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| ©1959 Walt Disney Studios |
This afternoon I went to see "Sleeping Beauty" (1959) at the
Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. I hadn't seen it since I was a child. My god! What a beautiful film. The art is simply GORGEOUS! The backgrounds are miraculous.
Eyvind Earle was the illustrator and art director. No other Disney film before or after can touch this one in design. The brilliant
Mary Blair did some amazing concept art for this project.
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| Art by Mary Blair ©1959 Walt Disney Studios |
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| Art by Mary Blair ©1959 Walt Disney Studios |
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| Stills from the film ©1959 Walt Disney Studios |
From a feminist stand point, yes, The Princess (Aurora/Briar Rose) is
a nightmare of a character. She is little more than beautiful and young
- with the usual Disneyesque impossibly small waist. She falls in love
with the first man she meets, and we are to believe it is True Love.
Then she gets in a fix and the prince saves her with the standard kiss.
Blah blah blah... The anti-feminist symbolism abounds! She cannot live
without the love of a man, yeah, we get it...
But the
film is otherwise incredibly feminist! The main characters are all
female. Women provide all the key plot points, the drama and the comedy.
They fight, they win, they lose. The Fairies (Flora, Fauna and
Merryweather) are more than just comic relief - they are the driving
force of the story! As well, of course, Maleficent. The princess is
really a just a "MacGuffin", to use a Hitchcockian term. She's a
motivator for the protagonists, the Fairies, and the antagonist,
Maleficent. These are powerful women with no man in site, and no
apparent interest in men. They don't need them. Watching this film I
felt I'd much rather be one of these fairies than that lame Aurora - tho
she
did have fabulous hair, I'll give her that. I recall, even
as a child, it was the fairies that captured my imagination, not the
beautiful princess. And lets be clear, although the Prince's kiss
did
wake Aurora up, it was Merryweather's spell, and the hard work of all
the fairies combined, that made it even possible.
Three elderly women
are the heroes of this story. But the
true heroes of this film are the
brilliant Disney artists.
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| ©1959 Walt Disney Studios |
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| ©1959 Walt Disney Studios |
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| ©1959 Walt Disney Studios |
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| ©1959 Walt Disney Studios |
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