So last night I was one of millions compelled to watch the non-stop coverage of the terrorist attacks in Paris. After a while, when it was clear that there was no new information they could share with us and they were just rehashing all the horrible details, I decided to shut the news off and distract myself.
For me, when things get too intense, cartoons help pull me out of the darkness. It’s silly and juvenile but I don’t care.
So I turned off the news and put on a cartoon – Sleeping Beauty. (I recently watched the PBS two-part special on Walt Disney and it has inspired me to watch a lot of the older Disney cartoons that I haven’t seen in ages.)
As with most of the Disney films, it’s a beautiful piece of art. The story itself is known to pretty much everyone, so I was looking for things I didn’t remember. I’ve always found Snow White annoying (the character, not necessarily the film) and because of that I lumped Aurora in with her and just assumed I didn’t like her either. But Aurora (Briar Rose to the fairies) is a nice, sweet, 16 year-old girl who doesn’t want to do anything but meet people. SO I guess I don’t dislike her.
But there were a couple of things that stood out for me as an adult watching a children’s story. The fairies take Aurora away from her parents as an infant to protect her from Maleficent. So for sixteen years the only people she has known as parents (and really known at all as they keep her away from everyone) are Flora, Fauna and Merryweather and still when she sees her parents for the first time she acts like the fairies didn’t even exist. “Ooh my parents are the king and queen? Thanks for taking care of me for sixteen years and making sure the evil queen didn’t kill me – see ya!” Â Ungrateful brat. Her punishment for that is, according to trivia, she’s the Disney Princess with the least lines in her own film. (Not including her singing, she only has about 18 lines of dialogue.)
What really got me going was Aurora’s father, King Stefan. (It’s worth noting that we know her father’s name but her mother’s name isn’t mentioned once in the entire story. Although a quick Google search tells me her name is Leah so maybe I missed them say her name.) King Stefan hasn’t seen his daughter for sixteen years, ever since she was an infant, but he has already planned for her wedding to Prince Phillip by not only giving her his hand but by getting the betrothed couple their own place to live. So, essentially, King Stefan is eagerly waiting for the fairies to return his daughter so he can hand her over to Prince Phillip. Guess he didn’t miss her that much.
Even still, watching Sleeping Beauty for probably only the third or fourth time in my life last night was a good decision. I enjoyed it much more than I remembered. For a little while all that existed was the colorful, musical world Walt Disney created. It didn’t change what’s going in the world but it was an entertaining escape from reality.