6. Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 animated film produced by, you guessed it, Walt Disney. It is based on a variety of fairy tales all with the same basic theme. Primarily, Disney based its story on "The Beauty Sleeping in the Wood" written by Charles Perrault in 1697. In the Disney version, a king and queen are celebrating the birth of a long-awaited child when three good fairies come to bless the child with magical gifts. Before the third fairy can bequeath her gift, a wicked fairy arrives and curses the baby princess to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die at the age of sixteen. The final good fairy then uses her gift to change the curse so that the princess will merely fall into a deep sleep until awakened by love's first kiss. Despite efforts to protect the girl, the princess fulfils the curse. But it all works out well a day or two later, when a prince falls in love with the girl, battles the evil fairy, and releases the princess from the spell. This tale, along with many on this list, is one of those stories that transcends many cultures and is known by children from a multitude of countries. But of course, Disney has toned down the original tale a little.
Dark Inspirations? Written and published by Charles Perrault in his book Histoires Ou Contes Du Temps Passé in 1697, the tale of Sleeping Beauty is much more ominous than the popular Disney version. The basic story of the evil fairy cursing the child takes place as in the Disney film, but instead of fuming over not being invited to the celebration of the child's birth, she is instead peeved because the other fairies received gits of gold and jewels but she did not. After the princess receives the curse from the evil fairy, the remaining good fairy uses her gift to say the girl will fall asleep for 100 years and be awoken by a prince. I've never understood why she didn't just change the curse to say the princess would get diarrhoea for three days and then be fine, but what the heck.
After the curse is placed, the tyrannical king forbids spinning wheels in his kingdom, obviously ruining the livelihood of many a spinster and the fortunes of all sheep farmers in his kingdom. Nice. Of course, the selfish king's ban on spinning wheels fails and the girl pricks her finger on the lone remaining wheel in the kingdom. The good fairy that changed the curse then realizes the poor young girl will suffer greatly when she awakens 100 years hence and finds her entire family mouldering in the grave, so she puts everyone in the castle under a sleeping spell. A hundred years later, a prince spies the castle. When he finds the sleeping princess, he quickly falls in love with the under-age girl, which breaks the spell. The prince and princess are married, but they don't quite live happily ever after. First, they must overcome the half-ogre step-mother of the prince. The evil step-mother attempts to eat the princess and her new children, but she is fooled by her cook and instead dines on a lamb, a goat, and a hind. The ogre-queen is then defeated and casts herself into a pit she'd prepared with a plethora of ravenous and poisonous creatures. She of course, dies in the pit. An even earlier version called Sun, Moon and Talia is found in a 1634 collection of stories by Giambatista Basil. In Basil's version, the princess is cursed by a poisonous piece of flax. When the prince finds her body, he rapes the supposed corpse and impregnates the princess. She gives birth to twins and is awakened when one of the twins sucks on the thumb of the princess, thereby dislodging the flax. Unfortunately for her, the prince is already married but he lets sleeping beauty live in his house with his ogress wife, who also tries to eat the children. Once again, the ogress is killed and they live happily ever after. The inspiration for the movie Sleeping Beauty? We have greed, murder, cannibalism, paedophilia curses, incredible selfishness with people's livelihoods destroyed, rape, necrophilia, potential bigamy, and someone being eaten alive. Oy.