, but she has power and personality far beyond this singular act. This is up for personal interpretation, but that is how I see it.

King Stefan (Copley) in Maleficent, enraged and engaged in his battle with Maleficent, © 2014 Disney.

As for the rest of the film, Maleficent and Stefan fit into a Star Wars Force paradigm. As most people know, there are two sides of the force. The light side, which works with nature, and that dark side, which deals with destruction. In that world there are different paths to the dark side. Some head there for power, while others give in to their anger and their hate. Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is Maleficent in character, as her love gets abused for evil. Stefan is the Emperor in character, striving for ever more and more power. But in body and armor Stefan fits the role of Darth Vader. As he continues he is more armor than man, with only his eyes visible. His fate is also reminiscent of the Emperor’s. If that seems like too much of a spoiler, remember that this is a remake of a movie that almost everyone reading this has already seen.

On the whole a job well done by the director and the writer. The writer was actually a woman, Linda Woolverton, who previously wrote Beauty and the Beast, so this is a pleasant evolution. The director was, statistically unsurprisingly, a man, with two Academy Awards for Art Direction—Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. The surprising part was that this was his first attempt at directing and he had a huge star in Angelina Jolie to direct. Again, well done.