On maleficence

(Originally posted on my new personal blog.)

In the over a year that I have not really been an active blogger, several topics have made it onto a list of things I really want to blog about. Knowing, however, that my thoughts on these topics are bound to wane in poignance as well as timeliness, I'm going to skip straight to what made me sit down tonight.

I went to see Maleficent tonight, and I have some thoughts.

Maleficent is both the title of the movie, and the eponymous hero/villain played (awesomely!) by Angelina Jolie. The movie is based on "Sleeping Beauty" Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959), but is recast to tell the story from the perspective of the villain. Like Frozen and "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs." (Spoilers to follow.)

I came out of the movie with some very specific critiques. Like, isn't it hard to make a protagonist out of someone whose name literally means "evil?" Or, I get the whole "bad deeds out of anger and revenge" stuff, but I don't see how that motive connects to proclaiming oneself a queen. It seems like a place where splitting from the original story might be OK. (Disclaimer: I have never seen Sleeping Beauty.)

Here's my big complaint, not just about Maleficent, but about kind of like every Disney movie ever made: they always manage to spin things so that the villain dies, but the hero doesn't have to kill him. The death is usually a direct result of the villain's murderous actions. And often, there is a moment preceding the villain's death where the hero decides not to kill them, or even attempts to save them.

Yes, there are exceptions. But this is what I'm talking about. (Challenge: Find more examples.)

Here's why that is problematic: It gives us the visceral satisfaction of seeing the hated character die (or otherwise suffer--like here), without the moral complexity of seeing our hero commit the sin of killing. It programs us to think good guys are good, and bad guys die.

This isn't a pacifist rant. I watch plenty of violent TV and movies, and I do work that sometimes requires violence. My problem is the sanitation of the violence -- similar to, though not the same as, the violence without consequences we so often see. I can watch Game of Thrones, but the violence in SpongeBob SquarePants makes me sick.

(No, that's not Disney -- but it is the most disgustingly violent show on television.)