I recently watched the movie “Maleficent” starring Angelina
Jolie (Yes this came out months ago, and yes I voluntarily watched an Angelina
Jolie movie). Although Angelina didn’t stray far from her “sexy, yet dangerous
badass” role that she seems so typcastingly fond of, I must admit she did an
exceptional job of conveying the multidimensional character of a traditionally
known villain… One we thought we already knew.
Because “Sleeping Beauty” is my favorite Disney classic, I
was naturally a skeptic of storyline modifications. The original is magical,
comedic, and expresses a beautiful struggle where good overcomes evil through
true love, and then happily ever after ensues… So why change something so beautifully
perfect?
Because perfect isn’t real.
Maleficent is a straightforward evil bitch in the classic
(hardly Disney friendly terminology, but I never claimed this was a PG blog),
but in this modern adaptation we see why her life experiences lead her to the
choices she makes, and the struggle she endures because of those choices.
We end up empathizing
with Maleficent- the evil, intolerable, heartless villain… but is she really?
The Disney classics display the fight between good and evil,
right and wrong… A world where life is black and white and a happy ending is
just around the riverbend for those who choose good over evil.
And while these are attractive concepts that can perhaps be
applied to very limited and specific life situations, we also know that this is
simply not the way that life works.
Life is hard. Life is messy. And life delivers us people who
are concurrently “good” and “bad” with situations that don’t necessarily lead
to a happy ending even if you make the right
choice.
And maybe sometimes there isn’t a right choice to be made.
Maybe there are some choices you have to make just to open your eyes to the
kind of person you have become or to strengthen the type of character you
possess.
Maybe life was never meant to be perfect. And more
importantly, maybe life was never meant to be lived seeking perfection.
Somewhere along the journey between the Disney ideals of
childhood and my very different experiences of real life, I realized that the
classic “black and white” Disney life scenario is actually a muddled spattering
of grays that expand far beyond the Behr color wheel spectrum.
Dismay, chaos, confusion, disappointment, fear of the unknown,
questioning life’s purpose and all kinds of other scary words and phrases emerge
from this gray area…
BUT…
Flexibility, power of choice, hope, acknowledging blessings, giving and receiving compassion, empathizing with "villains" and all kinds of
other wonderful words and phrases are also presented to us through this gray
area.
AND… You still have millions more decisions left to make.
So… Choose well. And if you don’t, then choose better next
time.
