Disney’s Dark Side

Maleficent and the echoes of rape in a classic fairy tale

*First published in The Stake

Once upon a time, the beautiful daughter of a nobleman pricked her finger on a piece of flax, and fell into a deep cursed sleep. Overcome by grief, her father placed her on a velvet throne, locked the door of his home, and left, never to return.

Years later, a king was hunting nearby and his falcon flew through the house’s window. The king followed, hoping to retrieve his bird, but found a sleeping woman instead. He could not wake her, but overcome by her beauty, he raped her while she slept. The king left, but the woman — then pregnant — remained in her magical sleep. When she gave birth to twins, they suckled on her finger tips, and one tugged the piece of flax from her finger. The curse was broken, and Sleeping Beauty awoke.

This early telling of Sleeping Beauty was printed in 1634 as part of a collection by Basile, the first great Italian collector of fairy tales. Thirty years later, the French story teller Perriault revised the tale and removed the rape and pregnancy; in his version, a Prince falls on his knees before Sleeping Beauty in adoration and she wakes. Three hundred years later, in 1959, the American storyteller Walt Disney brought the story to film, and replaced the Prince’s kneeling adoration…