Merry meet my fairy souls,
It is Nina,
You're watching Fairy Chamber Channel First of all,
I've been sick for the last two days,
So my voice is slower than usual So we will try to manage And this video is all about representation of magic in Disney's Sleeping Beauty Of course,
All of you know that Sleeping Beauty is from 1959 and it is Disney Animation Classic number 16 And when it comes to the older Disney films,
It's one of my favourites And when I say older,
I mean older than the 90s,
Older than the Disney Renaissance stuff Disney's Sleeping Beauty is based on Charles Perrault's story of Sleeping Beauty,
The fairy tale Now the fairy tale is based on even older fairy tales which are way more darker and creepy and really messed up There's lots of rapes and twins and me jealous wives in the oldest versions of Sleeping Beauty Perrault was definitely the first one who added the element of magic to this fairy tale,
So that's nice And this is something that comes out through the whole animation And the Disney animation,
I think it's beautiful,
It's one of the most beautiful animation-wise Disney films It's not so good plot-wise,
But animation-wise it's gorgeous There's all these background paintings done by Amy Earl who was just an amazing illustrator back in the days The element of magic that exists in Sleeping Beauty is the magic that is brought by the fairies and Maleficent The fairies are the representations of good magic Maleficent,
Of course,
Represents the bad magic Now I don't think that there's such things as good or black magic,
It's all about the way you use magic So try not to think that magic is something black and white,
It's not really But in this movie,
These fairies have different ways of using magic for different purposes And the three fairy godmothers of Sleeping Beauty,
Flora,
Fauna and Meru and T'er They use their magic as a group to deliver a certain purpose,
Which is peace for the land And gifts for this little girl who is their goddaughter Flora,
Who is the oldest godmother,
She gives her gift first for her goddaughter Princess And the gift is the gift of beauty and kindness And then Fauna,
Who is the second eldest of the fairies,
She gives her the gift of song And when Meriwether is about to give her a gift,
That's when Maleficent appears And gives her a deadly order for Aurora,
The princess So Meriwether,
We don't find out what was her original gift intention But she turns the curse into a gift And she changes the curse so that Aurora does not die when she touches the spinning wheel She's going to be sleeping for 100 years until someone who she loves kisses her The fairies are the constant force in the movie And they are there pretty much all the time More than the prince and the princess And the fairies are adorable,
I love them,
They're my favorite characters There's this element of magic in nature as well Because Aurora,
When she grows up,
She spends lots of time in nature She's friends with the animals and that's where she meets the handsome Prince Philip And they dance and they fall in love doing a song,
Of course Originally,
In Perrot's fairy tale,
There was not three fairies,
There were seven fairies And these fairies did not have names So that was something that Disney Studios added later on for the animation In the first script of Slim Beauty,
The three fairies,
They actually did not have these names That they have in the finished film They were first called Fernadel and Tranquility and Meriwether So Tranquility refers to dreams,
Fernadel refers to forest and Meriwether for elements of weather So in the end,
Meriwether was the only name that stayed in the film I think it's good,
Flora and Fauna and Meriwether,
It sounds much better These three fairies,
They are really,
Really powerful They have amazing magical abilities First of all,
There's the color manipulation,
Which is my favorite part You remember that when the Godmothers,
They prepared Aurora's 16th birthday dress Meriwether and Flora were fighting should the dress be pink or should it be blue And then the whole film ends up this constant magical argument I think the dress should be blue So there is the color manipulation They can also master telekinesis,
Which means that they can move objects with their mind And they have ability to conjurate things from nowhere Materialize objects from thin air They can disappear and appear just like that,
So they can turn invisible They can manipulate light They can also handle pyrokinesis,
They can control and create fire They can transform objects and they can change their own job They can change their own size,
Of course,
And they can fly If isn't,
She has many of the similar magical abilities as well But she uses them for her personal gain And then we get on to the folklore behind the three fairies And the idea of Fairy Godmother Because that is something very common in the pagan belief systems around the world Before any monotheistic religions For example,
In Finland,
We had this belief system that when a person was born into this world They had this guardian,
Invisible elf or fairy who guarded them throughout their lives And this similar belief can be found from countless different cultures You can also find it from the Sami myths And then in Arabic cultures,
People believed that each person had their own geni or janaiah A geni,
An invisible spirit that would guard the person throughout their lives And this was before the spread of Islam or Christianity So it's very similar to the concept of the guardian angel But it's way,
Way,
Way older And then in Japan,
There was Ben Zayden In Scandinavian countries,
There was the three Norns who were the guardians of the fate In ancient Greece,
There was the Morai who were the goddesses of the fate And there were three of them In Wales,
There was a similar concept It was called the Benedict imamam,
Which means the mother's blessing So the mothers were fairies And they were the guardian fairies of the people Later on with the spread of Christianity,
The Benedict imamam They became ugly hacks or the ugly fairies that people were supposed to be very scared of Of course And Benedict imamam,
It goes way back It's a representation of ancient triple goddess in central Europe And in southern Europe and southwestern Europe So it was a common idea in France,
Italy,
Spain,
And the ancient Celtic Britain In the Baltic countries,
In Latvia and Lithuania,
There was a similar concept With the goddess Lima And Lima was the goddess of fate And Lima was accompanied by Lomes who were the Baltic fairies And in Latvia and Lithuania,
It was believed that each time when a child was born They had this particular Lomes,
A fairy who would become the godmother of the child And they would protect the child throughout their lives That was a bit of history behind the three fairies It goes way back It's really fascinating So this magic that these fairies possess It's ancient because they are the guardian spirits of this princess And each of them have the significant colours Of course Flora wears red She's the oldest one of the three fairies And she's sort of the leader of the fairies If you have watched the Sleeping Beauty,
You know,
She's the bossy one And she's often fighting with Meriwether,
Who is the youngest one And then Fauna,
Who is the middle sister She is always trying to make them compromise And if you're the middle child,
You know how this feels like And it's Flora The Flora who wears red She's connected to life and sun and flowers,
Of course And Fauna,
The middle sister,
Wears green And she's connected to woodlands and animals,
Of course And then we have Meriwether,
Who wears blue And blue is connected to weather And also thinking and thoughts,
Like her name suggests,
Meriwether These fairies,
They are connected to different aspects of nature And then we have black,
Which is the colour of Maleficent And black,
It is the colour of transformation,
Hidden identity,
Witchcraft and death But black is not the only colour of Maleficent There's also the colour of bright green,
Which you can sometimes see in her castle And this green has more yellow,
It's a poisonous green And then she's also connected to the colour purple Purple,
It used to be a very sacred colour back in the days because it was difficult to make So only royal people could wear purple colour And it's connected to high level spirituality So in the fairy world,
Maleficent is described as some sort of an evil queen So she wears this purple as a royal colour And as a colour of high magic,
She's sort of a high priestess She's worshipped by these orcs and probably some other creatures in this magical realm So Maleficent is so ancient that it is mind-blowing,
Literally In ancient Europe,
Black was usually described to be the colour of evil And if you read these old fairy lore stories,
The fairy folklore The black fairy is the fairy that is discarded because she is connected to the colour black The whole idea of the black fairy,
Which goes way back in history So we can find one of these black fairy stories from the Bible It's the fallen angel,
Lucifer And you can find the same story from the Quran,
Where the fallen angel is Iblis So Lucifer and Iblis,
They fall down from the heavenly order Because they refuse to bow the first man,
Adam Lucifer becomes the ruler of the underworld Then we go to the pre-Christian times and we travel to ancient Greece We have the story of three brothers Come here,
Dear Alex,
Why you are so noisy now?
Oh,
Say hello to the camera Aww Abrady,
Abrady,
Abrady Say hello to the camera This is Alex,
He's my friend He's not my cat,
But he's my friend Now,
Three gods,
We have Zeus,
Poseidon and Hades After they destroyed all the Titans,
They shared the world together They drew,
I think they drew sticks And Zeus got the longest stick I think he cheated anyway,
He got to rule the skies And Poseidon got the sea And Hades got the underworld And so is all of the dead Also,
Hades was the youngest of these brothers And Zeus was the oldest I think that had more to do with it We also have the color connection Zeus wears the purple Poseidon wears blue And Hades wears black Then we can go even more further in history and folklore To a time of shamanism In Phoenochtic folklore and also in some Native American tribes There is a tale of creation So in this very old shamanic myth There was two water birds that created the world And the other water bird was good And the other water bird was a trickster And they dived into this world They dived into this first ocean Whatever ocean that was And they brought pieces of earth to the surface And that's how they created the land But the other bird,
Who was a trickster He hides some of the dirt And the other creator god,
He notices this And punishes the other bird Who becomes the ruler of the underworld And receiver of the dead souls Then we have the story of the black fairy In the fairy folklore Black fairy was once just like the other fairies But because of whatever reason The other fairies started to neglect her or bully her It was a mean girl story She wanted to revenge on them The actions of the black fairy They became so damaging and severe That the other fairies exiled her And pushed her away And she created her own fairy kingdom Fairy queendom So that's the story of the black fairy And the narrative of these stories is all connected There is the original fairy tale of Sleeving Beauty Which doesn't really have the elements of magic But they've been added later on And that actually has something similar to this In the medieval palette The Sleeving Beauty Stucks her finger into the spinning wheel And then she falls into a coma And she's put into a castle in the middle of the forest And then a young king stumbles into this castle And rapes this girl who is in a coma And rides off And then she gives birth to twins while she's sleeping Or when she's in a coma I have no idea how that happens She wakes up when the other one of the babies sucks away the stick The needle,
Whatever,
Sting And then she wakes up And then the prince comes back Takes her and the babies to her to his kingdom And his wife becomes madly crazy And wants to kill this woman who was raped This raped girl doesn't really say anything King and the Sleeving Beauty They start the fight against the ex-wife who is demonized And is like an evil person And there comes another version They travel to meet King's mother who is now an ogre Another evil witch And she is the one who wants to kill the Sleeving Beauty and her children I don't know why I think she wants to eat them There's a cannibalistic elements there There we have this whole idea This woman being very catty against another woman So this is something that you can find from the Black Fairy fairy tale But nothing bad happens to the king of course Because you know it's a patriarchal story from the 14th century Maleficent is amazing She is one of the reasons why I love Sleeving Beauty so much She's extremely dramatic character There are all those bold movements and that laughter I grew up with the Finnish version So my Maleficent is Hanne Laughery Who was the Finnish voice of Maleficent And she was also the voice of Cruella de Vil Owen Sleeve Beauty as an animation Tends to get lots of bad rep That it's not very feminist Compared to some more recent Disney films like Moana or Frozen Justice person Some of them I think it is very feminist Aurora is the biggest problem there because it's not the fault of the character,
It's just that she's given a very small part in the movie and most of the time in the film she's sleeping,
You know?
She can't really help that.
But then we have these three fairy godmothers who are really giving up their really cool powers for 16 years just to raise this child who is to become the queen of this land when she grows up.
And when they start,
They have no idea what to do with the child like Meruator states,
But Flora is resistant.
We can do this together without powers.
That doesn't really go very well.
There we have it,
Three sisters raising this child together and they have no experience of babies or anything or parenthood,
But still they do it.
The magic of the three fairies is in this group dynamic that they have and their fate for each other and their shared collecting powers.
And yes,
They sometimes do get each other's nerves like sisters do,
But in the end they all work together.
And it is sort of their common.
Then we have the movie Maleficent,
Which actually had the similar idea of the fairy godmother.
And to be entirely honest with you,
I did not really like Maleficent that much.
I think it's better than Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast or many other Disney reactions,
Simply because it actually has an individual plot and it does not repeat the original animation.
But there was lots of problems that I had with this plot.
I like Angelina Jolie as a Maleficent,
But really I did not like the way the movie portrayed the three fairy godmothers.
They were added there as a comic relief and they were just really failed characters.
Really nothing compared to the characters in the original animation.
And I also did not like that Stefan was turned into this villain of the story,
Because I love Stefan in the original animation and he's a really good father.
And so is his wife.
He and the queen are heartbroken when they have to give up their child.
They know that the three fairy godmothers are going to take care of her,
But it's not easy and they are really,
Really sad.
In the Maleficent,
Because fairy godmothers are turned into some nonsense,
They are turned into really stupid characters.
So Maleficent is the one who watches over the child.
So in that sense,
The movie Maleficent,
It also continues this idea of the fairy godmother.
I want to talk about the magic in this movie and the way magic is represented,
But also about the archetypes that there are in this film,
Because there is the three fairies who are the godmothers,
So there is the archetype of the mother goddess or the godmother,
But then there is also the archetype of the villain.
Now let's talk about villains and redemption.
This idea of redemption,
It is very common in many of the more recent fairy tale dramatizing.
Is that the right word?
Fairy tale adaptations,
Like you can see that in the movie Maleficent,
And then in the series Once Upon a Time,
Which I am a huge fan of,
But really Once Upon a Time there's tons of plot lines with redemption for the villains.
There's Rumple,
And there's Regina,
And there's Maleficent,
And all kinds of villains,
And as the series progresses they all experience redemption.
In the end of the seventh season,
Where the series ends,
All the villains have gone through a redemption,
And they are forgiven their past evil deeds,
And they are now the heroes.
We have all kinds of empowering magic in Sleeping Beauty.
We have this empowering magic of this collective group work of the fairy godmothers,
And then we have this powerful character of Maleficent,
The killer,
The original Queen of Dragons.
She embodies that evilness,
And she does not have any regrets about that.
And then in the animation there's the scene where she says to Prince Philip,
Now you will meet Maleficent,
The lover of all evil.
And that's part of the magic that the animation has,
This villain having these evil magical powers.
It can be a metaphor,
An allegory,
Just to love yourself the way you are,
Because Maleficent,
She loves herself as an evil creature,
And it does not come from some emptiness,
It comes from her love for destruction.
There is this idea of redemption in Disney's Maleficent in the movie Live Action Maleficent,
Because she's not the villain,
We see that she is a victim of circumstances,
But I also think the character becomes quite boring when that happens,
Because in the original animation I love that this villain is so in touch with her evilness,
And that makes her such a great character.
She turns into this killer dragon,
And she roos over this very dark kingdom,
And she orders this orcs to do this and that,
And they're really stupid,
But she's awesome.
So the villain can be a very powerful archetype,
A villain can be a very empowering character,
Because you love that villain,
You love the villain in their villainess.
I think overall,
So Even Beauty is a very,
Very magical movie.
It's one of the most magical Disney animations ever made.
