Read QuillandQwerty's Fairy Tale Paper!

Fellow blogger and fairy tale friend, known on the internet as amo, started her blog quillandqwerty as she was researching for her thesis. It's finally done and ready for public reading-if you hop on over to her blog and follow the instructions.

I have very much enjoyed reading the interesting tidbits she's shared with us and very sad that, now that the paper is done, she won't be blogging about fairy tales any more :(. 

But I highly recommend taking the time to read her paper-it's definitely longer than the average blog post, at 47 pages of text. Titled "Once Upon a Movie Screen: Four Favorite Fairy Tales and Their Disney Film Adaptations," the paper explores the history of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Frog Prince; from the classic older versions to their respective Disney films. I really appreciate her balanced approach; amo avoids the tendency to either hate on Disney or to be too defensive, but to really look at the cultures in which the various versions of the fairy tales were produced, and show how each version, from Perrault to Grimm to Disney, was a reflection of the culture.

There are so many fascinating things in the paper. As obsessed as I've always been with Disney's BATB even I learned many new things. Just one example:

Remember the scene in Cinderella when she feeds the chickens? In the whole film, we see Cinderella doing many domestic chores, and always singing sweetly and appearing like there's nothing else in the world she would rather be doing. When she does many of her cleaning tasks, she puts a scarf around her hair.

Beauty and the Beast, made 40 years later, was a much more feminist film. This heroine longs for adventure and loves to read. Rather than waiting for a prince to come find her, she turns down her suitor and ends up becoming the role of the rescuer, rather than rescued, as she finds love. In fact, we never see her do any domestic chores at all, with one exception: after Gaston proposes, she goes outdoors and begins to feed the chickens, like her predecessor Cinderella.

But her attitude is completely opposite. Not cheerful and complacent, Belle sings about how ridiculous it would be to be Gaston's "little wife" in his old-fashioned picture of domestic bliss. She even, at one point, briefly throws a scarf around her head, like Cinderella, but it's a mockery; in the end, she never even finishes the chore, running off to the fields to sing about longing for adventure.

LOTR, Fairy Tales, Humanity, and Hope

Tony and I got to go to Ravinia last night to see Lord of the Rings: Return of the King with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing the soundtrack live. It's a great experience-we had gone last year to "Two Towers" and knew we wanted to return for the final movie of the trilogy.

In addition to hearing the music live and up close, which really made me notice the musical motifs more than I normally would have, the great thing about seeing this epic movie in such surroundings is to feel the bond with the other people in the audience. Much like if you go to see a midnight showing of a movie, people would break into clapping at significant parts of the plot-and being such an enthusiastic audience, and a movie where so many brave choices were made in the face of danger and so many victories were finally won, there was a lot of spontaneous clapping.

It was just cool to be a part of that crowd. All the other people there last night came from totally different backgrounds-we had different religions and political beliefs, and different worldview philosophies. Yet we were united with complete strangers over some of the most fundamental human things-applauding fictional characters for their courage, and being joyful together when a battle was won and when the characters received the honor they deserved.

I've also been thinking lately about the whole debate around whether or not it's dangerous for so many stories to end happily-does it really give us false hopes or fail to set us up for real life? But here's the thing about fiction vs. reality: Any good story will have dark aspects of it, just like life. We've discussed this with fairy tales time and time again. Lord of the Rings is very dark. No one is claiming that LOTR gives people the impression that life is all sunshine and rainbows and perfect, despite its happy, "storybook" ending. (Yet strangely, people have come to the conclusion that fairy tales-the most famous of which involve abuse, attempted murder, and violence among other things, somehow do promote a sunshine and rainbows worldview).

Yet the main difference is, fictional stories end. The creator makes a conclusion which, whether or not he or she intends it, communicates a certain philosophy to the reader-is life pointlessly depressing? Is there reason to hope? But life itself doesn't end. Even when we eventually die, we have left a legacy. All the people we've interacted with, the causes we fought for-we made a difference in the world, however small (and what I love about LOTR and fairy tales is how often the most insignificant characters-the youngest child in a peasant family, the little hobbits who are warned that they are not fit for battle, end up being key in victory). To borrow from Walt Whitman: "The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."

Walter Crane

Where you end a story makes a statement, but does it show the whole picture? What if Snow White ended with her still trapped unconscious sleep? What if Cinderella ended with the false bride, her stepsister riding off with the prince? What if a World War II movie ended when Hitler was still gaining power? On the other hand-what if Andersen's Little Mermaid, the most famous depressing fairy tale ending, didn't end with her becoming a spirit of the air and a warning against children behaving badly, but went on to describe the good deeds she witnessed in the world and her eventual gaining of a soul and living a new life? Often even a depressing end is really just the conclusion of a chapter-the great Story goes on. Even the most tragic events have some form of redeeming value to them-if nothing else, then to serve to educate future generations. Maybe happy endings to stories don't have to give us an unrealistic idea of what life will be like, but can help us to view our struggles as part of a larger picture.

In current thinking, we are increasingly being told not to accept a certain morality just because it's been handed down to us, but to discover our own. This independence can be thrilling, but it often comes with stress, ambiguity, and disagreement. This very phenomenon is why, in part, we are exploring fairy tales in so many different ways-questioning the strict good and evil and looking into the character and motivations of the villains (like Maleficent). This is all wonderful, it's so good to delve into fairy tales and look at them in new ways, and to apply our critical thinking to the stories.

But sometimes, especially in light of all the tough decisions we face when trying to decide what is right for ourselves and our country, we crave that good old-fashioned hero riding in on a white horse. Sometimes fantasy-whether an epic tale like LOTR or a well-known fairy tale-unites people together in a way that very few things do. When controversial issues become so divisive, in traditional fairy tales we find common enemies and common values that reunite us. And sometimes, especially in light of all the war and disease and horrible things going on across the globe today, we need to be reminded that there is hope. Not assurance that it will all turn out exactly as we want, but assurance that it's worth fighting for justice anyway. We can't possibly know what's going to happen or how our chapter will end, but our darkest hour is not the end of the story-the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse...

Fairy Tale Photography of Viona Ielegems

"I love fairy tales because they are so realistic: we all face wolves and want to go to the ball. Their realism is on another level, a symbolic level. But they are fundamentally about what we fear and desire. That is why they have lasted so long and are continually rewritten. They are about the deepest, most fundamental part of ourselves." -Theodora Goss

Photography by Viona Ielegems and poetry by Theodora Goss were featured in the latest issue of Faerie Magazine. I included mainly recognizable fairy tale photographs in here, but Viona's site has many more fairy and fantasy inspired shoots, often dark and creepy.

The Uninvited Fairy

People are still intrigued by the history of Maleficent, (which is wonderful!) and I myself was curious after reading more reviews about where the whole idea of an offended, uninvited fairy from Sleeping Beauty came from. It's frankly one of the reasons that Sleeping Beauty seems, to me, to be less powerful than the similar Snow White; the struggle for women who are told by culture and/or by specific people in their lives that their worth is due mainly to their beauty and sexual allure is something very prevalent for women today as well, and why I think it's important to ponder the witch's question to the mirror on the wall and the implications it carries for us today. In comparison, the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty seems petty, and the only conflict seems boiled down to etiquette.

Edward Frederick Brewtnall

Most older Sleeping Beauty tales did not have a slighted fairy who was not invited to a party; the Princess' fate was foretold but she was not spitefully cursed. It wasn't until Perrault's tale that the motif became associated with the tale. Perrault came from a world of class distinctions and court manners. In many cases he poked fun at the aristocracy in his tales. Given his propensity for satire, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't mean for the fairy's motivation to be taken so seriously.

Harry Clarke

Yet, the slighted fairy is not completely without precedent. From Kate Forsyth:
"The uninvited fairy motif goes back to Greek mythology when he goddess Eris is not invited to a wedding, but arrives anyway, and throws the Golden Apple of Discord amongst the other goddesses with the inscription ‘For the Fairest’ which causes an argument over whom should claim it, and leads to the Trojan War."

From Wikipedia:

in "chanson de geste Les Prouesses et faitz du noble Huon de Bordeaux: the elf-king Oberon appears only dwarfish in height, and explains to Huon that an angry fairy cursed him to that size at his christening."

Walter Crane

Yet these instances aren't from Sleeping Beauty tales. In one variant, The Glass Coffin, the curse was given by a traveler who was offended when the beautiful girl wouldn't marry him.

And despite its likely tongue-in-cheek flavor from Perrault, the idea of being rejected by society or left out by your friends is still not something to take lightly. What comes to your mind when you read the episode of the uninvited fairy?

Fairy Tales in Context: 20th Century America

"It is not always well to place
Unbounded Faith in Fairy Lore,
Believing that in every case
They all lived Happy evermore.

Stranger than Fiction though we deem
The Truth, it does not follow, too,
That Fairy Tales, because they seem
Still Stranger, must be still more True.

Far be it from me to assail
The Truthfulness of Fairy Writ,
But let us take a Well-Known Tale
And see what really came of it."

So begins the preface to the fairy tale parody "The Fairy Godmother-in-law" by Oliver Herford, which continues after Cinderella and the Prince get married. (Full text of the poem can be read here). From 1905, it challenges the ideas of love at first sight and happily ever after, even going into the complications of the fairy godmother making herself too much at home in the castle afterwards.

One of the issues I come across when looking into fairy tales is not understanding the context in which they were written.  It seems all the rage now to turn fairy tales "upside down"-turning heroes into villains and vice versa, and subverting the traditional stereotypes. In fact it can be difficult to find straight-up traditional fairy tales being created any more. Yet we seem to think this is a recent phenomenon, but questioning the old-fashioned ideals has been around for over a hundred years, as the above poem illustrates.

Take Disney for instance: so often people criticize the older Princess films for the passivity of the heroines, among other things. But on the other hand, as some people (including myself) have pointed out, when we consider the time period they were being made in (Snow White in the 30s, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty in the 50s), it's really not surprising. The world, and gender expectations, were very different back then. Consider: the nineteenth amendment, which gave women the right to vote, wasn't ratified until 1920-only 17 years before Snow White.

Yet the world was not completely constrained by traditions, even in the early 20th century. Jack Zipes points out that, to contrast to Snow White and her passivity and innocence, Tex Avery's independent and sexually liberated Red Riding Hood appeared right around the same time. Yet, though this Red is not afraid of the Wolf and can take care of herself, Catherine Orenstein thinks (and I agree) that the overall message is still a backwards one-that women's value is found mainly in sexual appeal. Plus, the culture at large reacted in different ways. Children would have seen it when they went to the cinema, but  parts of the film were censored, such as the wolf's lustful reactions to Red Rot Riding Hood performing.

The 1940s, the time of Rosie the Riveter and women patriotically leaving the home to do what was traditionally considered "men's work" for the sake of their country, interestingly produced no princess movies at Disney studios. In 1950 Cinderella made her appearance, followed by Sleeping Beauty in '56. The thing that is often hard for me to wrap my mind around is that, while some women did resent being reconfined to their homes after proving they could do other work, overall the country experienced a period where the ideal was traditional, domestic bliss. And really, I doubt if most of the women who worked in factories considered that to be their dream job, in addition to juggling raising kids as, essentially, single working moms. In a way it would have been nice to return to "normalcy". 

When I think of the most stereotypical and least liberated view of marriage, I picture the 50s housewife (in fact, read this for a very interesting interview with a 50s housewife and her reflecting on that time. It's much more complex than just "good" or "bad".) But is it any surprise that, in a time where American women were told it was their duty to obey their husbands, taking care of house and children, and it was the normal and acceptable thing to do, that females from Hollywood continued in their similar roles?

I was raised on reruns of "I Love Lucy" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show". I still enjoy rewatching some of the Dick van Dyke episodes, but I was amazed to watch them later in life and see how they too promote the image that the wife should stay at home and obey her husband. Season 1, episode 5 of the Dick van Dyke show features a conflict in which somehow Rob's decision to go on a business trip or see his son in a school play turns into a debate between being independent or controlled by his wife, and it ends with him making a big speech about the man being the head of his household, to applause from the other businessmen in the airplane with him (this aired in 1961).

 But even though it seems incredibly backwards from our perspective, Van Dyke was actually making progress. The Lucy Show, which ran in the 50s, features a housewife who wants to be a performer but is foolish and completely incapable, truly needing a grounding, stable husband to get her out of all of her ridiculous messes. The famous chocolate scene is part of an episode which basically says that women are foolish for ever wanting to work outside of the home.

At least Laura Petrie, the wife in Van Dyke, was a capable mother who was actually a very successful dancer before she got married. Although multiple episodes enforce certain stereotypes (women should still stay home and take care of the family, women are insatiably curious) she is shown as more of an equal partner to her husband and not essentially another child who can't do anything right. Mary Tyler Moore went on to play an even more independent, working, single woman in the next decade in the Mary Tyler Moore show. 

The fact is, no matter how groundbreaking or progressive certain versions of fairy tales were in the first part of the century, from Oliver Herford in 1905 (who also did a parody of Sleeping Beauty, in which the Prince wants to be a poet but is so bad only he can put the Princess to sleep) to Tex Avery, to the collection of stories Peter Llewelyn Davies published in the 1934s, The Fairies Return-what most influences the public and our conception of fairy tales is what is mainstream.  Blockbuster movies and best-selling books reach the majority and create a picture of our culture, and reveal what we most want to pay for.

After "Sleeping Beauty", Disney studios went a while without producing any Princess films or fairy tales until "Little Mermaid" in 1989. I personally dislike the messages in this movie more than any other Disney, especially given the context and the original source, however, "Beauty and the Beast" in '91 brought a whole new wave of more feminist Princesses. And really it's been in recent years that Hollywood and Disney have brought us something new-subverted fairy tales in mainstream media. We now have sword-weilding Snow Whites, romantic wolves, mystery-solving Grimm descendants, and a whole mashup of fairy tale characters living in Storybrooke and continually challenging our preconceptions of old plots and characters.

And now, we have a recent string of Disney movies that continue to push boundaries-not of fairy tales in general, but of mainstream fairy tales; versions that will make significant impacts on how people view and think of fairy tales. Maybe a kiss isn't the ultimate act of true love; maybe villains are more complex and sympathetic than we thought. (We'll have to wait and see what message comes across from "Into the Woods" after the edits).

Context is very complex. Though we can generalize a culture, obviously not everyone thought exactly the same way. I can try reading as much as possible about an era but it's still not the same understanding as someone who lived through it. There are also a lot of mainstream parodies I could have mentioned which are more of a stepping stone to thinking about fairy tales in new ways, but being comical tends to make the audience not take it as seriously and/or actually enforces traditional messages by implying that it's funny to think of fairy tales in any other way.

Sleeping Beauty and the Royal Ballet

Sleeping Beauty is on everyone's minds because of "Maleficent" and I've been a little obsessed with ballet lately. The association of fairy tales with ballet is probably one of the reasons fairy tales have become associated with little girls and fluff, but it's just so ironic. I like to watch documentaries about ballet dancers, their daily life, and behind the scenes. Ballet is one of the most challenging professions in the world and the dancers literally devote their lives to it. What might seem so simple-a basic plie or tendue-is actually incredibly difficult to do with perfect balance, turnout, and grace.

The same analogy could be made with fairy tales themselves-though they are often made light of, there is so much more depth to the stories, and their history usually shocks people who study fairy tales for the first time.

The first video is about the technical challenges of the dancing in this ballet, especially for Aurora in the first Act. Below is a fascinating look at the history of this ballet in the Royal Opera House-the Royal Ballet used Sleeping Beauty as their return to the stage after World War II. As a story of good defeating evil, and of reawakening, it was a very deliberate choice. You can also hear the 2014 cast discuss their roles.

Fairy Tale Fun Facts: Some word definitions

"The term 'Rumpelstiltskin' is a combination of the Middle German 'rumpel', meaning creased or wrinkled, and 'steln', to obtain by illegal means. Adding the suffix kin, signifying small, results in a description of a little man who is 'a wrinkled dwarf that acquires things illicitly.' "

-The Witch Must Die: How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives by Sheldon Cashdan

Charles Folkard

I don't believe I had heard this before, I always assumed the name "Rumpelstiltskin" was a nonsense word, like his British counterpart Tom Tit Tot and the Scottish Whuppity Stoorie, etc. (He has also got by Trit-a-Trot, Terrytop, and more difficult names such as Holzruhrlein Bonnfurlein or Ferradiddledumday-see a list of related tales at Surlalune)

Adrienne Adams

And although it can be confusing when talking about Snow White from "Snow White and Rose Red" verses the more famous Snow White of the Seven Dwarves variety, in German their names are not actually exactly the same. The Snow White who ends up in a glass coffin is actually "Little Snow White" from the German Schneewittchen. The one with sisterly affection has a slightly different meaning, "White as Snow." (Found in Fairy Tale Rituals by Kenny Klein)

EDIT: Apparently my sources may not have been exactly correct in these above factoids-see the comments for more

It may be gone by the time this is posted, but right after the release of Disney's "Maleficent", Dictionary.com opened up its main page with a featured link, "what does Maleficent mean?" The definition:

ma·lef·i·cent

  [muh-lef-uh-suhnt]  Show IPA

adjective

doing evil or harm; harmfully malicious: maleficent destroyers of reputations.

Origin: 
1670–80;  back formation from Latin maleficentia maleficence; see -ent

Can be confused: maleficent, malevolent.

I think I always thought it was a combination of "magnificent" with "malevolent."

Sculpture by Syrius Eberle; monument to the brothers Grimm in Hanau, Germany

And last but not least-Tony once asked me if our  English word "grim" came from the brothers Grimm. I hadn't thought so but it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. However, again according to Dictionary.com, the origin is from old English, before 900. So the last name of the famous brothers was just a coincidence, but heaven knows there are plenty of puns to go around :)

Fairy Tale Apps for Kids

StoryToys has a whole series of fairy tale-themed 3-D pop up apps. These seem like a fun way to get younger kids (and possibly bored adults) discovering traditional, non-Disney versions of fairy tales. (Although...many of the characters' wardrobes/hairstyles are definitely influenced by Disney. But sometimes kids can be deterred when they see a character that looks nothing like the one they are familiar with, so it could help draw kids in)

Grimm's Red Riding Hood

Beauty and the Beast

The Little Mermaid

Puss in Boots

Grimm's Snow White

Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

Grimm's Hansel and Gretel

Grimm's Rapunzel

Grimm's Bookshelf (looks like this one allows you to play one game from each book in the fairy tale series)

Thumbelina

Each link will lead you to a video trailer for the app, with story pages and games. The series has gotten good reviews, but keep in mind it does seem geared for pretty young kids. Over the past years, Heidi of Surlalune shared links to a Hans Christian Andersen app and a different Red Riding Hood app; Gypsy from Once Upon a Blog has featured a Goldilocks story app and recently a Maleficent ibook and that seem geared towards slightly older children.

In addition, a simple google search will lead you to many more fairy tale apps-I really had no idea there were so many since I'm usually a good ten years behind when it comes to technology, and besides have no children and therefore am not looking for apps for kids. Here is a post featuring Four Fantastic Fairy Tale Apps (Including one from the StoryToys featured above, and one for Snow Queen!), and here's a list of fairy tale stories available on Itunes, by Lazy Bird, Inc. Any other discoveries or recommendations?