the feminist librarian reads

So once upon a time, Maleficent is a happy demonic-looking, winged angel-fairy girl attired in peasant browns who soars around the fairy swamp and above the heavenly clouds. She meets a boy who’s come thieving in her dazzling computer-generated Eden populated by glittery little Tinker Bells, jolly elf-frog men and intimidating “Lord of the Rings” Ent-like tree warriors. It seems boy and gal have a perfect love, as treacly as an old after-school television special, that might just unite the estranged fairy land, of which Maleficent is basically princess and protector, and the world of men. The film never makes it clear if all its world of men stuff—as opposed to using the ungendered term “humanity”—is just the usual retrograde fairy tale gender stereotypes or an actual feminist critique of the patriarchy.