Three Cheers for the Three Fairies of Sleeping Beauty

I think that the early Disney princess movies, Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, get a lot of unfair criticism. For example, Sleeping Beauty has been faulted for having a protagonist who is literally asleep for much of the movie, thereby having the movie’s female lead robbed of her agency.

That may be true, but Aurora isn’t the only female character in the movie. The person who puts her to sleep is Maleficent, widely regarded as one of the most iconic and striking Disney villain.

But more importantly, Aurora, although the title character, is not truly the protagonist of Sleeping Beauty. The movie’s true leads are the three fairies: Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. Not only do they get a lot of screentime, they’re the ones that take the most active role in thwarting Maleficent’s plots.

Sleeping Beauty is often criticized for having boring leads, but these early Disney movies are often more focused on colorful side characters like the dwarves in Snow White or the mice in Cinderella. It’s unfair to judge their characters as if these films are more traditional narratives focused on a single central protagonist the way Disney princess films have been from the 90's onward.

In Sleeping Beauty, this colorful side character role is taken up by the three fairies, who get so much attention that they actually supplant Aurora as the protagonists. Aurora may be boring, but the three fairies have distinct personalities and work off of each other in funny ways.

After Aurora is put to sleep, her love, Prince Philip, is captured by Maleficent and the fairies are the ones who have to rescue him.

And in the final battle against Maleficent, Prince Philip is losing until the fairies enchant his sword. They’re the ones really responsible for defeating Maleficent.

The live-action Maleficent got a lot of criticism for how it handled Maleficent’s character, but in my mind the real crime of the movie was turning the three fairies into bumbling incompetents, something I haven’t seen anyone else criticize.

If you think this doesn’t absolve Aurora spending so much of the movie asleep or if you have other criticisms of the movie, that’s understandable, but I think it’s unfair to not at least acknowledge the critical role of the three fairies in the story. How many children’s movies have three women, not to mention three older women, as the heroes? I wish Sleeping Beauty would get more credit for this and that Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather would get more recognition as the great Disney characters they are.