News and Information about Sleeping Beauty
Tim Burton to Burtonify Sleeping Beauty?
I think we can all agree this tale is in serious need of a new movie. Angelina Jolie as Maleficent? Awesome!
Read about it!
Read about it!
The Woman who was Aurora
A clip featuring the woman who modeled
as Disney's Aurora AND Cinderella
Wow, I think I'd like that job. "The princess's hair is also changed from dark brown, as in Perrault's original book, to blonde. The princess has been described as Disney's most beautiful heroine and while it has been observed that "comparisons of this statuesque blonde to the contemporaneous Barbie doll are difficult to avoid, all the sequences of the film were first filmed in live action."
Although she was the visual representation of Aurora's graceful form, "Aurora's original character design by Tom Oreb was modeled after the thin, elegant features of actress Audrey Hepburn. Working with Mr. Oreb, Aurora's lead animator, Marc Davis, slightly sharpened her features and clothes to blend with the backgrounds' angular shapes, arriving at the Aurora we see onscreen."
as Disney's Aurora AND Cinderella
Wow, I think I'd like that job. "The princess's hair is also changed from dark brown, as in Perrault's original book, to blonde. The princess has been described as Disney's most beautiful heroine and while it has been observed that "comparisons of this statuesque blonde to the contemporaneous Barbie doll are difficult to avoid, all the sequences of the film were first filmed in live action."
Although she was the visual representation of Aurora's graceful form, "Aurora's original character design by Tom Oreb was modeled after the thin, elegant features of actress Audrey Hepburn. Working with Mr. Oreb, Aurora's lead animator, Marc Davis, slightly sharpened her features and clothes to blend with the backgrounds' angular shapes, arriving at the Aurora we see onscreen."
Disney: Women need not apply
Girl suffers from "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome"
Watch.
Read about it
Interesting, characteristics:
"when awake, the patient’s whole demeanor is changed, often appearing “spacey” or childlike."
"food cravings (compulsive hyperphagia) are exhibited. Instances of uninhibited hyper sexuality during episodes"
"may appear disoriented and report hallucinations" Puts a different spin on "The Maiden Tree," right? Maybe she was just suffering from Kleine-Levin syndrome!
AND "most cases of Kleine-Levin syndrome are seen in teenage boys" Sorry ladies.
Read about it
Interesting, characteristics:
"when awake, the patient’s whole demeanor is changed, often appearing “spacey” or childlike."
"food cravings (compulsive hyperphagia) are exhibited. Instances of uninhibited hyper sexuality during episodes"
"may appear disoriented and report hallucinations" Puts a different spin on "The Maiden Tree," right? Maybe she was just suffering from Kleine-Levin syndrome!
AND "most cases of Kleine-Levin syndrome are seen in teenage boys" Sorry ladies.
Husband's kiss woke "Sleeping Beauty" wife in coma
from: the Daily Mail
After two weeks sitting by his wife's bedside hoping she would wake from a coma, Andrew Ray was at his wits' end. Doctors had told him Emma could become a real-life sleeping beauty when she failed to regain consciousness after a heart attack. The distraught father of two played her tapes of their baby son crying and their daughter shouting 'wake up Mummy!' Finally, in desperation, he leant over her hospital bed and pleaded: 'Emma, if you can hear me, please just give me a kiss.'
'What happened next was beyond my wildest dreams,' he said. 'She turned her head towards mine, puckered up her lips and gave me a little kiss. 'I couldn't believe it. My heart felt like it was going to leap from my chest - it suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted.' The kiss was witnessed by doctors who were astonished by the 34-year-old's sudden response.
Mrs Ray had suffered the heart attack just ten days after giving birth to her son. Her horrified husband had to give her mouth-to-mouth after she collapsed while they were out shopping. She was taken to hospital where doctors were able to restart her heart but warned she could remain in a coma indefinitely. Mr Ray said a doctor told him: 'She could wake up the following day, she could wake up in a month, or you may be left with a sleeping beauty.' The IT consultant from Telford, Shropshire, tried to rouse his wife by playing recordings of their baby son Alexander and toddler Ella.
He said: 'I would play Emma the sounds of Alexander crying and gurgling, Ella singing and shouting "Wake up Mummy!". 'I even played her recordings of the songs we had danced to during our wedding. 'I would speak softly to her, clasp her hand, pinch her fingers, all the time telling her I loved her or begging her to wake up. By the time I asked her to kiss me I was approaching my wits' end.'
However, the kiss was just the start of an agonising battle for Mrs Ray, who continued to drift in and out of consciousness. Her brain had been starved of oxygen when her heart stopped beating and the resulting injury left her with short-term memory loss. Mrs Ray was transferred from the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital to a specialist brain injury rehabilitation unit at the Hayward Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. She was eventually allowed home but now - almost two years later - the former IT consultant still needs ongoing rehabilitation for the brain damage she suffered.
Doctors believe her heart attack may have been caused by a blood clot after her son Alexander, now two, was delivered by Caesarean section. She had been to see a GP the night before her cardiac arrest, complaining of palpitations, but was told it was probably down to a minor infection.
Mrs Ray said: 'The recovery is awful because I have so little memory. 'I would wish above all else to be well, to walk unaided and to have my memory back. I would love to remember what I've done each day. Andrew helps me to do everything. Without him I don't know how I'd cope.' Mr Ray said he was just grateful his wife had survived. He said: 'She can walk quite well holding hands now, and at least our kids still have a mother and I still have a wife.'
After two weeks sitting by his wife's bedside hoping she would wake from a coma, Andrew Ray was at his wits' end. Doctors had told him Emma could become a real-life sleeping beauty when she failed to regain consciousness after a heart attack. The distraught father of two played her tapes of their baby son crying and their daughter shouting 'wake up Mummy!' Finally, in desperation, he leant over her hospital bed and pleaded: 'Emma, if you can hear me, please just give me a kiss.'
'What happened next was beyond my wildest dreams,' he said. 'She turned her head towards mine, puckered up her lips and gave me a little kiss. 'I couldn't believe it. My heart felt like it was going to leap from my chest - it suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted.' The kiss was witnessed by doctors who were astonished by the 34-year-old's sudden response.
Mrs Ray had suffered the heart attack just ten days after giving birth to her son. Her horrified husband had to give her mouth-to-mouth after she collapsed while they were out shopping. She was taken to hospital where doctors were able to restart her heart but warned she could remain in a coma indefinitely. Mr Ray said a doctor told him: 'She could wake up the following day, she could wake up in a month, or you may be left with a sleeping beauty.' The IT consultant from Telford, Shropshire, tried to rouse his wife by playing recordings of their baby son Alexander and toddler Ella.
He said: 'I would play Emma the sounds of Alexander crying and gurgling, Ella singing and shouting "Wake up Mummy!". 'I even played her recordings of the songs we had danced to during our wedding. 'I would speak softly to her, clasp her hand, pinch her fingers, all the time telling her I loved her or begging her to wake up. By the time I asked her to kiss me I was approaching my wits' end.'
However, the kiss was just the start of an agonising battle for Mrs Ray, who continued to drift in and out of consciousness. Her brain had been starved of oxygen when her heart stopped beating and the resulting injury left her with short-term memory loss. Mrs Ray was transferred from the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital to a specialist brain injury rehabilitation unit at the Hayward Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. She was eventually allowed home but now - almost two years later - the former IT consultant still needs ongoing rehabilitation for the brain damage she suffered.
Doctors believe her heart attack may have been caused by a blood clot after her son Alexander, now two, was delivered by Caesarean section. She had been to see a GP the night before her cardiac arrest, complaining of palpitations, but was told it was probably down to a minor infection.
Mrs Ray said: 'The recovery is awful because I have so little memory. 'I would wish above all else to be well, to walk unaided and to have my memory back. I would love to remember what I've done each day. Andrew helps me to do everything. Without him I don't know how I'd cope.' Mr Ray said he was just grateful his wife had survived. He said: 'She can walk quite well holding hands now, and at least our kids still have a mother and I still have a wife.'
"The Sleeping Girl of Turville"
"Ellen Sadler (May 15, 1859 – after 1901), sometimes called The Sleeping Girl of Turville, was a resident of the United Kingdom. In 1871, aged eleven, she purportedly fell asleep and did not wake for nine years. Born to a large, impoverished family of farm workers, Ellen was sent to work as a nursemaid at the age of eleven. Soon afterwards, she began suffering periods of drowsiness and was referred to a local hospital. After four months her condition was declared incurable, and she was sent home. Two days later, Ellen had a series of seizures and—her mother claimed—fell into a deep sleep from which she could not be roused. By March 1873, Ellen was believed to be suffering from starvation. At first, she had largely subsisted on port, tea and milk, given three times per day. After about 15 months Ellen's jaw locked closed. Subsequently, according to Hayman, she was fed "wine, gruel and other things" using the "spout of a toy teapot inserted between two broken teeth. How the family dealt with Ellen's passing of urine and feces is unclear, but in 1880, Hayman said that Ann Frewen told him that no bowel movements had occurred for five years, and that approximately every four days 'a somewhat large amount would pass from the bladder.'"
So the real-life issues of being a Sleeping Beauty are NOT so glamorous. But, one visitor described her thus:
"The girl's face is by no means cadaverous. There is flesh on the cheeks, which have a pinkish tint, and there is some colour in the thin lips. The eyes are calmly closed, as though in healthy sleep. I ventured to raise one of the lids and touch the eye beneath ... but there was not even a quivering of the eyelash. ... The girl's [hand] was quite warm and moist, and the finger nails were neatly trimmed. The fingers are not the least bit stiffened ... [Her feet were] almost ice-cold. ... As regards the child's breathing, it is so feeble that it is almost impossible to detect it; you cannot feel it by holding the cheek to her mouth, and the only faintest flutter is felt when the hand is laid over the region of the heart."
"Ellen became a tourist attraction for the village, and her family made considerable money from visitors' donations. As the years progressed with no sign of Ellen's waking, speculation grew that her illness was either a hoax or caused by her mother, an issue that was never resolved. In late 1880, soon after her mother's death, Ellen awoke. She later married and had at least five children."
If it was not a hoax, it was suggested it could be a rare disease known as catalepsy:
"Symptoms include: rigid body, rigid limbs, limbs staying in same position when moved, no response, loss of muscle control, and slowing down of bodily functions, such as breathing."
So the real-life issues of being a Sleeping Beauty are NOT so glamorous. But, one visitor described her thus:
"The girl's face is by no means cadaverous. There is flesh on the cheeks, which have a pinkish tint, and there is some colour in the thin lips. The eyes are calmly closed, as though in healthy sleep. I ventured to raise one of the lids and touch the eye beneath ... but there was not even a quivering of the eyelash. ... The girl's [hand] was quite warm and moist, and the finger nails were neatly trimmed. The fingers are not the least bit stiffened ... [Her feet were] almost ice-cold. ... As regards the child's breathing, it is so feeble that it is almost impossible to detect it; you cannot feel it by holding the cheek to her mouth, and the only faintest flutter is felt when the hand is laid over the region of the heart."
"Ellen became a tourist attraction for the village, and her family made considerable money from visitors' donations. As the years progressed with no sign of Ellen's waking, speculation grew that her illness was either a hoax or caused by her mother, an issue that was never resolved. In late 1880, soon after her mother's death, Ellen awoke. She later married and had at least five children."
If it was not a hoax, it was suggested it could be a rare disease known as catalepsy:
"Symptoms include: rigid body, rigid limbs, limbs staying in same position when moved, no response, loss of muscle control, and slowing down of bodily functions, such as breathing."
Maleficent Beauty?
"Bad people need to feel pretty too. And now – through a new collection from MAC Cosmetics based on Disney’s villains – even the most evil of you out there can emulate the looks of animated antagonists. The line will be called Venomous Villains." Think red lips and peach-hued blushes for Cruella and The Evil Queen, while Doctor Facilier and Maleficent are fashion-forward palettes in purple and black.
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Want to dress like a modern-day Beauty?
Visit this website if you are looking to incorporate more affordable princess looks into your wardrobe!
Blogger uses the tale to aid in Rape Awareness month
(Visit the blog here)
"...when the king beheld Talia, who seemed to be enchanted, he believed that she was asleep, and he called her, but she remained unconscious. Crying aloud, he beheld her charms and felt his blood course hotly through his veins. He lifted her in his arms, and carried her to a bed, where he gathered the first fruits of love. Leaving her on the bed, he returned to his own kingdom, where, in the pressing business of his realm, he for a time thought no more about this incident."
From "Sun, Moon, and Talia", by Giambattista Basile.
* * *
If you've read my last book, you'll probably recognize Talia's name and backstory. There are a number of reasons I chose this piece of the Sleeping Beauty story to use in my own books, as opposed to one of the less unpleasant versions. One of the most important reasons was the paragraph above, because it's a story I've heard so many times before. Because this is something men* still do.
Not all men. Not even a majority of men. But too many. I know far too many women who were ripped awake by a man raping them. By a roommate. By a friend who crashed at her place after a party. Even by a total stranger, though stranger rapes are less common.
Men who then return to their own kingdom, thinking no more about the incident. Which forces me to ask, What the hell is wrong with us?
Let me make this as clear as I can, since so many of us seem unable to comprehend.
Often when I get to this point, people (men) will come back with "What if?" questions. "What if she was flirting with you before she went to sleep?" "What if you used to go out?" "What if...?" One after another, every question trying to chip away at the rules, to blur the boundaries and invent gray areas where those rules can be violated.
Consent means knowing what you and the other person want. Not guessing. Not assuming. Knowing. If you have to ask "What if?" it means you don't know, and if you don't know, the default answer is no until the other person says otherwise. You keep your hands to yourself unless and until you're invited to do differently. My four-year-old knows that. Why can't the rest of us get it through our heads?
In the fairy tale, it's not the man who rapes Talia who is the villain. The real villain of the story is the man's evil wife. (Oh yes, did I mention he's married?) The man did nothing wrong. Because he has a right to use whatever woman he chooses. Because it's the woman's job to stop the man from raping her, not the man's job to control himself. Because rape is a women's issue, and not our problem.
How long before men step up and take more responsibility to put an end to rape? Before we start teaching our children what consent means, and how to have a healthy relationship instead of a competitive/predatory one? Before we start calling one another out on the kind of sexist and abusive behaviors that encourage predation and assault?
Basile wrote this tale about 400 years ago. How sad is it that Talia's story is still so familiar today?
"...when the king beheld Talia, who seemed to be enchanted, he believed that she was asleep, and he called her, but she remained unconscious. Crying aloud, he beheld her charms and felt his blood course hotly through his veins. He lifted her in his arms, and carried her to a bed, where he gathered the first fruits of love. Leaving her on the bed, he returned to his own kingdom, where, in the pressing business of his realm, he for a time thought no more about this incident."
From "Sun, Moon, and Talia", by Giambattista Basile.
* * *
If you've read my last book, you'll probably recognize Talia's name and backstory. There are a number of reasons I chose this piece of the Sleeping Beauty story to use in my own books, as opposed to one of the less unpleasant versions. One of the most important reasons was the paragraph above, because it's a story I've heard so many times before. Because this is something men* still do.
Not all men. Not even a majority of men. But too many. I know far too many women who were ripped awake by a man raping them. By a roommate. By a friend who crashed at her place after a party. Even by a total stranger, though stranger rapes are less common.
Men who then return to their own kingdom, thinking no more about the incident. Which forces me to ask, What the hell is wrong with us?
Let me make this as clear as I can, since so many of us seem unable to comprehend.
- Letting you crash on the couch does not equal consent.
- Drunk and passed out does not equal consent.
- Roommate sharing a house/apartment does not equal consent.
- Unconsciousness does not equal consent.
Often when I get to this point, people (men) will come back with "What if?" questions. "What if she was flirting with you before she went to sleep?" "What if you used to go out?" "What if...?" One after another, every question trying to chip away at the rules, to blur the boundaries and invent gray areas where those rules can be violated.
Consent means knowing what you and the other person want. Not guessing. Not assuming. Knowing. If you have to ask "What if?" it means you don't know, and if you don't know, the default answer is no until the other person says otherwise. You keep your hands to yourself unless and until you're invited to do differently. My four-year-old knows that. Why can't the rest of us get it through our heads?
In the fairy tale, it's not the man who rapes Talia who is the villain. The real villain of the story is the man's evil wife. (Oh yes, did I mention he's married?) The man did nothing wrong. Because he has a right to use whatever woman he chooses. Because it's the woman's job to stop the man from raping her, not the man's job to control himself. Because rape is a women's issue, and not our problem.
How long before men step up and take more responsibility to put an end to rape? Before we start teaching our children what consent means, and how to have a healthy relationship instead of a competitive/predatory one? Before we start calling one another out on the kind of sexist and abusive behaviors that encourage predation and assault?
Basile wrote this tale about 400 years ago. How sad is it that Talia's story is still so familiar today?