MovieChat Forums > Sleeping Beauty (1959) Discussion > The Spinning Wheel

The Spinning Wheel

posted 9 years ago by bl82-1
5 replies | jump to latest

Am I really the only person who notices that the part of the wheel Aurora touches is the distaff, not the spindle?

And, I would really like to know how the country survived for sixteen years without anyone in the land producing cloth or thread. No new blankets, no new clothing, no new tapestries. Every milliner or weaver in the country would have been forced to give up their livelihood. Anything made from cloth would have to be imported (at certainly stuff was, given the quality of Stefan's clothing). That had to have taken a serious financial toll on the country.

[–] jesscejnar 9 years ago

No you're definitely not the only person. Of course I didn't notice until I started spinning about two years ago. Also, the timing is wrong for this particular wheel. It looks like a treadle powered wheel, but those weren't in use until the 1600s or so, and this is the 14th century (1300s). People would have been spinning using great wheels or other spindle-driven wheels or drop spindles.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bl82-1 9 years ago

Well, I've seen some spindles that can prick your finger. Sometimes the shaft has splintered, or the whorl has cracked, or the spindle's just old and dry (and has started to flake off splinters). Or the point of the shaft has been sanded down to a sharp enough point. All of these were on drop spindles though. I've personally never seen a spindle attached to a mother-of-all that's sharp enough to prick anything -- although I'm sure it's possible to make one.

Of course, the whole "pricking one's finger and being wakened by a kiss" could be construed as a sexual innuendo by itself. But that's a conversation for another thread, I think.

[–] mpboylanjr-54038 9 years ago

Are you serious!!! It's an old Disney classic meant for children. It is not meant to be scrutinized like a serious film . Let's be serious here !! If you need to break this children's film down like this (and I'd assume you are older than 15 or so, even though you probably wouldn't know anything about it being that young) you need to get a life.

THERES NO ROOM IN MY CIRCUS TENT FOR YOU !!!!

[–] bl82-1 9 years ago

It's an old Disney classic meant for children. It is not meant to be scrutinized like a serious film

So....what? That just because it's a Disney children's movie, it's not seriously made? Children's movies can be just as serious (and by serious, I mean "the real deal," not somber) and important and masterfully done as movies made for adults.

The distaff and the spindle are two very different parts of a spinning wheel. Disney surely had the resources to research that, and didn't. One can't help but wonder why.