Malevolence

I finally got around to watching Maleficent last night.

It's rare that I venture outside of the horror genre into actual "Hollywood Film" territory. Rarer still that I'll approach anything even remotely connected with Disney. I fucking hate Disney and everything it stands for: sanitized fantasy, commercialistic reality, all that plastic crap. I truly don't understand how anyone who has passed through the gates of puberty can actually enjoy Disney. It's like saying that you truly prefer those individually wrapped slices of processed (and unnaturally orange colored) cheese food to an actual wheel of Havarti straight from Copenhagen. Disney - to me, anyway - personifies the blackest emptiness of the loneliest soul. How's that for fucking profound as fuck? Huh? You smelling the existential shit I'm stepping in over here?

I watched Maleficent for three reasons, and three reasons only.
#1 - I like Angelina Jolie. I give no fucks what you think about that.
#2 - I would totally fuck Sharlto Copley.
#3 - I love fairy tales. Real fairy tales. I'm talking Grimm as shit, not the squeaky clean super-kiddified shit that passes for fairy tales these days. You ever read an actual fairy tale? Like Sleeping Beauty, the tale upon which Maleficent is based? Yeah, ain't no prince kissing that bitch out of her coma. In the original tale, the Handsome Prince fucks Sleeping Beauty while she's asleep. Straight up whips his cock out and fucks her while she's just laying there, unable to say Yes, No or Bitch, buy me dinner first. She only awakens from her coma after giving birth to Prince DateRape's twins.

But the hour is late, and I am tired, so I'm not going to linger on this subject. Lets get straight to the review.

Maleficent - the short review: It was okay.
Overall, it was a tad too pretty for me. A little too whimsical, a touch too fluffy.
After having watched it, I found myself a trifle irritated by the lack of character development. Sure, Aurora is a sweet girl, but what the fuck are her interests? Does she even want to marry a prince? Maybe she would prefer a career as a Key Grip or something? And who the hell was her mother? Leila lasted all of, what, seven minutes total on screen? Who the hell were Maleficent's parents and where are they? Why is the most powerful fairy in the world all alone, and by what right does she claim herself to be Queen? And what about Stefan, the peasant boy who betrayed Maleficent? What were his motivations? Did he ever really love her? Does he...wait.

Wait just a fucking minute.
Do I really need Stefan to have an excuse?
Is it possible that we've finally reached a point in cinematic adaptations that we've stopped trying to create sympathy for the male asshole?
Maybe Stefan is just an opportunistic, self-absorbed, narcissistic jackass with zero compassion, an utter inability to take responsibility for his actions and a big fat fucking void where his goddamned heart should be.

It was at this point of realization that I appreciated Maleficent just a little bit more.

Stefan is an Absolute. He doesn't have a backstory. He doesn't need one. Anything he'd tell you about himself would probably be a lie anyway. Oh sorry, does that sound bitter? Tough shit. Stefan's introduction to the audience is as a thief. He's stolen something - I forget what - from fairy land and is forced to return it by little Maleficent. From that point on, he steals everything: Maleficent's trust, her first kiss, her innocence and finally her wings. Yeah yeah, we all know that the wing cutting scene is a metaphor for rape. That's been established. What I was more interested in was the complete and utter ruination of Maleficent herself. He murders her soul. The light in her eyes is utterly extinguished. She darkens, literally and figuratively. All of her joy has become sorrow. A warped filter is draped over her vision. Every person becomes suspect, every motivation questionable. Even the adoration of a toddler is seen as a cunning ploy to a woman destroyed. Surely no one seeks out her company for any good reason. Always she is wondering: "Well, what do you want? Why are you here? And how long before you hurt me too? Maybe I'll hurt you first, because I cannot bear to be broken again."

William Congreve coined the phrase Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd. And frankly, I've never seen it better personified than by Jolie's Maleficent. I think every woman who has ever been dumped by a man she truly loved, and believed loved her in return, can relate to the hollow look on Malficent's face upon discovering just how coldly she has been used and cast aside. It's the silence that follows that gnaws at us the most, that feeling that not only doesn't he care, but he never did to begin with. And whenever we hear of him scorning yet another woman, blaming them en masse for all of his troubles and/or dismissing them as a species completely unrelated to him, we wonder how someone could possibly be so heartless. How can they live with themselves? Why can they admit no wrongdoing? There will never be an admission of guilt, or an apology forthcoming, because guys like Stefan have already exonerated themselves and excused their actions. You are the bitch for reminding them of just how truly flawed they are. And that, dear children, is the tale of true evil in the world: not the destruction itself, but the imprint it leaves behind.

Drunk on ego
Truly thought I could make it right
If I kissed you one more time to
Help you face the nightmare
But you're far too poisoned for me
Such a fool to think that I can wake you from your slumber
That I could actually heal you..