I was a very serious student of the humanities, and I spent an awful lot of my time contemplating the concept of the villain as hero in literature and performing arts. In fact, one of my most favorite classes was dedicated to that very subject. And while I had a little trouble that semester finding the pathos in Gary Gilmore (as we read Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song), I have always enjoyed exploring the deeper motivations of the antagonists of my stories. It seems far too childish and two-dimensional to view villains as purely evil, black-hearted for no discernible reason. People are complex creatures. Divining the motives of the villains, understanding why they do what they do to move stories along, this is what makes reading and watching movies fun for me. Since I was a little girl, more intrigued with the portrayal of Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar than in the rest of the characters, I have always wanted my stories to be a bit more complicated. I got a little older, and was taken by the romance genre. I required, at the very least, a reformed rake. Even better were those starring a deeply broken hero in need of redemption. As a melodramatic teenager, I recall swearing definitively that physical perfection was impossible without a few scars to make it seem human and attainable. I applied this to real life as much as I could. I recognized without judging that a few of my friends really were assholes. But I loved them anyway, and forgave them as I hoped they would forgive me my faults.
My girlfriend and I went to see Maleficent this afternoon. It was not a perfect film, but it was entirely enjoyable, and it was the impetus for me wandering through this mental exercise. I loved the retelling, turning the entire story of Sleeping Beauty on its head, rounding out the character of the villain. It gave her a full three dimensions, a heart, and a justifiable reason for her anger and revenge. Better yet, it cracked the armor of her hatred after it sealed her in, and gave her the opportunity for sympathy and healing. In that respect, it was perfect after all. Perfect for me, and that's what mattered as far as I am concerned.
There has been a recent trend in movies aimed at young people to redefine the concept of true love. For centuries, the hero and heroine were assumed to fall in love at first sight, and at the magical moment of true love's first kiss, they won the story, and would live happily ever after. Very rarely did this not solve everything (such as the original Hans Christian Anderson telling of the Little Mermaid, where she does not win the prince, but rather dissolves into sea foam). Finally we have stopped trying to sell this pantload to children, that love is instant and simple, that it doesn't require work or sacrifice. Even better, they have stopped limiting the subject of true love to innocent romantic first love. The movie Frozen not only focused more on the love of sisters, it ridiculed the notion of marrying someone you have just met, expecting a happily ever after ending. Maleficent travels this path, asking the viewer to expand the definition of love and to reconsider what its power really is. And while William Goldman rightly said, "True love is the greatest thing in the world, next to cough drops," I am so happy that writers are finally recognizing what a complex and difficult thing true love actually is. And I am even happier that they are waking up to the possibility of our villains being capable of feeling it.
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