Is "Sleeping Beauty" Sexist? 

Like, H U G E. The only reason I’m not going into Disney for a film career is because everyone else wants to go into Disney too.

Yes, I know that this film is flawed; Aurora gets 18 minutes or less of screen time the entire flick, and Phillip’s last line was “Goodbye, father!” in the middle of the film. Yes, I know that this film now appears to be horribly clichéd because our heroes fall in love in less than a day. Yes, I know that focusing so much on the side characters was probably not the best idea.

I absolutely love everything about this movie, despite its flaws smacking me in the face as I get older. I love the animation, the soundtrack, the characters, the villain…even the plot, although somewhat simplistic now compared to later Disney films. A lot of people don’t like or simply forget this movie, mostly because it’s “boring” or “creepy”, but this film (along with Nightmare Before Christmas and LOTR) is precisely why I decided to go into films as a profession in the first place. I LOVE this film.

And let’s face it! There’s not a lot of Disney Princess films that portray women in a very good, equal light, especially the older the film is.

But people really like to get on the “it’s sexist!” wagon for

film, when it’s actually not sexist at all, particularly when you take a look at

First, let’s talk about Prince Phillip.

Oh, Phillip. How under-appreciated you are. With your dragon-fighting and chivalry and…*swoon*

He’s unfortunately one of the main reasons why Sleeping Beauty is called “sexist” nowadays. And I’m going to call bullcrap on that. Actually, Phillip may be one of the least sexist princes in Disney history.

, Prince Ferdinand (I had to literally Google that name because they never announce it—he’s that unimportant), just pops up at the end as a sort of

, kisses Snow White, and takes her to happily ever after, even though they met, like once. Prince Ferdinand has an almost nonexistent role in the film, and makes Snow White especially sexist since it paints Snow as a good, house-cleaning, cooking woman, and Prince Ferdinand as a savior even though he didn’t do jack squat other than kiss Snow. He could’ve been cut out altogether if he didn’t affect the plot at the end, and he does absolutely nothing to prove to us or Snow that he’s a good person, let alone a good husband or whatever, and he has absolutely zero personality. He could be a serial killer and he’s taking Snow away to skin her, for all we know.

His role doesn’t work negatively for Aurora’s character. Why?

Because she, despite people’s insistence, is not a stereotypical woman waiting for a rich dude to come rescue her. Sure, she has a “dream prince”, but when she meets Phillip, she falls in love with him anyway, despite not ever knowing that he’s a prince until the end. And what’s even better is that he’s in love with her as well, despite knowing she’s a peasant girl. And when she’s told that she’s a princess and she’s to be married to a prince, she is really upset. She’d rather live out her life as a peasant with the love of her life than be a princess. With Phillip being Aurora’s true love, whether he’s a prince or a peasant, twists what the other two films taught us; the lesson in the movie is not “wait for a rich prince to rescue you”, but rather, “true love conquers all”, which is a

Prince Phillip also has way more of a personality and more screen time than Ferdinand. He’s witty, he’s brave, he talks to his horse, he’s a wisecracker, and he has more progressive outlook on marriage, especially in that time period–where you don’t marry the one your parents want you to marry, but you marry your true love, no matter what class she is.

fall in love, he fights tooth and nail for her, which neither Ferdinand nor Charming do, even going so far as battling Maleficent (also a super-awesome villain who’s

–how is film sexist again?) with her magic and her dragon form, even when it seems that all hope is lost.

By the way, can I point out that the reason why Phillip won the battle is largely due to the Three Fairies breaking him out of prison, getting his horse, and giving him the Sword of Truth, among many other things? The Three Fairies, who are possibly the most developed characters in the film, who are also three independent, witty

raising Aurora, despite all the danger involved in doing so? And people still call this film sexist?

And many of you might be saying, “But TG! Snow White and Sleeping Beauty both have similar plots dealing with girls falling asleep! Why is one film better than the other if they’re so similar?”

Prince Phillip is much better than Ferdinand (see above)

Aurora had a happy, love-filled life, rather than being abused as a child; Aurora was never hated for her looks or simply the fact that she was female (i.e. HI Cinderella and Snow White)

Maleficent only cursed Aurora as revenge on her parents for not being invited to her christening–Aurora actually had pretty much nothing to do with Maleficent other than being an easy target (most likely because she was a baby, and definitely not because she was female)

Maleficent basically wants to kill Aurora because she can, not because she’s jealous of her (HI AGAIN Cinderella and Snow White)

, especially not because she’s female (actually, her gender never really affects the plot. Make Aurora male, and pretty much nothing changes about the story.)

Her curse never makes Aurora weaker as a character; she basically would’ve stayed the same if she wasn’t cursed

And finally, let’s go to the biggest complaint of this film:

“Aurora goes into a cursed sleep that she couldn’t stop, and she has to have a man save her! Boo-hoo!”

Yeah, because Aurora could totally fight a dragon with absolutely no fighting skills and, y’know, asleep.

Even without fighting skills, you’re still assuming that Aurora’s curse is indicating that she can’t fight and save herself?

What, was Prince Phillip supposed to rot in prison while Aurora remained asleep instead of attempting to wake her up? All in the name of gender equality? Really?

“But why didn’t Disney make a feminist princess film in 1959?!”

Again, time period (for both the time the film came out, and the time the film’s set in.)

Yeah, Disney could’ve been radical and made a warrior princess Aurora in 1959, but we have

, which was already radical in modern day because we still valued male heroes up until very recently, despite attempts at gender equality. If we’re still in shock that a princess can fight for herself in, why do you expect 1959 to be any different, any more accepting than 2 years ago? Even now, with Frozen?

For its time, Sleeping Beauty was actually a pretty radical princess film. It promoted true love, rather than waiting for someone rich to marry you, the prince and princess had-y’know-

, and most (if not all) of the really important characters in the film were female. I can almost consider this Disney’s first attempt at parodying themselves, since the film has such modern outlooks on love and marriage that I can still get behind to this day, the characters are very witty and the closest Disney could get to being three-dimensional at the time when compared to the film’s predecessors, and the film sheds away most of the lessons that the other earlier films tried to teach us. Even the animation looks different when compared to Snow White and Cinderella.

And now, even after all I wrote, if this film is still sexist…WHO CARES?!

This film is still freaking awesome! It has obviously stood the test of time to become a Disney classic, even going as far as getting a 91% on

Rotten Tomatoes, which is an even better rating than Frozen and Brave. I have no doubt that it will continue to stand against time as an awesome flick, despite it criticisms, as people continue to show the true love of Aurora and Phillip to their children and grandchildren.