Once Upon a Dream

A long time ago, my aunt was thinking about getting rid of her copy of Sleeping Beauty because of all the magic. I told her, "No way!"

See, it's another spiritual parallel story along the same vein as Snow White.

See, Sleeping Beauty falls into temptation and falls into a deep sleep, which can represent the sleep of sin. Her prince (savior) wakes her up with love and redemption.

And this is really literal in the ending of Disney version. Every one of the enemy's attacks is turned in something good: flowers, rainbows, bubbles. And the fairies give Prince Phillip a sword of truth and a shield of righteousness. Phillip fights the personification of hell itself and wins in part because of the fairies' admonition: "Thou sword of truth fly swift and sure that evil die and good endure."



Pretty awesome stuff.

Side note: Maleficent is a great villain. In fact, a film about her is coming out in 2013. I wonder if they're going to make her a "good bad guy" or have her be the bad guy in her own story.

Now that I saw Sleeping Beauty for the first time in while, I realized that she doesn't really appear much in the movie. She comes out, she sings, she falls in love, and then spends most of the rest of the movie crying that she can't be with her true love.

She, of course, has her forest creatures for friends, and is really sweet to the fairies who take care of her. But she's obviously miserable without Phillip. I don't see anything wrong with this. It's kind of the way that we're miserable without God.

What I think is really funny about this movie is how the two fall in love in about two seconds. And there's also lots of focus on the principal male characters: King Hubert and King Stephan . . . and that court minstrel who literally drinks himself under the table.

What's also funny is how she keeps running away from Phillip at first, because she's not allowed to talk to strangers. But when he convinces her that he's not a stranger, that in fact they've met in their dreams, she easily falls into his arms. We've always longed for a savior, and when we meet him we don't know how we lived without him.

"I wonder if my heart keeps singing, will my song go ringing to someone who'll find me and bring back a love song to me," she sings. She wants to experience true love but insists that the fairies still "treat her like a child" because they don't want her to meet anyone. In fact, they are protecting her to ultimately bring her to her true love. Sometimes, our guardians are doing what's best for us, but we don't see it at first.

When Aurora finds out that she's a princess, it doesn't matter to her because she believes she will be married to someone else instead of her true love. Even though she dreamed about "a prince" all she really wants is true love, whether he be a prince or not.



This song is AWFUL!



And this song is beautiful.



Conclusion: Sleeping Beauty is another beautiful story of redemption and salvation, and Maleficent is a great villain.