Friday Fun: Fairy Tale Ads

Here is a little bit of Friday fun that I found on Tales of Faerie. Lemmonpepper99 on You Tube has compiled a playlist of fairy tale TV ads dating all the way back to the 1930s!

It is interesting to see what themes the ads pull out while trying to sell something. Little Red Riding Hood is either about sex, safety, or personal power. Cinderella is more often than not about searching for things we desire or transformation. Sleeping Beauty is strangely comedic in most, and ends up being either about sleeping peacefully or waiting for what you want. The Goldilocks ones are always about "just right." 

I think my favorites were the Little Red Adidas commercial and the Oreo commercial for their animation, the Nokia one for finding fairy tales in every day life, and the GHD and 7up commercials where our heroines take their destiny into their own hands. 

Video: Who is the Wolf? Two Red Riding Hood Interpretations

I have a long backlog of adaptations I wished to discuss, and when I was exploring them, I came across two very different Little Red Riding Hood tales, one a short film, one a webcomic. While most interpretations focus on a young and handsome stranger as the wolf, these give us a different look at the wolves in our lives.

The Red Hood from Danishka Esterhazy on Vimeo.

The Red Hood first examines the wolf as "men." All men have an animal inside them waiting to strike. The enemy is not a predatory stranger, but the supposedly safe husband. And then the wolf is the girl. The wolf is not a specific gender. It is a primal and desperate urge inside all humankind.

Once Upon a Blog has a wonderful write up of it, including background and words from the director about her vision for the film. My joy at Red's killing was not as complete as Gypsy's however. When the husband stopped, and did not attack her, I saw a moment of doubt, of softness, like he might want to talk. But then her lover did not give him a chance to speak. That moment of the husband's hesitancy diminished the triumph I might have felt in her actions.

Redden by Maya Kern is a short webcomic which sends Red, a little girl, off to visit Grandmother, a terrifying monster in the woods. She is helped along the way by a wolf who gives her his pelt to "stay pure." When Grandmother see's Red, she decides to keep her as an apprentice. She forces her to set traps for the wolves of the forest, and  Red tries to helps them get free. But one day Grandmother catches her, and Red must fight for her life. The end is beautiful and heart wrenching.

The literal wolf in the tale is a friend whom Red must struggle to protect against Grandmother. Grandmother is the real predator.

illustration by Walter Crane

This brings up an interpretation of the fairy tale that is seldom explored in adaptations. The motif of the replaced relative comes up often in fairy tales. A mother is killed and replaced by a stepmother who is evil. The Brothers Grimm changed a lot of mothers to stepmothers so that the mother would remain good while still exploring the idea of someone who should love you treating you horribly. While the wolf in the forest is male, he goes and usurp's grandmother's place, even going so far as to wear her clothes, get in her bed and imitate her voice. A grandmother who used to be loving and kind, but now is cruel. The wolf is actually the grandmother. A loved one who has changed. Or in fact, a loved one who should be good but is evil. It is an interesting aspect to explore.

There are many wolves in the world. I think that is why "Little Red Riding Hood" is so captivating. We have wolves in every culture, in every walk of life: the person who appears to be good, but really is not. As much as the predatory male stranger is a strong and resonant interpretation, it would be interesting to see adapters to go in other directions to confront the other wolves in our lives.

MOVIES: Into the Woods Update

I did not include this in my general movie overview earlier this month because I felt it deserved its own post.

First, there was a huge uproar when we found out that Disney had cast Sophia Grace Brownlee as Little Red Riding Hood, opposite Johnny Depp's wolf. (see Io9's post as well)

1) People were concerned that it was stunt casting, because Sophia Grace is not an actress, but a child celebrity singer. 2) Sophia Grace is 10. I, like many of my colleagues on the internet, had interpreted the "Hello Little Girl" scene between the Wolf and Little Red, and her subsequent song "I Know Things Now," to be about sexual experience. "Hello Little Girl" uses culinary and sexual imagery in the same breath: "Think of that scrumptious carnality twice in one day." "I Know Things Now" describes how she got "excited and scared" when he "drew me close and he swallowed me down down a dark slimy path where lie secrets that I never want to know." It did not help that the wolf costume in the original Broadway production had a phallus, and that Robert Westenburg was highly suggestive:

On the other hand, in his interview for BroadwayWorld in 2011, Sondheim states that the theme of the play is about parents and children. As one of the two active children in the play, having Little Red as an actual child would enhance that theme. Depending on the interpretation, I could see this song played purely as a "beware of strangers" cautionary tale. I hoped that is the direction they were heading when they cast a 10 year old. 

HOWEVER.

Disney recently swapped Little Reds, replacing 10 year old Sophia Grace with 12 year old Lilla Crawford, a stage actor with several Broadway shows under her belt. 

This certainly addresses the first concern: stunt casting. Yet, however mature Lilla may be, 2 years (though an important 2 years) is not a huge difference. We can safely assume that Disney will not emphasize the sexual nature of the scene, but judging from the change, they are apparently taking the public's concerns into consideration. 

Anyway, you can now see the completed cast list here, which includes most of the people we have seen before, but with one exciting addition: Annette Crosby (the sassy fairy godmother in Slipper and the Rose) will play Little Red's Granny. I am also ecstatic about Lucy Punch playing an evil stepsister, as she seems to have made a living in fairy tale films playing exactly that (and Sally Shepherdess from 10th Kingdom). It also includes character descriptions so you can get a glimpse of what they deem to be the essence of the character.

BOOK REVIEW: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Scarlet

by Marissa Meyer

“A sickening howl stopped her, sucking the air out of her lungs. 

The night's chatter silenced, even the loitering city rats pausing to listen.

Scarlet had heard wild wolves before, prowling the countryside in search of easy prey on the farms.

But never had a wolf's howl send a chill down her spine like that.” 

This second book in the Lunar Chronicles follows a delivery girl named Scarlet whose grandmother has been missing for two weeks. The police have given up, but she tenaciously searches for clues. When she meets a young, handsome, ambiguously affiliated street fighter, Wolf, who might hold the key to her grandmother's disappearance, they embark on a journey that might save her grandmother, or doom Scarlet to the same fate. In the mean time, Cinder (protagonist of the last book), is breaking out of prison with the charming, but rather self absorbed Captain Thorne. And poor Prince Kai is left to deal with the evil Lunar Queen alone. 

To see what I thought of it, check out my other blog, Palimpsest! (HINT: I thought it was awesome.)

Fairy Tale Roundup: Cinderella Movie, Snow White and Rose Red, English Censorship, Werewolves vs. Little Red, and the OUAT Wonderland Trailer

Catching up in the fairy tale world, here are several highlights from the blogosphere!

1) Robb Stark is cast as Prince Charming in the Kenneth Branagh/ Cate Blanchett Cinderella
Intreguing. Very promicing that he is much more than just a pretty face. And Cate Blanchett as the stepmother is phenominal. Kenny directing? Not sure. There are few films he has directed recently that I have been thrilled with. Sure, Much Ado, Henry V and Midwinter's Tale are amazing! But after that, his movies seem to tip from passionate realism into melodrama. Love's Labor's Lost was charming and had some excellent moments, but a bit ridiculous, and Thor was interesting, but certainly not all that it could have been. Hopefully he will do what he does best: keep the camera rolling and let the amazing actors loose to do their thing.

Don't forget, this was the Cinderella Mark Romanek (dir. Never Let Me Go) was going to direct before his concept was deemed too dark for Disney. Let's hope Ken doesn't swing in the opposite direction. Or at least sticks to his artistic guns and does not pander to Disney execs.

2) Snow White and Rose Red by Kelly Vivanco
Kelly Vivanco, one of my favorite artists, has written and illustrated an adaptation of one of the strangest and most interesting fairy tales, Snow White and Rose Red. She has a way of capturing a question in a painting. You are always compelled to ask "Why?" There is a fox in a top hat. Why? There is a girl sitting in a field with flowers, but she doesn't look happy. Why? Click here for more of her beautiful work.

3) Tales of Faerie has recently come out with two excellent posts. The first one, When Grimms' Fairy Tales Came to England,  is about how the English, nostalgic for "authentic" old traditions and values in the throws of the industrial revolution, took the Grimm's fairy tales and adapted them for 19th century England, cleaning up the morals, making them appropriate for children, and emphasizing the often false idea that the tales were collected from folksy German peasants.

The second, Werewolves and Little Red Riding Hood, is an exploration of the relationship between werewolf legends and Little Red Riding Hood tales. She draws connections between tales of werewolf trials in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries and the folktales of the little child accosted by the wolf in the same towns a century or two later. She examines common elements of those tales and extrapolates on their meaning, free from any morals or edits Perrault may have imposed.

4) Lastly, we finally have a trailer for Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, and you know what? It looks pretty good!

It begins by embracing the darker traditions of the Alice in Wonderland story that have sprung up in popular culture and analysis, exploring the idea of Alice's madness. I love that it is taking a darker route. I am a bit confused by the genie, and how that fits into Wonderland, and the CGI looks mostly pretty sub-par as I feared, but overall, I'm excited!

Travel: A Fairy Tale Hotel

Flavorwire treats us to some fantastic hotels inspired by literature, from an Ice Palace, to a romantic couples themed hotel, to one organized by the Dewey Decimal System! The one we are chiefly interested in, however, is the Maison Moschino in Milan, Italy, a fairy tale themed hotel! While Flavorwire showcases the Alice in Wonderland room, I loved the Little Red Riding Hood Room with it's strange wolf in comforter clothing!

While the other rooms don't strictly reference any one fairy tale, their design evokes strong images that crop up on many:

Life is a Bed of Roses: 

Luxurious Attic (with magical secrets hiding in boxes):

The Forest:

Sleeping in a Ballgown:

Sweet Room (very Hansel and Gretel):

Blue:

Half a Room (a bit Alice in Wonderlandy too!):

Zzzzzzzzz:

Movies: No Dark Cinderella and Maybe Witch Hunters is Awesome?

Photo by Dark Cherry on DeviantArt/ Official Movie Poster

The Cate Blanchett/ Mark Romanek Cinderella is a Bust
Gah! Just when we thought we might have a top-notch dark fairy tale coming down the studio pipe, Disney has decided that Mark Romanek's Cinderella is too dark for Disney. Click the link to hear Io9 rant and rave and echo my anger at this development. Fingers-crossed that some other studio has the gumption to snatch that project up. Disney doesn't need another regular Cinderella, or another modern twee Cinderella. Disney should have had the balls to delve. </rant>

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters Might Not Suck?
In other news, it turns out that Witch Hunters may not be so bad afterall? The new redband trailer has a tongue in cheek flavor to it:



My fellow blogger Drown My Books will probably disagree with me, but Jeremy Renner still has yet to earn a "I will see anything he is in" card from me. Gemma Arterton, on the other hand, from her performance in St. Trinians, I can definitely get behind. Something to Read for the Train (Cate, who is in fact a girl) weighs in with some really thoughtful remarks about the nature of fairy tales to reflect the values of the times, and how, while many had moral lessons, they were meant as entertainment. She also treats us to my favorite version of Little Red Riding Hood to illustrate her point.

I have a feeling it's gonna be an awesomely terrible action romp, with the cool fighting moves and awesome slow mo and dead-pan badass one-liners (I admit it! The "we'd do this shit for free" line in the trailer hooked me.) And I'm kind of ok with that. (Though, my fairy tale racism argument still stands!)

Book: Dust City by Robert Paul Weston

Dust City

by Robert Paul Weston

"I pad over and put out a paw. "Pleased to meet you, madam."
She blushes, the varicose veins in her cheeks swelling with blood. Instead of taking my paw to shake, however, she turns it over as if it's a piece of bruised fruit in a market. "Hmmm..." She pores over my palm, nodding like a fortune-teller. Her spectacles slide comically down the bridge of her nose, and when she looks up at me, her face is full of mock astonishment. "Oh, my! What big teeth you have!" She giggles and kicks her slippered feet."

Henry Whelp is the son of the wolf who killed Little Red Riding Hood. This has been the defining characteristic of his existence. He is currently in St. Remus juvenile detention facility for dropping a brick onto a moving truck (a Nimbus truck like the one that killed his mother). When a sudden death reveals some lost letters from his father, Henry must break out and discover the truth of his father's crime at any cost....


See the rest of the review on my other blog, Palimpsest!

RADIO: NPR's Interview with Maria Tatar on the Origins and Interpretations of Fairy Tales

NPR's On Point did a fantastic interview with Maria Tatar recently! It delves into why and how the brothers collected the tales, fairy tales in popular culture, misogyny, Antisemitism and violence in fairy tales, and personal interpretation of fairy tales. While many of you have heard these topics discussed before, this conversation is fresh and interesting.

Maria emphasizes that the Grimm version is not sacred. Our stories that we remix and reinterpret and add meanings based on our own life experiences. I love that! While I do get frustrated when people take the tales and make them something totally other than I myself interpret them to mean or kowtow to the Disney version when there are more interesting versions available, it is important to remember that we all approach fairy tales with our own baggage. There is no right version. One of the best qualities of fairy tales is that they are so malleable. We don't get the internal monologue of the characters, just the actions, so we can infuse their actions with meanings we relate to. The tales belong to all of us. We each have our own Snow White, or Sleeping Beauty, or Little Red Riding Hood.

Go to the original page for supplementary materials. 

Books: Grimm Takes for Young and Old by Phillip Pullman

SurLaLune turned my attention to the fact that Phillip Pullman's version of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales has come out! Check out the really beautiful book trailer!:

From the sounds of it, Pullman has really added some twinkle to the language of the stories. While still maintaining their fairy tale structure and rhythm, he has added tiny details that give you a sharper view of the story and appeal to your senses. The Telegraph states that the stories "have a swift yet stately sense of movement, the storytelling stripped down to the very basics. They manage to be gripping, even if their structure has a hypnotic regularity." However, Pullman has added "sprinklings of wit."

It is going on my Amazon wish list! 

Poster: If Children Don't Read....

I don't entirely agree with the poster, as I think kids learn from experience, conversations, TV, games, and other people's example, but I do like the idea. We often just assume that our kids will grow up with the same things we grew up with. But if you don't read them or tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood, they won't know they story of Little Red Riding Hood and the lessons it teaches (whatever you interpret those to be). Same thing with Sesame Street, or Boy Meets World, or the Old Testament, or Peter Pan, or Greek Myths. 

Pass it on. 

Art: Edward Gorey's Three Classic Children's Stories

Hi everyone! Long time no see! Grad school does that to you, man.

Anyway, Io9, brilliant blog that it is, directed our attention to the fairy tale illustrations of Edward Gorey. The thing that I love most about Edward Gorey is his ability to depict something horrific without actually showing it to you. He shows you the before, or the after, or what is happening off screen, not the actual event itself.

Exhibit A:

From The Gilded Bat by Edward Gorey

In the book, Three Classic Children's Stories, Edward Gorey doesn't go quite as far as that, but he still has an fascinating way of choosing moments and framing. Of course you have the classing Little Red Riding Hood meeting the wolf picture: 

But then you also have this:

All you can see are the wolf's toes and Little Red Riding Hood's eyes. Somehow it is a little worse than your typical Wolf in Grandma's Clothing picture. It is a "just before" moment. You imagination conjures up the big eyes and the big teeth, and then the next scene where he eats her. 

For the Jack and the Beanstalk story, we have this picture:

It takes place either right before, or (a bit more disturbingly) right after Jack hits the trapped giant in the head with the shovel and kills him. Jack looks so jovial, and the giant looks so sad. It is a bit heart breaking. 

The Rumpelstiltskin images are what you would expect, until you get to this one:

This is after the queen has guessed Rumpelstiltskin's name, and he gets so angry that he stomps a hole in the floor and tears himself in two. The cloth disappearing down the hole is his sleeve, so it seems he just got swallowed up, but the peace on the queen's face and the oblivious king flavor the picture really well. 

There are lots more pictures over at Brainpickings if you want to check them out!

Music Videos: "Why Are Music Videos so Obsessed with Fairy Tales?"

Flavorwire has again brought us a fantastic array of fairy tale music videos, complete with a sharp analysis of why fairy tale imagery is so prevalent in the music video format.

Once upon a time, pop stars used to be just like us. But then at some point — probably during their impressionable youth, while the rest of us were stuck in SAT prep classes — they were whisked away to an enchanted world of pop superstardom. It was the promised land of excess and beauty, where everything is magical all of the time. Louboutin heels served as glass slippers; award ceremony afterparties as fancy balls; black limousines as horse-drawn pumpkin carriages; and hunky A-listers as Prince Charmings. Yet it’s an open secret that when most of these pretty young things got sucked into the vortex of pop, they also found themselves having to grow up overnight. While they shirked the banalities of roommates bugging them about the ConEd bill, pop stars found themselves entangled with the messier parts of becoming an adult too soon: contracts, scores of people relying on them to make piles of money, and grueling hours that most of us probably only begin to reckon with as adults.

So it makes a lot of sense that some of the biggest stars in pop have, at one time or another, have employed fairy tale motifs in their music videos — what other trope could so evocatively represent the difference between who they used to be and who they are now? In addition to providing a venue to meditate about who they have become, these children’s stories allow pop stars to reconnect with that younger, perhaps forsaken version of themselves. Perhaps that explains why the fairy-tale music video trend pervades popular music across cultural, geographical, and musical divides. After the jump, we explore some rock and pop stars’ kitschiest fairy tale fantasies — many of which harbor curiously dark messages about coming of age.

 I think my favorite of the group would have to be Katy Perry's video of "Wide Awake." While it is not one of my favorite songs of hers, the storytelling is really captivating and relatable:

Flavorwire says: 

Katy Perry is just the latest pop star to cash in on tropes inspired by The Wizard of Oz and Alice In Wonderland. In the video for “Wide Awake,” Perry ends up tapping into her inner child during a weaker moment in her adult life. It’s a theme that finds her character navigating a hedge maze with this young girl, who ends up clearing some major obstacles for her — like slaying a couple minotaurs — and giving her the strength to punch out Prince Charming, an obvious reference to her split with Russell Brand. Ultimately, the singer and her inner child part ways and there is the grand a-ha! moment that finds Perry is in her dressing room, buoyed by this ability to connect to a more fearless version of herself.

I don't know about you, but this is what I use fantasy for: to tap into the little girl who killed monsters in her backyard. To put myself in the shoes of the heroine and gain strength from that.

My second favorite is Tori Amos' cover of "Strange Little Girl." It riffs a bit on "Little Red Riding Hood" and Alice in Wonderland:

Flavorwire says: 

Tori Amos tapped into a more anarchic quality of fairy tales in the video for her cover of The Stragglers’ “Strange Little Girl.” Amos touches on the mythology of The Little Red Riding Hood as an allegory for growing up and confronting your demons — the Big Bad Wolf, in this case. Maturity and refuge are both elusive until the girl finally confronts the demon — a confrontation that echoes the singer’s demand, “Strange little girl / Where are you going?” Amos’ use of the fairy-tale trope ultimately takes on a didactic tone, with the singer admonishing us, “There’s no need to run and nothing to fear.”

While there is not a straight-up confrontation in this video, like with Katy Perry's satisfying take down of the Minotaurs, Tori explores the idea of growing up and confronting your fears, though it seems that confronting your fears in this interpretation is not a choice, but a side effect of growing up and realizing your fears are a lot smaller than you thought they were. 

There are several more explored in Flavorwire's article, including Namie Amuro's “Do Me More” (2008), Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' “Don’t Come Around Here No More” (1985), and Spice Girls' “Viva Forever” (1998).

Books: Little Red Riding Hood Redux by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Friends

This is a little bit old news, and already reported on by Once Upon a Blog (see her post for a letter from JGL), but since it is so exciting, and one of my very favorite stories, I wanted to post about it too!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, of awesome things fame, has collaborated with artists and writers to create a book called Little Red Riding Hood Redux. It is the first issue in his new quarterly publication the hitREcorderly. It looks dark and delicious, funny and sexy! And it includes cut outs! It is the perfect mix of two of my favorite things: fairy tales and awesome silly and fun artistic collaboration.

You can subscribe to the hitREcorderly or just buy the single issue of Little Red here. I did!

Article: Maurice Sendek and the Frightening Children's Story

Oh my goodness, I am so behind. Thanks for sticking with the blog, even when I am MIA!

As many of you know, Maurice Sendek, beloved children's author responsible for such wonderful books as Where the Wild Things Are, Outside Over There, and In the Night Kitchen, died recently. Everyone has been doing touching retrospectives of the man, and one theme that jumped out at me was something we have addressed about scary fairy tales: children are capable of more than we give them credit for. Children need to be told the truth. Children need to address scary concepts, because childhood is frightening. It is a time of scary changes, where everything is new and uncertain. They know bad things are happening, but no one will explain it to them. Sendek didn't pull punches in his books, and addressed issues that sometimes made parents squeamish.

Amanda Katz, in in the NPR article Who's Afraid of Sendek's Stories? Adults, Mostly, discusses her personal experience with Outside Over There, and how it's dark material gave narrative form to concepts she already experienced:

"In 1981, when Outside Over There was published, I was an older sister to a round-cheeked 1-year-old boy who looked not unlike Ida's baby sister: big eyes, silky blond hair. Little wonder that I was fascinated by these stories of girls working out their loyalty to siblings in a bewildering world. The duty to watch a baby, perhaps too much for a child who would rather play her horn, or read; the sense of dark forces brooding at the edge of the picture, like the incomprehensible adult tensions and constraints that float over the head of every child (those goblins are present from the very first page); the terrifying feeling of making a mistake, but also the hope that even a grievous error was one you yourself could remedy; even Sendak's surreal illustrations of goblins melting into water or Ida twisting in the sky: All of this made intuitive sense to me. It was a vision of the world that was not only comforting, by the end of the book, but somehow illustrative — of how to be responsible, of how to be brave, of how to live surrounded by the incomprehensible.

When I look at this book now, I feel that same haunting familiarity — and I also see why adults who did not grow up with it might suppose it a bizarre and even slightly creepy choice for children. A child abducted when you fail to watch, an impostor baby that melts in your arms, an absent father and a seemingly depressed mother, goblins, infant brides, children tumbling out of the house into midnight thunderstorms: Is this what you'd buy for your kid? ... Is this really what children want? For me, the answer was yes....

Sendak himself — who told Stephen Colbert in an interview this January that he did not write for children but simply wrote — somehow escaped our sentimental notions about the need to protect kids from the loss and peculiarity of life. In his books, children learn about things that are orderly — alligators all around and doing dishes, or the niceness of sipping chicken soup in January when slipping on the sliding ice. But he also shows them disorderly worlds beyond their own, ones full of goblins and wild things, that they can visit and still go home. Meanwhile, he reminds adults — even those of us who were once those young and fascinated readers, but who are grown now — to trust our children, who may in the end be less fearful of climbing outside than we are to watch them do it." (my emphasis)

Maria Konnikova, in the Scientific American article The Power of “Once upon a Time”: A Story to Tame The Wild Things, analysed the idea of the "once upon a time" in fairy tales as a way of distancing the reader from the story, so they can look at difficult situations safely. She then uses Sendek's books as examples of how stories let us live out our fears and anxieties safely so that we can be more prepared for them in the real world:

"[I]n a broader sense, I would argue that modern psychology has borne Sendak’s view of openness out repeatedly, in the development of cognitive behavioral therapies and the recognition that fantasy, play, the realm of the imaginary are just the right place to deal with “basic anxiety.” That in writing things down, talking them through, constructing distancing scenarios, we become better able to handle our fears and our anxieties, to deal with the problems of our everyday existence. For, Sendak didn’t just offer the darkness. He showed how Max and all his other creations could see past it and overcome the anxieties that were unavoidable in life. “His narrative is almost always about a child in danger whose best defense is imagination,” notes Cynthia Zarin notes in her 2006 New Yorker profile."

Michael Dirda agrees, in his Washington Post article Maurice Sendak’s imagination took him into the wild, and beyond. He discusses how frightening stories let children navigate dangerous situations safely, and learn from them.

"There’s darkness and violence and complexity throughout Sendak, just as there is throughout the fairy tales of Grimm and Andersen, just as there is in life. Sendak’s work allows children to come to terms with their fears and nightmares. The Wild Things can be tamed, turned into big teddy bears, no longer frightening monsters of the id.

It’s hardly an accident, then, that Sendak’s major works so often take the form of quests. The story opens in the “real” world, but the heroes or heroines soon journey into a strange fantasy realm populated by bizarre creatures; there they perform a daring act of courage and eventually return to where they began. Such tales clearly image aspects of “growing up.” But they are always initially unsettling."

Land Filler leads off her article in Newsday, Maurice Sendak stared down kids' fears, with one of my favorite G.K. Chesterton quotes:

"'Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist,' Chesterton wrote. 'They already know that. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.'

Fear is integral to our childhoods. Everyone else is bigger, and much of each day is new. We fall, and bleed. There are ferocious dogs, and strange noises in the dark, and nightmares, and the contempt of other kids, and the screaming of angry adults.

And there is the news, on television and around the kitchen table, that a whole bunch of people in office buildings in New York City died, that a family was shot by its daddy, that there's a war on. Children know they aren't entirely safe.

That's why it's better to give a child a book full of fears to be faced than one that pretends there's nothing to be afraid of."

Johnathan Cott, in his fantastic Rolling Stone article Maurice Sendek, King of All the Wild Things, examines fairy tales and Sendek's work, and quotes Sendek's acceptance speech for the 1964 Caldecott Medal for Where The Wild Things Are:

 "[There are] games children must conjure up to combat an awful fact of childhood: the fact of their vulnerability to fear, anger, hate, frustration – all the emotions that are an ordinary part of their lives and that they can perceive only as ungovernable and dangerous forces. To master these forces, children turn to fantasy: that imagined world where disturbing emotional situations are solved to their satisfaction. Through fantasy, Max, the hero of my book, discharges his anger against his mother, and returns to the real world sleepy, hungry and at peace with himself.

Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences.

That is obvious. But what is just as obvious – and what is too often overlooked – is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, that fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, that they continually cope with frustration as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

It is my involvement with this inescapable fact of childhood – the awful vulnerability of children and their struggle to make themselves King of All Wild Things – that gives my work whatever truth and passion it may have."

Joe Fassler, in his article for The Atlantic, Maurice Sendak Scared Children Because He Loved Them, discussed modern parenting in light of this discussion:

"Sendak railed against what he perceived to be an insidiously overprotective parent culture. The evidence does suggest we adults sometimes take our good-natured desire to protect children from unpleasantness to perverse depths. I see it in the phenomenon of 'helicopter parenting,' for instance—the misguided attempt to thwart all potential pitfalls through hovering omnipresence. We seek to foil internal darkness, too, by plying young people with antidepressants and anxiety medication. And we're highly sensitive about showing children any sort of 'challenging' material, even in cases when censorship verges on absurd. The new documentary Bully, which depicts the brutal realities of life in the hallway and playground, was initially deemed "too violent" for children, the very audience it portrays, and attempts to reach."

He also frames the conversation in fairy tale terms:

"Psychologists, child specialists, and literary critics alike argue that stories allow children to tame threatening feelings that might otherwise overwhelm them. In The Uses of Enchantment, child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim suggests that fairy tales help children externalize, and ultimately diffuse, their deepest anxieties. 'The child must somehow distance himself from the content of his unconsciousness and see it as something external to him [if he is] to gain any sort of mastery over it,' Bettelheim writes. This is why so many fairy tales take place in the deep and mysterious woods--it is the realm of the subconscious, where the wandering child-mind can encounter its fears and wants in reified form, then neutralize them.

Bettelheim offers the folktale classic 'Little Red Riding Hood' as one example. 'The kindly grandmother undergoes a sudden replacement by the rapacious wolf which threatens to destroy the child.' It's a terrifying transformation—unrealistic and, some might say, unnecessarily scary. 'But when viewed in terms of a child's way of experiencing,' Betteheim asks, 'is it really any more scary than the sudden transformation of his own kindly grandma into a figure who...humiliates him for a pants-wetting incident?' In other words, the wolf and grandmother are two sides of the same person, the physical embodient of a parent's bewildering duality. The fable helps the child reckon with the sudden, confounding changes that scare her."

I leave you with this conversation between Maurice Sendek and Stephen Colbert:

Video: Book People Unite

Sorry for the radio silence, folks! Its the end of the semester, so work and masters degree have been taking up most of my time. However, I wanted to give you this cute video today! It's part of a campaign for Reading is Fundamental, an organization devoted to making sure all children have access to books and discover the joys and value of reading. It stars some of our favorite literary characters, including Pinocchio, Three Blind Mice, Humpty Dumpty, Big Bad Wolf, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the three bears, and the Three Pigs. And a cameo by Levar Burton. What more could you ask for!

Music: Rachmaninoff's Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf Etude

Today, I discovered that Rachmaninoff wrote a piece of music called the Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf etude. It is a rather frantic piece of music, but you can definitely hear the wolf pursuing Little Red and the nasty end that they come to.

Here it is as performed by Valentina Lisitsa.

Music: Fairy Tale Inspired Music Videos

(From Thundrah)

Heidi over at SurLaLune Fairy Tales Blog has been doing a month of fairy tale-themed music. While most of the posts are songs about fairy tales, the two guest posts [EDIT: one by our friend Gypsy over at Once Upon a Blog!]that caught my attention were the ones whose music videos used fairy tale imagery to express the emotional journey outlined in the songs.

The first is "Black Sheep" by Valentine (see full post with more songs). The lyrics tell the story of a girl who is living life in the fast lane, but seems to have made all the wrong choices. You picture limos, clubs, back alleys, shady deals, mascara tears, people basking in her glow, and then shunning her. Valentine takes that song in the music video and transplants it to the fairy tale world. Juxtaposed with images from Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast (and probably others I didn't catch), the story becomes about a girl who is trying to change her life. She has a rich lifestyle, but it seems to give her no pleasure. She chooses to go off into the woods. She goes through the mirror at the invitation of her younger self, trying both to get back to who she used to be and find a new life, a new way of looking at the world (loving the Beast, living in the woods):

Valentine - Black Sheep (Official HD Video)

Valentine | Myspace Music Videos

The other is "Call Me When You're Sober" by Evanesence, a song rumored to mark the break up of Amy Lee and her boyfriend, and the resolution for the band to clean up their act (Full Post). The lyrics tell the story of a girl who is conflicted by the break up of a mutually destructive relationship. She knows its the best thing, and that they are not good for each other, but her heart whispers "How could I have burned paradise?" The video has Amy as a powerful and captivating Red Riding Hood sitting at a booze-littered table with her lover. Judging by the fur and predatory stare, he is the Wolf. She pets real wolves while in a large chair, exerting her control, and then divests herself of her Red Riding Hood cloak, rejecting the advances of her lover. She goes from a place of subjugation, to a place of power, blowing the bottles off the table as she advances on him. It is an interesting exploration of the Red Riding Hood/ Wolf dynamic as a mutually destructive relationship that she needs to get out of before they destroy each other (presumably by being eaten, or killed by having rocks sewn into the stomach.):

Video: Red: An Adorable (and Bloody) Love Story

Remember the dark and gory Red video I posted last week, the story of Little Red Riding Hood engaging in bloody battle with the wolf and emerging traumatized but victorious? Well this Red video is a little different. It's about young love between a girl and a wolf-boy. She's having none of it, until an unexpected and rather strange foe forces them to team up. I never thought a bloodstained kiss could ever be cute.

TV: Interview with Meghan Ory, Little Red in Once Upon a Time

 

TV.com has an interview with Meghan Ory, Ruby/ Red on Once Upon a Time. While most of the interview is fluff ("Will there be a romantic interest for your character?" - seriously? After "Red-Handed," that is all you can think to ask?), there are a few interesting bits:

"You've done a lot of work with Ginnifer Goodwin, she's kind of a scene partner for you, which of her characters would you say she's more like?

Ginnifer is such an amazing actress she's not really like either of them. I think Ginnifer just IS Snow White. When we were shooting on the top of the mountain, there were all these birds around, and I'm not even joking: one of them landed ON her hand. Everybody's just like, 'Okay, you actually ARE Snow White, the reincarnation of Snow White.'"


What were some of the psychological fairy tale connections that stayed with you?
"A lot of Red Riding Hood is about warning young girls from predatory men, to see the wolf was losing your virginity back in the day, so I thought that was really interesting. I read a quote from Charles Dickens who said 'Little Red Riding Hood was my first love, and I thought if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood I should have known perfect bliss.' She's like the image of innocence and purity and all of that, before she meets the wolf and goes through her transformation, and I thought that was really cool and its an interesting history to be a part of." (Full Interview)

I'm glad that at least Meghan Ory and Gennifer Goodwin did their fairy tale research! It's very encouraging.