you know in in Sleeping Beauty you know
it Sleeping Beauty goes to sleep and the
reason she goes to sleep is because you
have to remember what happens is she has
parents who are quite old and so they're
pretty desperate to have a child like so
many people are now and they only have
one child like so many people do now and
they don't want anything happen to this
child because like hey it's a miracle
and there's only one of them and so
she's the princess and so it's like
we're not letting anything around her so
they have a big christening party right
and they invite everybody but they don't
invite Maleficent and Melissa cent is
the terrible mother she's nature
she's like the thing that goes bump in
the night she's the devil herself so to
speak she's everything that you don't
want your child to encounter so the king
and queen saying well we just want to
invite her to the christening it's like
good luck with that
that's an eatable story right the
eatable mother is the mother who devours
her child by refusing by overprotecting
him or her so that instead of being
strengthened by an encounter with the
terrible world they're weakened by too
much protection and then when they're
led out into the world they cannot live
and that's the story of Sleeping Beauty
and that's what the king and queen do
and they apologized to the to Melissa
sent when she first shows up and say
well you know they have a bunch of
half-witted excuses why they don't
invite her
we forgot like I don't think so you know
you don't forget something like that
and she kind of makes that point it's
right the whole horror of life you don't
forget about that when you have a child
that's for sure you might wish that it
would stay at bay but you do not forget
about it the question is do you invite
it to the party and the answer is it
bloody well depends how unconscious you
want your child to be and if you want
your child to be unconscious well then
you have the attitude that is but maybe
they won't leave home and so you can
take advantage of them for the rest of
your sad life instead of going off to
find something to do for yourself well
and then of course you can take revenge
on the myths they do have any any what
would you call impetus towards courage
that you sacrificed yourself 30 years
ago and want to stamp out as soon as you
see it developing your child that's
another thing that would be quite
pleasant and so that's what happens in
Sleeping Beauty yeah well none of this
is pleasant and nothing that happens in
that story is pleasant so Sleeping
Beauty she's naive
hell they put her out in the forest and
have it raised by these three like
goody-two-shoes fairies that are also
completely devoid of any real potency
and power right there's no nothing
Maleficent about them and then the first
idiot Prince that wanders by she falls
in love with so badly that she has
post-traumatic stress disorder when he
rides off on his horse right that's what
happened and then she then she goes into
the castle and she's all freaked out
because she met the love of her life for
like five minutes for God's sake and you
know that's when the spinning wheel
that's the Wheel of Fate pops up and she
pricks her finger right I try to get rid
of all the spinning wheels they try to
get rid of all the wheels of fate with
her pointed end but she finds it poke
pricks our fingers and finger falls down
unconscious well she wants to be
unconscious and no bloody wonder she was
protected her whole life she's so damn
naive that her first love affair just
about kills her she wants to go to sleep
and never wake up
and so that's exactly what happens and
then she has to wait for the Prince to
come and rescue her well you think how
sexist can you get that story well
seriously because that's that's the way
that that would be read in the modern
worlds like she doesn't need a prince to
rescue her that's why I Disney made
frozen that absolutely appalling piece
of rubbish
[Applause]
so you know you can say you can say well
the princess doesn't need a prince to
rescue her but you know that's a
boneheaded way of looking at the story
because the prince isn't just a man
who's coming to rescue the woman and
believe me he's got his own problems
right he's got a whole goddamn dragon he
has to contend with but but the prince
also represents the woman's own
consciousness the consciousness is
presented very frequently in story
that's symbolically masculine as it is
with the logos idea and the idea is that
without without that forward going
courageous consciousness a woman herself
will drift into unconsciousness and
terror and so you can read it as well
the woman who's sleeping needs a man to
wake her up and of course just like a
man needs a woman to wake him up it's
the same damn thing that's the dragon
fight in Sleeping Beauty but it's also
the case that if she's only unconscious
all she can do is lay there and sleep
like the sleep of the naive and Damned
she has to wake and wake herself up and
and bring her own consciousness her own
masculine consciousness into the
forefront so that she can survive in the
world of course women are trying to do
that like mad but that's partly what's
represented in the story like that and
that's partly what's implicit in this
idea is that unless the woman is taken
out of man so to speak then she isn't a
human being she's just a creature and
that's partly what's embedded in this
story so you don't want to read it as a
patriarchal you want to read anything
that way so really it's it really it's
yeah I won't I won't bother with that
but really we can do better than that