Quantcast
Channel: Movies
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 8368

Disney's 'Maleficent' Had One Really 'Dark And Unsettling' Scene

0
0

Maleficent horns

For the most part, Maleficent is totally family friendly. It's occasionally scary, but it's Disney™ Scary with gloomy forests, adventurous danger, and Angelina Jolie as an evil sorceress whom kids will find frightening in the funnest possible way.

But there is one scene that's dark in a way that will resonate differently for adult moviegoers than it will for children. [Minor spoilers follow.]

The way Maleficent loses her magnificent wings is unsettling. Stefan, the man who Maleficent thinks loves her, drugs her. While Maleficent is unconscious, incapacitated, Stefan tries to work himself up to the task of killing her. Instead he cuts off her wings (offscreen thankfully). The next morning Maleficent wakes up in pain, and soon realizes her wings have been taken, leaving nothing but bloody stumps on her back in their place. If you find yourself comparing the scene to a rape, well that might be intentional. Here's what Jolie said on the subject.

"What happened to [Maleficent] was more like a rape," she told HitFix during a roundtable interview recently. "It was something she had no choice in. It was done maliciously, with ill in tent. I think people will see it and see, for children, it's abuse, it's being bullied, it's being hurt. For anybody, everybody at this table, it hurt us. It changed us. I think children will identify with that in different ways. It will upset them, but then they'll also get angry with her hopefully and want her to grow past it, then go on that journey and understand how you can evolve past that."

While we're in no position to judge whether Jolie should be making that comparison, we have to assume it's an analogy she's thought about before speaking it out loud. Jolie is an outspoken advocate for victims of sexual abuse, even working with the U.N. to help fight the widespread use of rape as a weapon in the arsenal of rival warlords in the Congo.

Jolie's words cast the character in a different light. Even without her added context we see Maleficent as traumatized, but does this mean Jolie played the not-so-evil sorceress as a rape survivor? Those are some very dark undertones to be hidden beneath the surface of a film filled with silly CG fairy hi-jinks, but there they are, appropriate or not.

SEE ALSO: Angelina Jolie Is The Best Part Of ‘Maleficent’

Join the conversation about this story »


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 8368

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images