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Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Aurora's Autonomy

Time for Sleeping Beauty, one of my favorite Disney movies. Unlike with Snow White and Cinderella, Aurora is not the main character of her film despite being the titular character. She actually only has 18 minutes of screentime. However, that doesn't mean her character is irrelevant–her journey actually embodies the film's themes of freedom vs. fatalism, and offers a message about objectifying women besides. Her parallel, Phillip, and the three fairies are the ones who undergo more direct arcs, but their arcs tie into Aurora's character as well.

As a disclaimer, there is room for legitimate criticism of Sleeping Beauty and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or on Aurora, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Aurora as a character.

Aurora is no object, despite everyone's attempts to objectify her and to reduce her to a side character, a role essentially forced on her by other characters and a role she struggles with. The only one who doesn't objectify and stifle her, in fact, is Philip (and arguably her parents, but her relationship with Philip is the relationship the film gives more weight). She and Philip share a similar struggle for their own autonomy, to write their own stories. This journey they take is really what defines the story, and ties in nicely with expected themes in a fairytale for kids such as growing up.

I should also state that the adults who objectify Aurora are almost entirely well meaning, except for of course Maleficent. Her parents love her and are noted to have tried for many years to have a child before she was born. The fairies raise her and love her. But that doesn't mean they are perfect in how they go about showing their love.

Let's start at the beginning. The three good fairies arrive at Aurora's christening, and Flora grants Aurora the gift of beauty.

Fauna grants her the gift of song.

And then Maleficent shows up and like any party pooper, projects her own anger at Aurora's parents onto Aurora, cursing her to prick her finger on a spindle and die on her sixteenth birthday. And that's when Merryweather intervenes, changing it so that true love's kiss can awaken her.

Merryweather's gift gives freedom in the middle of the fatalism offered by both the well-meaning Flora and Fauna and the malice of Malecifent. Beauty is not Aurora's defining trait–kindness and empathy are–but as we see, Maleficent and her raven will repeatedly use Aurora's fated good looks to find her. In other words, it can be seen as a way of objectifying her. Merryweather's gift, for her part, still relies on someone else to save Aurora. As we'll see, that's a problem through the entire film–Aurora wants to do things on her own, but people continually refuse to let her. Consequently when she finally does do something more or less on her own, it's not really on her own. It's in a trance and it almost kills her.

King Stefan decides to fight against fate by burning every spindle, but it's not going to be enough to stop Maleficent and the fairies know it, at which point Fauna proposes turning Aurora into a flower. Again, objectification. The other fairies point out Maleficent sends frosts to kill all Fauna's best flowers and that would probably be what became of Aurora if she did so. Maleficent knows everything but "not love or the joy of helping others" and so they decide to adopt Aurora and raise her in secret as "It's the only thing she can't understand and won't expect!" Maleficent does not understand beauty–hence the killing flowers–and she doesn't understand internal beauty like empathy and kindness (the traits that Aurora will possess as well) either. The king and queen agree and the narrator notes that "their most precious possession, their only child, disappeared into the night." Referring to Aurora as a possession is telling. People keep defining Aurora by who she's related to and what her destiny is, instead of who she is and what she wants.

When Aurora grows up and goes into the forest, she sings, calling all the animals to her. She sings:

I wonder, I wonder, I wonder why
Each little bird has someone to sing to
Sweet things to a gay little love melody?I wonder, I wonder if my heart keeps singing
Will my song go winging to someone who'll find me
And bring back a love song to me?

The lyrics point to Aurora's empathy, in that she is relating to the birds (don't take it too seriously, it's a fairytale). Her kindness is karmic as it often is in Disney films: be kind to the least of these and they will be kind to you.

However, Aurora also voices a complaint to her woodland friends: the three "aunts" she has treat her like a child and try to keep her from getting to know anyone. The only time she can express what she wants for herself is in her dreams (which, by the way, pretty accurate describe exactly what will happen in the later story). She wants autonomy, to write her own story and go after what she wants, but she doesn't want to hurt the people who raised her. It's a tension pretty common in coming of age stories.

Philip then overhears her song and immediately comments, "Beautiful." On his way to find her, his horse stumbles and he is thrown in the river, which is symbolic also (as Aurora's dream is) of how in the later story he will have to go through ugliness and physical pain to reach what he deems beautiful. Aurora's woodland friends then steal his clothes and run away towards her, again foreshadowing how things will be taken from him later on (his freedom, by Maleficent)–but this time he meets the voice he was seeking as a result. He needs help to reach Aurora this time, and he will during the later battle as well. Autonomy doesn't mean doing everything on your own and ditching wise advice or your loved ones.

Aurora and Phillip's well-known song "Once Upon a Dream" is really beautifully sung, and includes the lyric "visions are seldom all they seem." This is a major theme in Sleeping Beauty: nothing in this movie is as it seems. Aurora thinks Phillip is a peasant and he thinks likewise of her. She thinks her name is Briar Rose and she's an orphan: she's a princess. In an effort to protect her, the fairies have kept her naive and in essence lied to her of omission, and it's going to backfire.

As they dance, she ducks away from him and he has to convince her to come back by empathizing with her: singing the same song.

The song ends with them standing on a cliff, viewing the castle together (symbolic of looking over the future together). Again, to quote this amazing article about Snow White:

they share a song together, which is Disney/musical theatre code switching for "romantic/sexual love."  Generally speaking, the big waltz that Disney's romantic duos share at the end of the movie is their act of sexual consummation—sex without sex on Disney terms

(Please don't think I'm saying it's sexual–it isn't at all. It just has the same emotional weight/meaning as a sex scene would in a romcom.)

Back at the cottage, Merryweather expresses that their plans for the party should "consider what Rose would want!" The thing is… the fairies haven't really been doing that. In fact, their focus on what they want for Aurora (pink or blue dress) leads to a petty fight that gives Maleficent's raven a direct map to where Aurora is. Of course, they love her. They do. But keeping Aurora in the dark as to the truth is no different than the curse to put her to sleep. Aurora has been asleep sixteen years, and waking up to the truth is pretty brutal for her. When she returns home, Aurora tries to get her aunts to experience her joy with her, dancing with Fauna.

But when they tell her who she is, they hurt her. They've been thinking of what they think is best to protect her as their essential daughter, as a princess, as a good person, without considering what she wants, and she's left sobbing.

Philip does the same with his father as Aurora did, since they are parallels: dances with his father in his joy. He doesn't care that, to him, she isn't a princess, and to Aurora he isn't a prince. In fact, Philip tells his father she is a "peasant girl." Hubert says "you can't do this to me. Give up the throne? The kingdom? For some… nobody? … I won't have it!" But Philip rides off anyways. He chooses his own destiny; this being a fairy tale, of course the girl he is in love with is Aurora after all.

Aurora complies with the fairies' demands of her destiny and almost dies as a result. She also does not speak again for the whole film, which is fitting, because she has lost her voice to the best of intentions. The fairies take her into a room in the palace and bolt the door and pull the drapes, showing how they're locking Aurora into something she does not want.

They put the crown on her head saying "it is thy royal duty" and she falls into tears and then into Malifecent's trance.

When the fairies find her after she's pricked her finger, her crown has fittingly fallen off.

Again with the message of things not being as they seem, the kingdom celebrates Aurora's impending return with fireworks as the fairies cry over the princess, because the curse they tried to fight happened anyways. The fairies put everyone to sleep, which is fitting because they really are responsible for this situation. They will make up for it by helping Phillip, Aurora's parallel.

Maleficent tells Philip (mockingly): "A wonderful future lies ahead of you. You, the charming hero of a fairytale come true." She insists on writing his story for him, in other words, telling him the girl he loves is Aurora and he has to wait 100 years for her to let him out.

Phillip responds by fighting against his bonds and thereby her version of his future.

The fairies save Phillip by giving him the shield of virtue and the sword of truth–truth, of course, being what they did not give to Aurora. And it is indeed this sword of truth that eventually kills Maleficent even when the shield tumbles away during the battle.

They also warn him that the road ahead he has to face on his own. He controls his destiny. As he leaves the dungeon, the fairies lead him.

After the raven alerts the castle that Philip has escaped, Philip steps up and leads the fairies, symbolizing his growing up.

When Maleficent transforms into a dragon, the fairies hold Merryweather back from doing the actual fighting, though they do give him direction.

When Phillip kisses Aurora, everyone wakes up, showing the power of choosing your own path enlightening everyone. Hubert, Phillip's father, remembering his son's proclamation of love for a peasant woman, starts to cancel the betrothal of Phillip and Aurora, because he has woken up accepting his son's agency for his own life. However, then Phillip and Aurora show up together, so all's well that ends well.

Keeping Aurora in the dark really wasn't that different than putting her to sleep. In the quest of her loved ones to protect her, they also ensured Aurora's fate. Sleeping Beauty is, in essence, an almost-tragedy. However, Aurora's internal beauty/empathy and karmic kindness are what save her, in that they are why Phillip falls in love with her. It's that man she's already in love with, the man she chose to love, who rescues her. It's her love and her decision to love that helps set in motion the events that will eventually help her wake up and find freedom.

Thanks for reading! Up next, Ariel from The Little Mermaid. For previous entries in this series, see here:

• Snow White's Self-Esteem
  
• Cinderella's Courage and Compassion

Disney Princesses Yeah Me Too Aurora Tumblr

Source: https://hamliet.tumblr.com/post/179703920114/disney-princesses-as-strong-women-auroras