Once Upon A Dream

So for my latest sojourn to the movies, I watched Disney's Maleficent. Of course there were cringe worthy acting from even the adult actors but the story telling was decent. The most note worthy, was true love's kiss. The powers that be inside Disney have taken to reading the exposes that take a hard look at the media's role in our western society and particularly their role in an ever changing and expanding culture. Fairy tales were meant to provide instruction and provide ideals for members of that particular society should strive towards. However with the advent of individualism and the changing landscape of human society, these ideals if set into stone only provide a schism between the past and the future especially for such human tenements such as, sexuality, gender roles, familial roles, and the role of the part within a whole. So Disney taking established fairy tales and reforging them into weapons for cultural idealism has both been a blessing and a curse for western society. However, they are learning rather rapidly that their movies can no longer stay in the realm of pure fantasy and that they have a responsibility to their audience as agents of cultural realism. So with this new found direction for Disney we have such movies as The Frog Princess, Brave, Frozen, The Pirates of Caribbean: AT WORLD'S END and now Maleficent that are redefining our understanding of cultural ideals and for that I applaud them. As a side note, I am ignoring the motivation for profit.