Jack Oliver

Mrs. Linda Haas

Writing 39B
16 February 2016
Maleficent and Perraults Sleeping Beauty in the Wood
The tales propagated around in a society are often revealing of the nature of the culture
they inhabit. Fairy tales are of interest due to their ability to draw readers into other worlds,
provide escape, and teach lessons through deceptively simple narratives. Fairy tales prove to
possess far more value than they are given credit for, Fairy Tales have different names, different
styles, and different purposes. Some of their purposes are to entertain, teach a moral, help you
escape certain problems or things in life, gain recovery, or give you consolation (Whelpton).
Fairy tales are a diverse genre of literature and serve a wide array of purposes and audiences.
Contrary to what one might think, they are not a dead medium and even provide lessons to those
among us today with remarkable effectiveness.
A lot of work goes into the creation and recording of a fairy tale though.The content
creators are influenced by their peers and and other societal pressures, and as a result any of their
products are thus shaped by the the same stimuli. Maleficent and Sleeping Beauty in the Wood
by Linda Woolverton and Charles Perrault, respectively, are two different versions of the same
base tale. Neither of these tales can claim to be the original though, as the first Sleeping
Beauty tale was passed about orally and had undergone numerous altercations before it was
finally recorded and edited by Perrault and others. Likewise, Maleficent is an adaptation of this
base tale that goes on even further in its changes and differs strongly its message. It concerns the
change in nature of a young and headstrong fairy girl as she becomes disenchanted with a boy

who betrays her and then consequently struggles to regain her ability to feel love for anyone else.
Perraults Sleeping Beauty in the Wood is about a little girl who is curse by a fairy and then
revived by a prince who decides to save and marry her. Both of these tales follow the same basic
plot structure and share a common source but their messages and delivery are very different from
each other. The versions of the Sleeping Beauty tale that these artists have wrought give different
accounts because of the different audiences, purposes, and contexts that each serve. Both of these
renditions are as much the products of the society in which they were born as they are the fruits
of the creative efforts that reared them.
Fairy tales have often had different ways of portraying their female characters. These
difference can be attributed to a slew of influences of innumerable quantity, however certain
trends emerge. Older tales from Europe tend to depict women in a weaker and less capable
manner than do tales from modern day western nations. The reasons for this are more apparent
and less nebulous. They have mainly to do with a change in societys value and understanding of
gender norms and gender equality.
Maleficent is written in a modern time for a modern audience, and as such it includes the
presence of characters who act like modern women. It was primarily aimed at fans of the Disney
line of movies and thus carries a natural and polished style. Many of the fans of previous Disney
princess movies might have been younger girls, and this particular movie may have been aimed
to the same audience, but a couple years down the line. Earlier Disney films didn't really stress
the importance of having a powerful and independent woman, but as societys values changed, so
did the females in Disneys films. things really started to change when Disney brought Linda
Woolverton on for one of their films, Beauty and the Beast, which brought a very strong female
character, Belle, onto the Disney princess scene. As a creator she is also not shy of reversing the

roles by instead making the male characters the evil villain or helpless idiots. Woolverton has
continued her work in challenging the gender norm in films by producing Maleficent, which
further destroys the barriers between women and equality in media. Woolvertons film gave us a
story about a woman being able to build herself up again after being broken down, something
that could speak volumes to any woman in modern times, It was about taking her back to the
time when she was an innocent, pure creature of the forest who was always strong but also
passionate about the world she loved, so she had all those deep feelings. I absolutely had to show
a vulnerability in that she gave her heart to someone and it was crushed. Her most precious thing
was stolen from herher soul was stolen (Woolverton). Woolverton approaches the same issues
she suspects that her audience might be facing and seeks to show them an example of another
hurt person, but this hurt person doesn give up when they are beat. Instead, Woolverton makes
this movie about the growth and eventual triumph of a damaged soul to inspire young Disney
watchers from all over the world.
Perraults tale was written during a time when the modern woman wouldve been an idea
scoffed at by the patriarchal heads of society, Women in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries were challenged with expressing themselves in a patriarchal system that
generally refused to grant merit to womens views (Gray). To them, the idea that women could
head the plot in the presence of a man and rise up to challenge him in power was not only
preposterous, but dangerous. Media of the popular culture that would reach the minds of the soon
to be wives of powerful nobles needed to be of the variety that served to pacify their thirst for
dreaded equality. Perraults tales, whether by intention or not, reinforced the idea of a helpless
woman who must be saved by a prince but he did modify tales to better suit his own tastes, The
tales exhibit a didactic intent, both within the stories themselves and in the explicit, verse

morals. And even though the events are set once upon a time in a fictive land where animals
talk and fairy godmothers wave magic wands, the tales are filled with references to seventeenthcentury life and satiric commentaries on contemporary society (Wood). While Perrault may not
have knowingly been promoting the reduction of womens status, the tales he recorded and
edited served to protect a status quo in which women held diminished social status. This he did
all in the name of maintaining the moral fiber of the great French nation. he held a great
admiration for the aristocratic court and even wrote a poem to the monarch at the time,
Perrault's poem Le Sicle de Louis le Grand (The century of Louis the great), which he read
aloud to his assembled fellow academicians in 1687 was both a panegyric to the king and a
manifesto of the modernist position (Wood). Perraults effort in the end served to continue the
line of strong male leads and pitiful female flops in folk tales. Perraults Aurora seems to be
perfectly useless for most of the story. In every situation that she finds herself in trouble there is
always some male helper who is their to save the day, usually only their presence is needed to
resolve the issue. Young women who would read these tales then wouldnt be disgusted and
angered over such helpless depictions, but would already be so socialized into accepting the
reality they inherited that there would be very little challenge to such presentations. Whereas by
the time Woolvertons adaptation was released, women had secured a great many advancements
on the quest for gender equality. Media produced by women devoted to the cause would promote
the image of strong complex women who were unafraid to oppose power figures. Target
audience and temporal context played a large role in the depiction of each of these female
protagonists in their respective versions.
The idea of a True loves kiss is one that has its early roots in fairy tales, though it
didnt receive its proper name and popularity until the Disney studio company used the trope to

exhaustion through its endless supply of princess movies. Nevertheless, the idea of a kiss
wielding magic powers to break spells and curses does have some early presence in Perraults
Sleeping Beauty in the Wood and other tales. Until recently though, this idea of a magical kiss
has been held to be normally romantic in nature and shared by a heterosexual couple. With
sexuality and gender roles continuing through another turbulent era of change, this trope has had
its fair share of revision and re-imagining.
Perraults tale as mentioned was primarily for the young women in the aristocratic court.
he was known for adding morals to his stories in order to instruct the young little ladies on how
to properly behave and live as respectable wives and children. Important to note however is the
difference in perception of the adulthood of these ladies Perrault was writing to. These young
ladies about to go off to marriage were in fact much younger than the young women doing such
things today, Still, by the early seventeenth century, a male could make a will at 14, a female at
12; and a 17-year-old could, on the insistence of canon law, act as executor of a will. Males
might marry at 14, girls at 12, until 1929 when the age of marriage was fixed at 16 (Thane). In
the French Courts women could be promised in marriage as soon as their menstruation began
and might even have undergone the ceremonies before they were sixteen. In this time, and to
these women Perrault did not need to concern himself with the multiple types of love and the
spectrum of sexualities that might be preferred. Perrault needed to give these young women a
story that stressed the importance of a pure romantic love to help them escape from the world of
arranged marriages that awaited them. The kiss that Aurora receives in Perraults tale is not
exactly described as a true loves kiss, but it functions as a token of a man's affections towards a
young maiden. It is only through receiving this token that Aurora is able to awaken and continue
her life with the prince. Aside from cementing the idea of straight relationships and the desire for

a mans affections in the young women, the story also supports the church which regarded sexual
purity among its tenets. Perrault uses this concept of a romantic kiss bearing magic power to
keep his audience in a docile position and support the power structure in society.
Woolverton has devoted much of her time and effort towards breaking down the gender
stereotypes in the fairy tale genre. This is done mainly out of a worry for what it teaches young
children in an increasingly equal society, Fairy tales are a child's world of imagination and
pleasure, but they also provide a source of inspiration and role models. Do we really want to
teach young children that women are weak and vulnerable and only succeed when a man
intervenes? (Green). With the aim at eradicating this outdated and unneeded gender stereotype
Woolverton cut the man out of one of Disneys most iconic scenes. Conducting a true loves kiss
between two women shatters what Disney has been iterating for the greater half of a century, but
most importantly signals a change in public attitudes, Maleficent and Aurora emphasize a more
abstract understanding of sisterhood. Where Maleficent has darkness and rough edges, Aurora is
characterized by softness. She's the quintessential girly girl. Yet, they ultimately form a bond that
pushes Maleficent to save her where the stupid prince, who looks like a cast off from One
Direction, can't. Ultimately, that sends a message not just about the archaic notion of chivalry,
but the power of connection between all women. (Duca). The power of adaptations like
Woolvertons help undo the generations of socialization that women have gone through under
patriarchal leadership.
Each of these tales despite coming from the same source have vastly different messages
and purposes. This is largely due to the biases of the authors, and the popular sentiments of the
times in which they were made. Each tale supports the trends that were popular at the time,
which tends to be a common factor among fairy tales. They give us fantastic and romanticized

escapes from real life, while simultaneously immersing us in a world that can be curiously
similar to our own. While these works were under the process of creation the intended audience
and the popular notions helped shape much of the final content. In perraults tale it resulted in a
story that reinforced the idea that women should stay subordinate to men and be happy to
fantasize about romance. Woolvertons on the other hand promotes the idea of building oneself
up after defeat to get revenge on the oppressive power structures men put in place. Each one
would seem a little out of place in the others time period due to the very causes that created
them.
Works Cited
Duca, Lauren. "How Disney Found A New Meaning For 'True Love'" The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.
Gachman, Dina. "Spotlight: Maleficent Writer Linda Woolverton on Working with Angelina
Jolie and Turning a Villain into a Hero." SSN Insider. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.
Gray, Thomas. "Status of Women in 17th Century Neo Classical Age in Context of 'Ode on the
Death of a Favorite Cat' by Thomas Gray." Survivingbaenglish. N.p., 16 Oct. 2013. Web.
16 Feb. 2016.
Green, Samara. "Fairy Tales and Gender Stereotypes." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.
Maleficent. By Linda Woolverton. Perf. Angelina Jolie. Disney, 2014. Film.
"The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood." Perrault:. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.
Thane, Pat. "Childhood in History." (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.
Whelpton, Michael. "Are Fairy Tales Only Children's Tales?" (2009): n. pag. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.

WOOD, ALLEN G., "Perrault, Charles." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Ed.. 2015, and
"Perrault, Charles." World Encyclopedia. 2005. "Perrault, Charles (16281703)."
Encyclopedia.com. HighBeam Research, 01 Jan. 2004. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.