Ever since I was a child, I have known that Walt Disney was (and continues to be) the consummate cinematic master of the traditional fairy tale. Some critics argue that he does serious injustice to the original source materials. But you must realize that, as cultures and lifestyles change, so do the societal and cultural meanings of "Snow White," "Cinderella," "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," and other fairy tales Disney brought (and continues to bring) to his respective medium (Day 2). All in all, this continuously transforms the universal message of the fairy tale itself, no matter what we perceive Disney or the original authors to be like altogether (Orenstein).
I believe many of the fairy tales Disney adapted (and continues to adapt) have the emotional and psychological capacity to transcend generational, cultural, racial, sexual, etc., lines among "both children and adults" at home and abroad in today's growingly complex world (Day 2). They provide both concrete and abstract knowledge and insight into our own way of life, as well as the ways of life of others (Day 2). They can serve a therapeutic and sometimes cathartic role in early childhood development and the lives of grown-ups; everyone encounters archetypal characters that may enhance his or her own skills and experiences in resolving internal and external conflicts and other problems on a daily basis (Day 2, 11, and 34). On a more specific note, I think Disney's fairy tales continue to help children and more experienced individuals cope with sibling rivalry and other everyday dilemmas because of the ways in which they explore reconcilable moral values in sometimes unforgivable or unmanageable circumstances (Day 2 and 13).
In addition, I think Disney's fairy tales can provide a framework for our own belief systems, which could thus make us draw the lines between reality and fantasy more clearly (Day 2). So, although many of us do not have relationships that result in storybook-like endings, we can still rely on Disney to help us preserve the messages and values we idealize in a world we all try to make better, but is alas imperfect, altogether (Day 3 and 4).
The recent live-action/animated fantasy comedy "Enchanted" is a perfect example of "the modern romantic understanding of the fairy tale," albeit in a slightly more realistic light than what the title suggests (Orenstein). In the magical kingdom of Andalasia, a beautiful princess named Giselle (Amy Adams) is about to marry the dashing Prince Edward (James Marsden). But since this situation upsets the prince's mother, The Evil Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), she is sent down a magical well and into the extremely disenchanted and gritty world of contemporary New York City. Completely shocked and dismayed by this new alien environment, Giselle now finds herself in a world where there's no guarantee of a "happily ever after." Yet, she befriends a cynical and deeply flawed divorce lawyer named Robert (Patrick Dempsey), who isn't so sure about her true love back home, for the lack of a better word. While she waits for her true love to find her, Giselle begins to "enchant" every real-life person around her with her spontaneous singing and storybook-perfect demeanor. But, eventually, she begins to realize that finding love in Manhattan isn't going to be as easy as it was back in her own cartoonish world. Robert is already engaged to his girlfriend and has a 6-year-old daughter to tend to. But, eventually, he and his daughter come to Giselle's aid when the princess falls off of a city sign. The divorce attorney realizes that the princess needs a temporary home, for he knows that there's really no world out there by the name of Andalasia. At first, he is deeply upset when Giselle cuts his curtains to make herself a new dress. But, later on in the picture, he begins to care for her when he realizes that he's not so disillusioned about Giselle's "real-life" predicaments after all. At the very end of the film, Giselle decides to run her own NYC fashion line with her mystical animals in tow, and both Giselle and Robert live, you guessed it, "happily ever after" in the real world.
Although many critics complain about Disney's use of elaborate musical numbers in his romanticized adaptations of Perrault's, de Beaumont's, Andersen's, and the Grimm Brothers' renowned folktales, I believe Disney still gets it right when he lets "the songs arise naturally out of the action" (Day 21). Using his cinematic, Broadway-style storytelling device as the all-important backdrop, we can identify with the deceptively simple meanings behind the characters and the storyline more effectively (Day 21). Disney films have and continue to influence both children's and adults' knowledge of fairy tales in general (Day 34). So, even if Disney did (and continues to) take liberties with the original source materials, he has always known that entertainment values can, in some way, contribute to our own "evaluative, critical, and inferential levels of thought" in the relationships we have with all kinds of persons in a sometimes unfavorable world (Orenstein; Day 13 and 59).
I believe Disney himself liked to revisit his favorite childhood stories the same way a lot of others like revisiting a house they knew as a child (Willard 13 and 14). Therefore, I guess I should say that his mind was full of things metaphorically similar to what he probably saw in his grandmother's pantry or his grandmother's kitchen when production started on his beloved adaptation of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) (Willard 16). Therefore, he probably had no choice but to interpret Snow White in a different light because nobody can step into the same tale twice without interpreting a different take on it to begin with (Willard 16).
I believe it's terribly harsh for anyone to view both Disney's fairy tales and the original source materials not "as luminous and layered as an onion" (Willard 23). They are like a house anyone can enter by many doors, even if one has to find those doors by forgetting the stories they remember back from their childhood altogether (Willard 23). Disney himself must have viewed his favorite children's stories, as well as childhood itself, like a shelter and a station (Willard 23). That said, he probably had no choice but to keep himself in the movie business, or no choice but to depart from the movie business, if he decided to reinstate his original source materials' authenticity altogether (Willard 23). Time takes us all in the end, so Disney believed, and I believe, that both storytellers and audience members have the obligation to "pass the tales on to other tellers and other listeners" as long as there's always an aspect of life we call human nature (Willard 23).
Works Cited
Day, Pamela Ann. The Impact of Disney Film Adaptations of Fairy Tales on Children's Knowledge of Traditional Tales. Diss. Illinois State U, 1997. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1998. 1388324. Pages 2-4, 11, 13, 21, 34, 59.
Orenstein, Catherine. "Fairy Tales and a Dose of Reality." Editorial. New York Times 3 Mar. 2003, late ed.: A23.
Willard, Nancy. "A Tale Out of Time." The Horn Book Magazine: Jan./Feb. 2002, Vol. 78, Issue 1. Pages 13-14, 16, 23.
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