The Normalizing of Evil

When I was in Texas, my dad and I had an interesting conversation about Maleficent. I had been dying to see it, and I wanted to take mom. We ended up not going. But I was surprised Dad didn't want to see it. He didn't agree with Hollywood's new take on stories these days. He resented them providing a backstory for evil characters. He maintains there is no justification for evil in mythos. It just is, there are no justifications for evil. It should be vanquished, not understood. I was conflicted with this view. On some level, I agree with him. In horror movies since the 90s, directors wedge backstories in to cast the villain in a sympathetic light, bad childhood etc. Dad says there are plenty of people with awful backstories that manage to lead fulfilliing kind lives, in fact they have been driven by the evil they experience to do good for others. He sees them as excuses not explanations. I see what he was saying.
But it was a damn good movie.
My friend Mary sent me NYTimes article reviewing it. The reviewer brought out some points that Mary and I discussed after the film, but the article didn't explore a lot of themes we found amazing. Ideas of motherhood, sexuality, rape and power that were shocking to see explored in a Disney film. We both loved the feminist take on an old tale.
I think also our definition of evil has evolved over the years. Maybe as a culture we are growing to realize that someone's freedom fighters are other's terrorists. The globalization of social media has stripped us of our ability to see the world as good and evil. Evil is born of past actions taken without the long view of history. I call it bad chickens coming home to roost. Sometimes, you can't dismiss the evil cluckers as not being yours.