Happily Ever After~ Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip

It's time to see if Princess Aurora (AKA Sleeping Beauty) and Prince Phillip would make a good couple. Using my less than scientific scale of points from the following categories:

Decision Making Skills

Respect of Others

Sense of Responsibility

Compassion Towards Others

and the assigned point values (0-5) let's see if this couple can get within five points of each other, my litmus test for the perfect couple. If you recall from my post on Snow White and the Prince, the close the points, the better the relationship balance, and in my opinion, the better chance for happy ever after.

Edward Frederick Brewtnall

Princess Aurora: 15/20
While Princess Aurora is on screen more than the Prince (from Snow White), you don't see enough of her interactions with others to make a good judge of her character. In fact, while watching the movie, I found that it seemed to be more about the fairies than Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip...but maybe that was just me :-)

Decision Making Skills 3/5
Aurora, like Snow White, makes some poor choices that cause her to risk her life (and those of her people) to the evil fairy's plan.

Respect of Others 4/5 
We don't get to see much interaction between Aurora and others in the movie, but what we do see shows that she has great respect for those in her life (human, fairy, and animal).

Sense of Responsibility 3/5
While we see that Aurora has no problem with the chores assigned to her, we get a glimpse that she would forsake all of her responsibilities as a princess for the man she met in the woods. 

Compassion Towards Others 4/5
Aurora seems to have compassion toward the fairies that guard her and her animal friends from the forest. She also accepts her true identity with little question or fuss, accepting that her years of living in the forest were for her safety. (hmmm...I feel a story brewing here :-) )

Prince Phillip: 18/20
For me, Prince Phillip is the man that all princes should be compared to. He is the prince of all princes, the one to compare all future Disney (and other company) princes to. After looking at his scores, I'm sure you can see why I think this.

Decision Making Skills 4/5
Prince Phillip shows excellent decision making skills. Even though he longs to go and find the girl from the woods, and break off the engagement his parents made when he was a boy, he chooses to risk his life to save Aurora's kingdom.

Respect of Others 5/5
Phillip shows great respect for others. From the respect he shows Briar Rose (AKA Princess Aurora) while dancing, to his treatment of Sampson (his horse) and the way he respectfully disagrees with his father, he treats all with great respect.

Sense of Responsibility 4/5
Prince Phillip knows what is expected of him as a prince, and he's willing to risk all to save Aurora. Yet, he would give it all up for the peasant girl he met in the woods. Fortunately for him, Briar Rose and Princess Aurora are one and the same. But one can't help but wonder what he would have chosen were they two different people.


Compassion Towards Others 5/5
Phillip has great compassion towards others. He dances with a stranger in the woods. Fights a dragon for the woman he loves. What more could he do to show his compassion for others?

My un-scientific review shows that Aurora and Phillip have a high percentage of obtaining happy ever after. Being older, Phillip should have better decision making skills, and I believe that his strength there, as well as with his sense of responsibility, will help balance out Aurora, making them a good couple.

Do you agree? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Sleeping Beauty and the Working Women of 1959

The 1950's is often cited as one of the best decades to have lived and/or grown up in. Who hasn't watched Happy Days or Grease and felt the nostalgia of life in the '50's? Disney released Sleeping Beauty in 1959, near the end of this iconic decade. So, how well does Princess Aurora represent the women of 1959?

Vogel, H. (Hermann) (1856-1918)

While many women entered the workforce during World War II, the most common job held by a woman in 1959 was that of housewife and mother. Women did work outside the home, including as nurses and teachers, but they didn't have the same job choices as the women of today have. Few were doctors, professors, or business executives--positions many women hold in today's society.

By Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, Texas A&M (Flickr: Data Processing Machine) 

Keeping these norms in mind, I think Aurora is a good representation of the women of this decade. Her parents' goal is to marry her off so she can raise a family of her own. Now, being royal, Aurora lives a privileged life and doesn't have to work. But, while hiding away with the fairies in the woods, we see her performing the more traditional housekeeping role that has become associated with women from this time period.

If Disney's was making this film today, I don't see where there would be many differences to the tale. They didn't change much of Aurora's role from the story told by Perrault, so unless you recast the roles so that the princess saves the prince, Aurora would remain pretty much as she is.

Do you think Aurora was a good representation of women in 1959? What changes do you see being made if the movie release today? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Sleeping Beauty: Disney vs Perrault

This month I'm focusing on Sleeping Beauty. So let's dive in and look at the differences in the tales by Charles Perrault and the Grimm brothers and the 1959 Disney animated movie.

Both the Perrault and Grimm story versions contain more fairies (8 and 13 respectively), whereas Disney chose to focus on four: three good and one evil. And while both Perrault and the Grimms chose to mention how the King and Queen struggled to conceive a child, this is left out of the animated version.

The story of how the fairies were invited vary in the print versions, but the "evil" fairy always bestows her curse before the final fairy has given her blessing. Disney leaves out the invitation part, but the gift bestowing seems to match well with Perrault and Grimm.

Disney lets us see Prince Phillip and Princess Aurora's first meeting (he as a young boy and she a baby), using the traditional promising of marriage to form an alliance, something neither text makes mention of.

The pricking of the finger on the spindle is the same in all stories, but Disney sets up a unique villainess in Maleficent. Neither of these tales mention a dragon or have the prince slay any creatures to rescue the princess. Instead,  the tales penned by Perrault and the Grimm brothers, have one hundred years pass before a prince from a foreign land finds the princess and wakes her. There are some other versions where the prince/king who finds the Sleeping Beauty behave very dishonorably, but that is not the case in these two tales.

Henry Meynell Rheam

Disney's version of things after the finger pricking creates a completely new version of the tale. Prince Phillip, Aurora's betrothed and her mystery man from the woods, slays the dragon and saves the girl he loves.

For me, while quite different than the original tales, the addition of defeating the dragon and the nod to the "true love conquers all" theme make for a wonderful change (one I played off of in Quest of the Hart). 

Disney gives a nice nod to the Grimm Brother's by having Aurora use the name Briar Rose while in hiding (this is the name the Grimm's used after the spell took place.)

The biggest difference I noticed was in the ending. Disney's ending followed the Grimm brother's ending more than Perrault's. In the Perrault tale, the prince and princess spend time getting to know each other before marrying and reaching their happy-ever-after.

What differences did you notice in the stories and film adaptation? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and don't forget to stop back next week to see what I learned about women in the workplace in 1959.

Once Upon a Time ~ Sleeping Beauty

Up next in my study of fairy tales turned animated films is Sleeping Beauty. The 1959 Disney film is based on La Belle au Boir Dormant by Charles Perrault that can be found here.

It also has some elements from the Grimm Brother's Briar Rose, which can be found here.

There are many other variants to the story, including ones that are very dark. You can find more on them here.

Come back next week to compare the written tales and the animated film.