Sleeping Beauty : Sleeping Beauty By Walt Disney

When contrasting the characters in William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet to the characters in Walt Disney’s film, The Lion King, there are many differences in characterization. Hamlet is a play set in Denmark that tells the story of the tragic murder of King Hamlet and the emotional effects it has on his son, Prince Hamlet. The Prince’s mental instability causes him to go wildly insane over his love for Ophelia, who he will never have. He seeks vengeance on his uncle who is guilty of his father's murder. The Lion King is a film about Simba, a young lion prince who grieves over the untimely death of his father, the King of the Pride Lands. Simba discovers his Uncle Scar was the cause of his father's death. He must now return to Pride Rock in order to save his home and all who live there from the chaos under the ruling of Scar while he finds his place in society. When analyzing the characters Ophelia and Nala, they are dissimilar in their traits of obedience, dependence, and inner strength.

Throughout their lives, women of all ages are constantly being bombarded with advertisements convincing them they must meet an ideal of the perfect body image. This is all thanks to companies that share a common goal to influence the mainstream population into believing they need to purchase certain products in order to compare to the impossible standards set by the beauty industry. In Dave Barry’s “Beauty and the Beast” he displays that it is planted in young girls minds that they need to look, dress, feel, and even act a certain way. However, men aren’t as affected by these capitalistic marketing schemes. In short, the media has affected the way women think of themselves.

The story of Sleeping Beauty has evolved over time and has been changed slightly throughout the different versions. It has changed in order to fit social norms for the time and context has been altered to appeal to the current audiences. The three main versions of Sleeping Beauty are the Charles Perrault in 1697, which was adapted from the original fairy tale Sun, Moon, and Talia by Giambattistas Basile in 1634. Perraults version was a tale of rape, adultery and cannibalism. The Brothers Grimm interpretation, from 1812 that made the story more tame and the Walt Disney version from 1959 that was drawn mainly from the St. Petersburg Ballet version of 1890 and the Grimm Brothers

The story of Sleeping Beauty is told in many different forms and is most famous from Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. For example, the fairytale “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” by Charles Perrault is quite different than Disney 's version. This fairytale should be researched because it has an interesting historical background and it is still culturally relevant to this day. The three main points that will be discussed about Sleeping Beauty in this paper is historical background, the different ways this fairytale is represented, and the cultural significance this story has on society. Researching this story has opened my eyes that the Sleeping Beauty movie I

Maleficent is a prime example of the perfect antagonist for Sleeping Beauty. She is also a symbolism for the devil and evil which is why she has horns and transforms into a devil. There is of course a classic battle between the prince and the dragon where he has to fight for the girl he loves. This is a Disney movie so of course he wins the girl in the end when he revives her from her slumber with a kiss. The princess in this story has more of a physical awakening after a year of slumber; therefore, I feel like the trope is not too prevalent in this film other than the theme of bad versus evil which is always going on. Something significant that happened in 1959 was the launch of Barbie’s which reflects that it was a time for young girls because the same audience who would love a moving like Sleeping Beauty would also love playing with Barbie’s. Also, when this movie was being released America was just getting involved in the Vietnam War. During the next thirty years until the release of the next fairy tale made by Disney, America would get out of one war just to get into

The effects of the portrayal of the princesses can be positive or negative. Young girls have become more imaginative by watching Disney films. According to Stephanie Hanes (n.p.), “’For 75 years, millions of little girls and their parents around the world have adored and embraced the diverse characters and rich stories featuring our Disney princesses.... [L]ittle girls experience the fantasy and imagination provided by these stories as a normal part of their childhood development’.” Also, children are encouraged to believe and hope. In most Disney movies, the characters convey the message that we can believe in true love (10 DISNEY MOMENTS THAT PROVE LOVE IS ALIVE AND WELL

Children 's stories have been around for some eras. They have been read to kids everywhere throughout the world in view of how they can identify with youngsters regardless of what society they originate from. One of the even more surely understood children 's stories is 'Sleeping Beauty '. The most generally known form today is the Disney motion picture, made in 1959. This film depended on the Grimm 's variant of Sleeping Beauty called 'Little Brier-Rose’, which was composed in 1812 in Germany. Another less known rendition of Sleeping Beauty is 'Sun, Moon and Talia’, which was composed in 1634 Italy by Giambattista Basile. The primary parts are a princess reviled to a profound rest until an aristocrat wakes her with a kiss. The characters in the stories may have numerous distinctions however; the key qualities that are perceived in Sleeping Beauty characters are still evident.

Cinderella by the Brothers Grimm, a girl’s father becomes a widow and remarries and her stepmother and stepsisters treat Cinderella like a maid/servant. When the king announces that he’s having a three day festival for son, the prince, to find a bride, Cinderella wants to go but her stepmother told her no and that they would be ashamed of her because of how dirty she looked. Soon as they left she started to cry and wished for a dress and shoes so she can go, a bird threw them down and Cinderella quickly left to the festival. Once Cinderella got there the prince fell in love, he wouldn’t stop dancing with her day after day and by the end of the third night he had set a trap to get Cinderella’s shoes to set out

Disney Princesses are known to be depending on their Prince Charming for happiness. As years pass by, Princesses today are more independent and don’t need a Prince Charming in their lives. This idea affects children who feel inspired by these Fairy Tales. In the article, Cinderella, by Bruno Bettelheim, he states, “It gives the child confidence that the same will be true to him.” This makes children think that they will have a similar life as them. Disney Princesses have changed overtime since the 1930s. In this essay, I will give examples of Disney Princesses and how they have changed from dependent to independent in the movie industry.

Young girls are often stuck in a world of make believe, they are fed fairytales, dream up unimaginable views of reality and believe everyone will find their prince charming. This unrealistic perspective is formed through their experiences with different fairytales. As G.K. Chesterton tells the fairytale are a realistic world for children, “Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten”. Fairytales lead these girls to believe that in order to find true love there is some sort of intense journey one must go on. This idea of a journey for love has created a specific ideology for what love is and how to achieve it. In the text Beauty and the Beast by Madame Le Prince

Most fairy tales involve characters with heroic tasks to complete in order to grow. They might have legendy strength, or a genie to help them. Sleeping Beauty is different because it involves long periods of concentration. Sleeping Beauty has been argued to represent the time period before and during adolescence. Children often need to go through a period of deep thought. Some may mistake this for inactivity, but their minds are still developing. Many children will make up for this inactivity after puberty, and will become successful in life (Bettelheim 225).

In Sleeping Beauty, the Prince is portrayed a strong and courageous person, he can be seen as a great character because he overcomes many obstacles to be able to help the Princess survive. Although Sleeping Beauty is a fairy tale and is stereotypically more admired by girls, the masculine tale might be liked by the male population because they aspire to be the male hero. Maleficent shows the feminine tale and warns the girls that not men cannot be trusted in some cases, and that there is no need to have a man by your side. A woman can survive on their own using her own intelligence and courage to overcome any obstacle that she might face. For the female population, this change is very important because this “hero” story helps us relate to the character and our desire to do great and special acts (Seger 387). This film proved that a woman is capable of defeating evil, and brings a new perspective into Disney

The original story by Giambattista differs from Disney’s new interpretation in that it explores rape. In Disney’s version of sleeping beauty the princess named Aurora is awakened from a true loves kiss. The story is told to children all over the world and is seen as appropriate for them. The original version of this story involves Talia, the princess, being raped. The Prince laid the dead princess on her bed “where he gathered the first fruits of love” (Basile). This version of the story is grossly inappropriate for today’s modern generation of children and is far from the happy ending we are used to. Fairy tales where not originally intended on being entertainment for children however through constant revisions they seemed to target their imagination, essentially causing them to be successful tales. Clearly the earlier version of sleeping beauty contains ideas that are not yet suitable for

    Although love is seen as ideal in society, Disney has warped it into a classic boy saves girl. This is a universal theme for most classic Disney films such as Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, etc. Moreover, Disney has used saving damsels in distress to captivate its audience. Thus creating these unimaginable love stories. For example, a “prince searches for the maiden Cinderella after she drops her glass slipper” (Cinderella). In normal society men would hardly go to such extents. However, Disney has yet to dabble in the art of same sex love stories, still they feel beastility works. Hence The Beauty and the Beast. These ideas have been ruining how women, especially little girls see their happy ever after. Disney’s love stories always carry some magic element to them thus making them even more unrealistic.

Throughout the animation history, people have been constantly striving to achieve perfect realism. Walt Disney’s Snow white and the seven dwarfs (1937) is one of the earliest attempts in capturing realism and achieving the ‘life like’, introducing new techniques such as roto-scoping in characters and multiplane cameras to create 3 dimensional depth. Therefore there are many flaws regarding techniques, style and narrative despite how much effort and care was put into its making. The scenes when snow white meets the dwarfs, sings into the well, and when the Queen transforms into the evil witch; clearly demonstrates how realism is achieved and why impact the issue of realism. With reference to Paul Wells’ conceptions of ‘hyper-realism’ and ‘orthodox animation’, the issues of realism within the film will be discussed in the latter.