Seeping Booty: The Bizarre But True Tale of Maleficent’s Real Magic

photo 1 (70)When Abby, my oldest, was a toddler, she couldn’t get enough Sleeping Beauty in her life and watched the Disney movie, the way toddlers do, over and over and over again – and over again – slamming her sippy cup on the TV when I failed to rewind the tape in the VHS player with a speed that met her expectations. Oh, Modern Mamas with your instantaneous DVD magic! May you never know the pain of prolonged rewinding.

Now, when Abby was 2, she couldn’t pronounce Sleeping Beauty, and so she called Aurora “Seeping Booty,” instead, which is, of course, a leaking butt and always made me think of the beautiful princess Aurora with a terrible, terrible case of diarrhea. Just horrible. The kind that leaves you chalky and pale and doubled over with pain and sure – sure – that you are about to DIE on the toilet, or, worse, pass out and soil yourself and have to live to face the person who finds you. There’s just… nothing beautiful about that. Nothing.

It changes the movie entirely once you consider it from the Seeping Booty perspective, to think of Aurora laid out on that bed, pale and lifeless from a dreadful case of the runs, the finger pricked on the spinning wheel a mere coincidence on which Maleficent capitalized in order to further her reputation as a wicked practitioner of the most nefarious magicks, instead of the truth, which is this: Maleficent is a just an accomplished food poisoner akin to the witch in Snow White who worked her spell on an apple.

And, really, let’s think of Maleficent for just one minute and how it might shape you to be born into a family of benevolent fairies only to discover your one magical gift is to cause people gastrointestinal discomfort. What would you do? Who would you become? Not so easy to casually dismiss Maleficent now, is it? And what if Maleficent’s gift applies not just to others, but also to herself? Wouldn’t a lifelong case of the craps explain the gauntness? The razor-blade cheekbones (even Angelina had to wear prosthetic cheekbones to play her)? The cruel disposition? The giant, fire-breathing dragon, which is obviously a metaphor for the trots, which drag on and drag on and drag-on… DRAG ON. Dragon. Right?

I don’t know. I don’t mean to be critical here, but I think Disney could’ve done a better historical job of making Maleficent a sympathetic character all along by simply divulging this information about her, rather than waiting for a 2-year-old to ferret it out. Of course, I haven’t seen the new Maleficent movie yet, so they probably corrected this gross oversight and I just spoiled the entire thing. 

photo 2 (76)P.S. This post is utterly pointless, FYI, and it occurs to me now I might’ve warned you of that at the beginning. Sorry about that. It’s just that Abby is recovering from foot surgery, which means she’s hopped up on narcotics, unlimited Disney movies, and a general but determined aura of patheticness, and she fell asleep watching Sleeping Beauty the other day which made me happy and maudlin at the same time to remember our Seeping Booty days, and now you’re stuck with this drivel. You’re welcome. It’s what I do.

Sleeping Beauty

P.P.S. Abby used to call Clifford the Big Red Dog, “Bullshit.” I thought you should know.

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13 responses to “Seeping Booty: The Bizarre But True Tale of Maleficent’s Real Magic”

  1. When my 3 year old says Winnie The Pooh it comes out sounding like “Wunny de Poo” (or Runny the Poo) which makes me laugh on the inside everytime.

  2. My daughter called a certain Disney movie “Booby Beast.” I had/have a very hard time not cracking up. Her title gives a whole new spin on Belle & Beast’s story.
    Hope Abby continues to heal well. I haven’t had to do kid surgery yet; we’ve gone through lots with my hubby though. It’s not easy to be the caretaker; hope you get some rest.

  3. Upfront warning: maybe TMI, but I’m guessing I’m in good company 🙂 Sooo..since I’m having a seeping booty day, I just decided to bring my 3 month old and my phone along and hang out in the bathroom for a while. Thought it would be a good time to catch up on your blog. I couldn’t have been more right, lol! Thank you as always for sharing!! 😀

  4. And here I thought this post was going to have something to do with a weeping foot after said surgery. Glad it’s not that bad!

  5. Thank you for making me giggle. Although DVDs are better for instant rewinds, we literally wore our Cinderella DVD out. It keeps skipping bits and freezing and losing the sound all of which require Mummy to use her technical expertise (press stop, press play again) AND I have never worked out how to skip the adverts which either lead to “I wish I had that film” or are too scary for a sensitive daughter. I am guessing that my 6yo will grow out of Disney princesses just when the 10mo grows into them so only another 8 years to go.

    Glad that you are feeling better after your imaginary trip to Mexico. I really hope that Abby starts feeling better soon. I had foot surgery as a grown up person and it was so much more miserable than I anticipated. Which is why I have never gone back to find out why the foot has continued to hurt for 8 years….

    Keep breathing!

  6. You are too funny.
    Gabe used to call Snuffalupagus “Deeba.” In the Elmo DVD that was played INCESSANTLY in our house when he was a baby, there is a segment where Elmo plays the piano and sings Elmo’s song. Then Big Bird’s song, etc. Since Snuffy is so big, when it was time to sing Snuffy’s song, he said, “Staaaaand Baack!” Which translates to Deeba in baby.
    He also used to say Sharp Bite for Shoprite, and “thanked you” which melted my heart every single time.

  7. Too funny! I loved the belated “warning” at the end about the pointlessness of the post, but since the real point is to share your life and amuse/inspire/provoke/entertain others in the process, I’d say it was just fine! Our 3-year old granddaughter was all about Maleficent yesterday and I was, like, huh? What are you talking about? Clearly I need some remedial Disney training. (I only caught on to Frozen’s “Let It Go” a couple of weeks ago when she started relentlessly belting out that one line and I found the YouTube video just so I could figure out what she was singing. A whole world of Frozen cultural references that have completely passed me by these past months suddenly make sense!) I’m a lurker, but a regular reader so just thought I’d take a moment to say I love your blog!
    –arden–

  8. LOL!!! Loved this! PS: Couldn’t stand my name growing up. No one back then was familiar with Sleeping Beauty and everyone thought that my name was Cinderella’s real name. But my mother loved Sleeping Beauty and thus my name. My middle is Rhiannon because I was more than likely the result of a Fleetwood Mac concert. My parents were very upset that they missed the whole hippy thing and took it out on my brothers and myself. 🙂

  9. So fun. And it’s fun that you got to reminisce about this today, regardless of the reason. It reminds me that my daughter used to call a certain group of princesses Rella, Bella, and Booty. I’m sure you can guess who she was referring to 🙂

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