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Urban chat: Maleficent: The multitudes of human psyche
Anyone who grew up reading the original Sleeping Beauty story might remember Maleficent as the evil sorcerer who cast a woeful spell on King Stefan’s newborn daughter because she wasn’t invited to the christening
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span>Anyone who grew up reading the original Sleeping Beauty story might remember Maleficent as the evil sorcerer who cast a woeful spell on King Stefan’s newborn daughter because she wasn’t invited to the christening. Her character was so one-dimensional many didn’t remember her name beyond “the angry witch in a black cloak.”
Disney, in tune with the rising gender equality wave of recent decades, has sought to rewrite many fairytales that stereotyped female characters into sinless beauty vs sinful ugly, or damsel in distress in need of a male rescuer vs powerful evil witch.
Animated musical film Mulan in 1998 was a start. Daughters can be just as strong and valuable as sons to a family. The Alice in Wonderland franchise, the latest Beauty and the Beast, Frozen and Moana, all showed strong, smart and independent lead female characters. In fact, Moana was so resourceful that a university professor of Polynesian history in Hawaii complained that Maui, a benevolent god in the official legend, was misleadingly depicted as a colossal jackass.
In 2014, Disney gave a background story on who Maleficent really was, a once good fairy whose hellish fury was the result of her having been scorned by her human boyfriend prince who later became King Stefan. Disney got us warmed up to Maleficent by showing how she practically raised Aurora for those 16 exile years, since the fairy trio the King sent out as nannies were hopeless.
Fast forward to 2019, peace prevails between Maleficent’s domain, the Moors and Aurora’s kingdom. Now a young queen, Aurora is engaged to Prince Phillips of the neighboring kingdom. New troubles brews as the prince’s mother, the pearl-bedecked Queen Ingrith, deceptively keeps her own designs and scores to settle with the Moors. Maleficent is goaded into returning to her dark side, discovering her true origin and kin on her journey. It is a Disney family production after all, eventually evil doesn’t get to win.
Yet for adults, the story is as deep and unsettling as the wretched world we live in now.
The root of Queen Ingrith’s wrath is the disproportionate distribution of wealth she saw as a young princess, when her father’s kingdom fell into poverty while the wealthy Moors nearby refused to lend a hand. Cast out as a refugee, Ingrith lucked out when she found another king to marry — after which she vowed vengeance. What tool does she use? Fake news.
It doesn’t matter that the Moors and Aurora’s kingdom are now living in harmony, hoaxes about Maleficent’s evil essence must be propagated to create a reason to invade the Moors. The propaganda works as nonhuman creatures, especially the grey fey tribe Maleficent originates from, gradually got pushed out of their habitat and took refuge in a small enclave, consumed by anger and was ripe to be baited by Queen Ingrith’s call for war.
Disney is promoting the movie as family entertainment so it can’t be seen openly defending Queen Ingrith, yet which adult doesn’t know how it feels to be on the receiving end of injustice and vow to revenge? Unfortunately, while it was never clear which Moors residents rejected her family’s plea for help, Ingrith decided to wage war against all fairies. Injustice breeds injustice the way hate begets hate, for now all marginalized fairies made her their collective enemy.
Rohingya, Uyghur, Tibet, Chechen, Palestine, Jews in World War II, Ahmadiyya and Papua in Indonesia, Brexit, Trump’s border walls — each has an element that can resonate with the underlying premise of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. Almost no conflict instigator is wholly innocent or evil, for each has been a bit of both along the way. And this is when conflicts get harder to resolve, as both parties feel their current bad decisions are simply a reaction to unrewarding good behaviors in the past.
Hence why it takes a mensch, a truly “big” person, to initiate the end of a war knowing that there’s still some past injustice done to them that will never be acknowledged let alone rectified yet must be accepted for a truce to be achieved. Otherwise, one day the world will be filled with broken souls like Joker.
These layers of the human psyche are the basis of art created by a handful of Indonesian artists commissioned by Disney. Using the first movie and the new movie’s short trailer as references, the works strive to illustrate the multitudes of Maleficent’s personality, where evil and good always co-exist and are never absolute.
Anis Kurniasih splashes vibrant visuals to show how Maleficent’s dark wings can metamorphose, a lucky shot since the second movie shows grey fey fairies come in all colors of skin and wing. Nus Salomo softens Maleficent’s image by conjuring pastel-colored gummy bears around her dark wings.
An interesting twist comes from Dian Suci Rahmawati, who not only likens Maleficent to Indonesia’s controversially mythical figure Nyai Roro Kidul, but also allows the possibility that Maleficent is inherently evil. A spot-on quip arrives from Robby Garsia and Atreyu Moniaga who surmises that for all the power Maleficent wields (and they did build eight wings to showcase the power), Maleficent is basically gullible — fooled in her youth to lose her wings, baited in her adulthood to almost annihilate her kin. Even the most powerful isn’t always the smartest.
Displayed at the “Saints, Evils and In Betweens” exhibition at Senayan City mall in South Jakarta, all of the works focus on Maleficent. I wonder if only the commission order came after the sequel opened, some of the artists might want to cast a light on Queen Ingrith’s character.
Luckily, the three fashion designers commissioned to whip up costumes for the three lead female characters still have time until Jakarta Fashion Week to fine tune their designs, now that they’ve watched the new movie.
Andreas Odang, a couturist tapped to create a collection for Maleficent, had a good start with the brooding ballgown he showed during the premiere — a good match for Maleficent in the sequel as she wore more couture, instead of whimsical, designs. Imelda Kartini, tasked with creating a collection based on Queen Ingrith, has her work cut out sharply since now the sequel shows that the Queen is far from one-dimensional.
If Disney aims to create a better representation of lead female characters for young viewers, they’re getting better at it. If Disney simultaneously wants its adult viewers to momentarily forget the wretched world out there and keep a sliver of hope that evil doesn’t win, for 118 minutes they manage to do that.
For those adults who hate a studio filled with screaming children, I suggest you head straight to the exhibition, which runs from Oct. 10 to Nov. 3. There, in solitude, you can privately ponder the multitudes of human psyche, then grab the black horn prop for a selfie to see how devilish any of us can look for a second or two.
— Lynda Ibrahim is a Jakarta-based writer with a penchant for purple, pussycats and pop culture.
