Once Upon A Dream

Sleeping beauty is by far my all time favourite cartoon; actually it’s my favourite film or thing to watch, closely followed by love actually, and Shakespeare in love. I can watch Sleeping Beauty over and over and over again, but unfortunately I don’t own it anymore. Disney has this thing where they discontinue all their classics for 7 years and then release them again for a year, every 7th year I seem to miss it. (Another Easter present suggestion – I will be indebted to you forever).

The story is simple; Princess Aurora was cursed by the wicked fairy – on her 16th birthday she will prick her finger (“chuck” her finger if you like) on a spinning wheel and die, one of the good fairy’s then reverses it and says she will fall into a deep sleep until she is awaken by true loves kiss. Nevertheless Aurora is sent to live in the woods with her 3 fairy god mothers till she is 16 so as to protect her from falling prey to the evil fairy’s curse. Dancing in the woods one day she meets prince charming, the person she has dreamed about forever, and immediately falls in love with him:

“I know you
I walked with you once upon a dream,
I know you
The gleam in your eye is so familiar a gleam,
Yes, I know it’s true
That visions are seldom what they seem,
But I know you; I know what you’ll do,
You’ll love me at once
The way you did ONCE UPON A DREAM”

Yada yada yada, she pricks her finger falls into a deep sleep, prince charming eventually finds her, and gives her true loves kiss, they have a grand wedding and THE END, we hear nothing about the marriage.

This film must be the bible’s equivalent to a lot of Nigerian women. Everybody sha wants to marry prince charming, have a show stopping, grand wedding, the one that they have dreamed of, turtle doves released at “I do”, pews full of important people, all jealous eyes on the groom, all glammed up in their Ellie Saab dress, or in their $5000 per yard lace that they flew to Dubai to hand pick, face painted and eyelashes appended by nobody but Banke Mashida, the party to top all parties will follow, champagne pouring out of every nook and cranny, DJ on point, crowds dancing all night, 1000 Naira notes being sprayed, and the recent vogue is to have a retired American artiste close the night singing some mid-nineties ballad. Or a destination wedding in a garden somewhere, strict crowd control, everyone back home will be waiting to see the exclusive pictures on Bella Naija. But as my friend L.O pointed out, everyone is dreaming about the grand wedding, but she would rather think about the day after. When all your friends leave, your parents kiss you good bye, your siblings do the same, you are alone with this ‘Prince’ hopefully for the rest of your life. For all we know Prince Charming (Philip), may have been a wife beating, drunkaholic, who got sacked from his job, and was collecting the dole. We didn’t need to know, because in the film after the wedding it was THE END, in real life it’s just the BEGINING.

We all dream, but adrift in our foolish dreams, we seem to forget that at some point we will have to wake up, smell the coffee, live with the reality that our dreams led us to (LITERALLY). 4ACES recently posted something about having to edit our ‘lists’, they asked: is this a sign of maturity or is it just settling. I don’t think we have to change our dreams, but we have to also dream about the ever after, and decide what we are ready to compromise. It isn’t settling, but rather its maturity, and above all it is REALISTIC.

Sleeping Beauty will forever be one of my favourite things to watch, but every little girls trouble starts the moment she believes it is an Aurora and Prince Charming story she must have, or nothing.

Xoxo.