Sleeping Beauty

My sister received a Sleeping Beauty DVD for Chanukkah (we love Disney movies, and as soon as Beauty and the Beast comes out of the vault again, I'm so going to buy it!). Since we haven't seen Sleeping Beauty in a really long time, we decided to watch it right away. As I was watching it, I found it really funny how similar that movie was to the typical frummy society.


First part of the movie, you learn that the entire kingdom was invited to the celebration of the birth of the princess. Then it is known that the the newborn princess was betrothed to the prince of some other kingdom. Typical frum move, get a shidduch early, and ensure the assets (in the case of the movie, the kingdoms) remain in good alliance and in good hands.


Aside from being betrothed, three good fairies came down and started giving the baby a "bracha." Two of them managed to give the bracha, and then the evil fairy, or the "mistress of all evil" (aka Maleficent) as she described herself, appeared and said how she was not invited while the entire kingdom was. This made her upset (even though she refused to admit it, but it was clear), and she gave the baby an equivalent of an ayin hara (what a frummy would call it), and said the baby would die before she makes it to her 16th birthday, by pricking her finger on the spindle of the spinning wheel.

Luckily for Aurora (the baby's name), the third good fairy was able to "better" the situation just given to the new princess. The third fairy said the prick wouldn't lead to a death, but a deep slumber that could only be awaken by a true loves kiss.


So, the next day, or right away (couldn't really tell) King Stefan (the baby's father) ordered all the spinning wheels in the kingdom to be burned!


I found that ridiculously humorous, for many reasons. The first because that is such a typical frum move, to just ban the object, instead of institute safety precautions. I mean, this movie supposedly took place around the 14th century, these people *needed* those spinning wheels almost as much as we need the internet today. Without the wheel, they had no fabric or clothes. They literally needed it...leave it to the kooky old-fashioned nut jobs to ban something necessary in the name of their paranoia. So typical frum. That scene reminded me so much of the Rabbi's banning the net and completely ignoring the necessity of the instrument.

Hmm...while the movie took place in the 14th century and was also a work of fiction, I can understand the concept of the king banning and burning the spinning wheels, but the fact that Rabbi's in today's day and age act like that, in *real* life (TV's, net, and sheitl bans etc) I just cannot get over it.

Anyway, the three fairies ended up just sneaking out with the baby in the middle of the night, and raising her as a peasant girl. They lived in a cottage in the middle of the forest. She was raised, not as Aurora, but as Briar Rose. She was pretty much banned from talking to strangers, because then she may be found and all that.

The girl got by, because she was able to talk to the animals. In real life, frummies would probably ban the girl from talking to anybody as well. And in real life, the girl wouldn't have animals, and she'd question why she was living with three aunts in some weird cottage, and she'd probably escape into the village...

Just like in real-life frummies have a high escape rate due to all the frivolous bans.

I really need to stop reading so much into Disney movies.