did get the fabulosity of Maleficent right when the script allowed her. Maleficent’s newly minted backstory, the inspiration for her descent into darkness and revenge, does dovetail seamlessly into this context and sets up an interesting film. The devolution into antiquated cultural definitions of femininity derail its potential.
I was disappointed to see the OG Maleficent conquered by the heroic prince because it was fun to see a woman looking fierce and wielding/enjoying her superior power in a setting that usually robs female characters of said qualities. Even before gender studies classes taught me about such things, I never liked the ending for the same reason I never liked seeing Lucy fail in her crazy schemes and acquiesce to Ricky in I Love Lucy. With this “feminist” reworking I feel that the heteronormative patriarchy of Disney products has only swallowed up Maleficent even further. This film offers a simplistic reversal, rather than an actual re-imagining, of gender roles, which has the effect of reinforcing rather than deconstructing them. Why does Maleficent’s moral crisis have to transform her into a mother figure? Does she have to be Sleeping Beauty’s true fairy godmother to be a protagonist? Does she have to be doomed to a lonely life until she finds her womanly power unburied from deep within the blackness by a baby? Now she is defeated by her maternal instincts and it feels even more painful than when Prince Phillip’s sword fatally slayed our chic, evil enchantress so many decades ago. To top the whole thing off, Lana del Rey’s dreary, somber take on the signature song from the original film casts a pall over the whole experience. If the ending is supposed to be a happy one, why is the song so dreadfully gloomy? Though I am sure this is purely by accident, the atrocious atonal hum of del Rey’s voice actually mirrored my feelings about this “feminist” improvement. I doubt she perceived the ending as depressing, but she sure makes it sound that way. The only surprising twist for me was that her total whiff on this hanging curveball of a song worked with the film because it is a disheartening testament to how little Disney has changed in regards to how they represent women. They made a boring hero from an entertaining antihero by transforming her villainy into maternity.
S. Roy