Ok say what you will about Maleficent (2014) as a remake or whether it’s a good villain ‘origin story’ or not or how it’s a flawed retelling or whatever-
But, this movie is always going to have a special place in my heart as and AroAce person. Like, not only does the ‘main romance’ get maybe five minutes of screen time total and becomes a little red herring and mostly irrelevant, BUT the movie also has a huge focus on the platonic love and relationship between Maleficent and Aurora, AND on top of that, it’s that platonic love that saves Aurora from the sleeping curse at the end, not the romantic relationship.
Right now that might not seem very revolutionary, but back in 2014, fantasy and fairytale movies, and ones coming from Disney no less- having a story like this was a huge deal, especially to me as an Aromatic and Asexual person.
I remember when the movie first came out I was 11 or 12 (hadn’t discovered the queer community or the terms aro or ace yet) and starting to realize my peers were having crushes and such and felt confused and alone that I didn’t- and then this movie came out and so many of the people around me were baffled by the idea of a non-romantic love taking center stage and saving the day in a fairytale movie from Disney. I swear I watched this movie so many times during that age because it helped me feel that maybe, just maybe I wasn’t broken for not being interested in romance.
(context: I’m rewatching the movie and when I dove into the tag for this movie on tumblr, I was severely disappointed that no one was talking about this specifically and mostly had negative things to say about the movie overall)