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!

Movies: Snow White and the Huntsman's Dwarves' "Latent Sexuality"

(From Bill Willingham's Fables)

In a recent interview at Wondercon from Movieline Rupert Sanders made an interesting remark about the dwarves in his movie:

“The dwarves really, you know, dwarves mythologically are latent sexuality, you know, they’re half-men. So, they’re kind of, they’re about sexual awakening,” Sanders said. [Sanders explains there will be no dwarf gang bangs in his movie]. “It’s really about another group of people who have lost everything because of the [Queen's] reign, and they are touched by Snow White and they decide that they will fight for their pride again alongside her.” (Full Article)

I had never heard this before, but it makes sense. I can understand in the context of the movie how they represent impotence (in terms of power, not sexuality) and how the coming of Snow White gives them the ability to take control of their lives again. I am a bit relieved he is not playing up the sexual angle. These dwarves come off as kindly uncles (though personally in his heyday, I think Bob Hoskins was rather sexy).

Fables, the comic by Bill Willingham, certainly goes in the sexual direction. Snow White is enslaved by the seven dwarves (sons of the dwarf in Snow White and Rose Red) and is abused both physically and sexually. It is also a common theme in erotica and comedy - how could Snow White live with seven men for so long and not sleep with them? <eyeroll>.

Dwarves have been portrayed as both benevolent and malevolent from Norse myth to fairy tales to Tolkien and beyond. Often they are portrayed as characters with the desire to do something, but do they do not have the power to do it. Does anyone have accounts of sexual dwarves? It is ringing a bell for me, but I can't find it.

[EDIT: Just to clarify, I am talking about the mythological dwarf, not those diagnosed with dwarfism. Though I believe that people with dwarfism may have given rise to the myths, in this article, I am only referring to dwarves as the mythological species as represented in literature.]

TV: Review of Once Upon a Time's Episode Red-Handed

 

Ok, folks. I finally got around to watching the newest episode of Once Upon a Time, "Red-Handed," and BOY was I impressed. (Gloat all you want, OUAT believers!). There was none of this jelly-fish dress fairies and dwarves hatching from eggs. There was not one Disney reference in the entire episode! It was dark, and the plot was twisting, and it had parallels without hitting you over the head with it, and the acting was stellar!

The trailer is not really promising, but you shall see anon how actually it was a really awesome episode!

BEWARE: SPOILERS AHEAD!

This week we got the story of Little Red/ Ruby and her crossbow-toting grandmother. And hey. They can act. Who knew? Their parts have been so dinky so far that I wrote them off, but they pack a wallop this episode. In fairy tale land, a large wolf is killing folks under the wolf moon. Granny's fortress of a house would make Buffy proud; she barricades herself and Red in every night, even going so far as to portcullis the fireplace (wolves have used that before, as the Three Little Pigs know well). Red meets Snow White, and we have a lovely little "Oh, they are Snow White and Rose Red!" moment, thought I am not certain that is what the writers were thinking. It was Jane Espenson, though and she is fucking clever.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Red has a fight with Granny, who is trying to give Red more responsibility at the diner, and so Red quits. She plans to leave town, and good ol' Jane dangles the possibly of Dr. Whale as the wolf as he harasses her at the bus stop (to which no bus ever comes in Storybrooke). I squealed with glee at this, as I had alas been spoiled on the ending, and knew who the wolf was, so it was a delight to watch the writers toy with the viewers. It got me thinking that maybe that is what they have been doing this whole time; they have been having so much fun playing the long game (leaving clues and red herrings, giggling to themselves and saying "Wait til they get to THIS part") that they forget to make individual episodes make sense in the world, or at least make them interesting in a short-term entertainment sense. My girl Jane, however, gets the balance exactly right.

Anyhoo, Snow invites Red to stay with her and Emma for a bit, in their fairy tale girl commune, until she figures things out, and Emma offers her a job as Sheriff's Assistant. Red learns she is capable of more than she thinks she is, learns a lesson, and oh by the way finds a human heart in a box by the Troll Bridge! WHAT? And with David walking around and acting weird and not remembering it, he is suspect #1, and actually really pulls off some stellar guilt and grief acting when he is told he could have unknowingly killed his wife, cut out her heart and put it in a box. But wait, there's more!

In an equally twisty plot, Snow and Red think that Red's boyfriend is the wolf, and he volunteers to be tied up. Red, in an act of love, vows to stay with him all night. So sweet. What is heart-breaking is that Red is the wolf, and boyfriend becomes puppychow. Very gruesome puppy chow. I definitely saw a detached foot in there. When Granny shoots her with a silver tipped arrow (hehe), and puts the protective red cape on her (yes, there actually is precedent for red being a protective color against the supernatural), does she turn back to herself, see what she had done, and understandably flip the fuck out. Again some fantastic acting from Red as she is at sea with incomprehension, wooziness, grief, terror and guilt. This sweet, innocent girl now has some serious baggage to lug around.

The final twist is in the real world, when we discover...dun dun dun....the fingerprints on the inside of the heart box were Mary Margaret's! Who saw that coming? Me, because I saw pics from next episode, which looks like it is going to be just as dark and tasty.

All in all a great episode! Just how I like my fairy tales: dark, bloody, women coming into their own, symbolic parallels, plot twists, and great writing. Lemurs. Watch it and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Review from Io9: The Twisted Tale of Once Upon a Time's Big Bad Wolf (even she found little to wittily shred!)
Review from Tor.com: Show Me What You've Got

Next time on Once Upon a Time, "Heart of Darkness", or Snow White gets Dark!:

So exciting!

Comics: Preview of new Fables comic "Fairest"

From Comics Alliance:

"On sale now from Vertigo is Fairest #1, the first issue of the latest spinoff from Bill Willingham's popular and hugely acclaimed Fables series. The new book stars Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and, in Willingham's words, anyone who could be interpreted as "fairest in the land." Announced at the Fables panel at last year's Comic-Con International in San Diego, Fairest will feature covers by Adam Hughes, who is of course famous for his depictions of beautiful women." (Full article and preview)

It includes awesome preview images like this:

While I am a little concerned that publicity seems to focus only on their beauty, and not on their kickass-itude (Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are secret agents, Snow White and Rose Red are great leaders, Ozma is a powerful witch, etc), I know Bill Willingham's team will tell great stories about these amazing and strong female characters. 

Books: Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

From my other blog Palimpsest (4/19/10): 

Tender Morsels
by Margo Lanagan

A re-telling of the fairy tale "Snow White and Rose Red." Liga is in a sexually abusive relationship with her father, and has a child by him. He dies, and she has another child by gang rape. When she is about to kill herself, she is sent magically to her own private dimension, a paradise, devoid of all the people who were mean to her. There she raises her children, until the children start needing more from life than paradise.

It was ok. A bit to much incest and gang rape in the first few chapters for me, so I distanced myself from the characters b/c I knew eventually they would have something absolutely horrible happen to them. Especially when the daughters emerged back into the real world in the bloom of womanhood.

I started to enjoy the book halfway through when they emerge in reality and realize that life in the real world doesn't horribly suck all of the time, like it definitely did in the first half of the book. The introduction of characters like Miss Dance, the no-nonsense sorceress (best character in the book, I want to be her), Davit Ramstrong, Todda, and the older, wiser Annie, gave the book the life and goodness it was lacking.

I was intrigued by the message of the story: how you can't live protected in a fantasy world. You have to face adversity and hardship to grow into a complete person. And she did not simply state it flat out. She kept presenting both sides (protection and peace, but hollow, vs vibrant, exciting and dangerous).

I could not follow the magic scenes at all. So I ended up just skipping over them. It may have been her point that the characters didn't know what was going on either, but it did not work for me.

I think that if it is a Young Adult Fiction, it is a late high school kind of young adult fiction. In the book, sex is never an expression of a beautiful love. Even when the idea of love comes up, it is always an animal urge of dominance of one person over another. I think that the kids should be introduced to sex, its loving expressions and its consequences, before they are introduced to this violent and darker version.