Leiden University Student Repository

Macfarlane, K.C. (2014)

Waking Up Beauty: Female Agency and Villainy in Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Maleficent (2014)

Bachelor thesis | Engelse taal en cultuur (BA)

Recent fairy-tale film releases by Disney show that the company is attempting to retell the classical fairy-tale films from new perspectives, especially featuring stronger fairy-tale heroines. This change is the result of a cry for subversion after feminist writers discovered values of a strictly patriarchal society in fairy tales, and they therefore campaigned for the abolition of female passivity in Disney’s fairy-tale films. This thesis will examine the theme of female agency and villainy in Disney’s fairy-tale films. Comparing and contrasting the original Walt Disney Sleeping Beauty (1959) adaptation with the same studio’s most recent film version Maleficent (2014), this thesis argues that the two movies reveal an apparent shift in the way they explore and present female identity, from valuing passivity to celebrating agency, and closely related to this, a growing sympathy towards the figure of the morally ambiguous villain who appears to seek redemption through motherhood. The...Show moreRecent fairy-tale film releases by Disney show that the company is attempting to retell the classical fairy-tale films from new perspectives, especially featuring stronger fairy-tale heroines. This change is the result of a cry for subversion after feminist writers discovered values of a strictly patriarchal society in fairy tales, and they therefore campaigned for the abolition of female passivity in Disney’s fairy-tale films. This thesis will examine the theme of female agency and villainy in Disney’s fairy-tale films. Comparing and contrasting the original Walt Disney Sleeping Beauty (1959) adaptation with the same studio’s most recent film version Maleficent (2014), this thesis argues that the two movies reveal an apparent shift in the way they explore and present female identity, from valuing passivity to celebrating agency, and closely related to this, a growing sympathy towards the figure of the morally ambiguous villain who appears to seek redemption through motherhood. The notion of moral ambiguity will be discussed in relation to the villainous female character, and the differences in the portrayal of their agency compared to the agency attributed to the heroine.Show less

Disney

Film Theory

Villainy

Female Agency

Feminism

Maleficent

Sleeping Beauty

Fairy tale

Author

Macfarlane, K.C.

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

BA English Language and Culture

Supervisors

Newton, M.S.

ECTS Credits

10

Language

en