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Author
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Comment
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natalie
Unregistered User
(5/13/02 6:33:32 pm)
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disneyfication of classic fairytales
hey ,
i'm writing a paper on the effects of the disneyfication of classic fairytales. It will include topics such as: what was the orginal purpose of a fairytale, and is that purpose still being fulfilled by the disney version? what changes have taken way from the effectiveness of fairytales? does the commercial aspect have an influence on the type of motion pictures disney produces? and is the "globalness" of the disney versions a positive or negative thing?
any insight you might be able to offer would be greatly appreciated (and very interestin for other readers, i am sure)
thank you!
-natalie
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jennifer
Registered User
(5/14/02 7:58:04 am)
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Re: disneyfication of classic fairytales
hi natalie~
i have been working on a thesis concerning the role of women in fairy tales so i think i can help you a little bit. first, what would be most helpful for you would be to check out a few books. Sheldon Cashdan's The Witch Must Die: How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives would be very helpful. It contains a chapter about The Little Mermaid that seems to cover what you need. Briefly, the moral of the original tale was the evils of lust. The mermaid lusts after the prince before she is sexually mature enough to "handle him." In the original version, the prince does not choose her and she dies in the end while the sea witch lives. In Disney's version, the moral is completely lost because the mermaid lives, she's picked by the prince, and the sea witch dies. Disney has ommitted the moral that lust is destructive.
On the other hand, Disney has tried to make its heroines independent, yet the tales still teach the same values. A prime example is Beauty and the Beast. Beauty, in the movie, seems so independent yet in the end she is still dependent on a man (beast) to take her away from her boring "provincial" town. Jack Zipes goes into more detail on this idea in his book Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale.
Susan J. Douglas' Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media also has a decent chapter exploring Disney's use of fairytales. I hope all this is useful to you~good luck!
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Gregor9
Registered User
(5/14/02 8:38:03 am)
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Re: disneyfication of classic fairytales
On a more obvious plane, perhaps, the Disney approach inherently corrupts the shape of the original story. In any instance you can think of, the heroine (most of Disney's renderings are of stories of a female character) is forced to take on a collection of cute talking animal/object helpers. The nature of this particular aspect of Disneyfication means that some of the things the character would have done/discovered on her own in the stories must now occur through the assistance of the the mice/birds/teapots/lobsters, etc.
Elsewhere on the board someone has asked about whether or not we writers who have retold fairy tales in some way consider that we've transgressed in altering the stories. Possibly so, but most if not all of us were thinking pretty hard about what was going on in the original stories. We hope at least to bind what we're doing to the original subtext. I have no sense of Disney writers being the slightest bit concerned with whether or not they are really telling the same story at all; and so the films become hit-and-miss propositions. Some will catch the essence of the originals, or bits of the essence; others will offer a surface that appears to be the fairy tale, but with the content and perhaps context stripped away entirely.
Greg
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Jess
Unregistered User
(5/14/02 8:57:35 am)
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Disney
Last year the board touched on the "happily ever after" aspect of Disney versions of tales. Jennifer touches upon this with her little mermaid discussion, but there is something more. Most fairy tales involve some aspect of sacrifice, retribution, revenge or physical justice which is completely ignored in the Disney versions. This aspect makes the hero/heroines' characters less flat, more dimensional. It also fits into the real world where one does not merely forgive and forget. As many of the evil characters in the real fairy tales have either supernatural powers or are nobility, they would have fallen outside of existing criminal law. Hence, we often see nature punishing evil (i.e. Cinderella) - or alternatively, one of equal birth status (i.e. Snow White).
Just some thoughts.
Jess
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swanchick
Registered User
(5/14/02 2:09:12 pm)
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Cute little animal helpers, etc.
A good point has been made about the heroine being helped by her
cute little singing animals or whatever, rather than solving problems
on her own--but there were classic fairy tales in which the heroine
was helped, as well. The difference is that usually, in the old
versions, the helpers give their aid because the heroine has done
a kindness to them in the past. And, they don't sing. But Psyche
has her ants, and Cinderella her birds, and Vasilisa her mother's
doll.
swanchick
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Gregor9
Registered User
(5/15/02 5:04:00 am)
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Re: Cute little animal helpers, etc.
Swanchick,
Granted there are helpers in fairy tales, both human and animal. But they are, as you say, integrated into the story. They personify the rewards of leading a decent existence, respectful of other life (gee, maybe we should make Bush and Cheney read fairy tales). The selfish mistreat or disregard the helpers, the kind hero or heroine does not, and in the end gains some essential thing from these creatures which aids in the success of their endeavor (and therein lies my sense of a cautionary tale element embedded in the story).
Disney's helpers are stapled onto the story, and as near as I can tell it's mainly in order to sell Happy Meals.
Greg
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isthmus
nekoi
Registered User
(5/15/02 8:35:25 am)
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Re: Cute little animal helpers, etc.
Natalie, what an interesting question! What is the purpose of fairy tales?.... I think one of the most important functions of a fairy tale is the ability to speak about taboo or unexplored subjects in an allegorical form and imparting ways to deal w/these unknowns or unspokens...
My first reaction towards Disney was: no way. Disney fairy tales don't do this at all!! But then I was at a student's house and she was watching The Little Mermaid, telling me how much she loved the film... I started thinking about TLM in a historical context...
Here we have a Father w/a whole bunch of silly little girls. No mention of a mother. The autonomous, older female has been ostracized from society and is now the evil character (and she's not even a mermaid!). This film was made at a time where sex roles were being changed and the whole idea of the "90's Woman" was coming to the fore.... I'm sure there was a lot of anxiety (for both men and women) concerning women's roles in society, and being anxious about the 90's gal or being opposed to her might be viewed as 'old-fashioned' etc. Here she is demonized in an acceptable form b/c we couldn't openly talk about it (or admit to it)...
Having said that, many fairy tales offer new ways of perceiving things and dealing w/those unknowns - ways to solve a neurosis or imbalance if you will - and I still feel Disney doesn't offer this. In TLM, Ursula is killed and Ariel is quickly married off. I think her last words are something like: I love you, daddy. She's not a mermaid anymore but still a little girl who loves her daddy. Cute.
As for the globalness of Disney films, I'm not sure what you mean. I find the older versions are more universal. Unless you mean that Disney films have such a wide distribution?....
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