I’m doing a formal essay on the various fairy tales that Disney has kiddiefied, and for the most part, ruined. However, I am short on actual copies of the original tales, having only Snow White and the Little Mermaid. If any of you could find me a short (less than 3 pages, please) copy of one of their other victims I would be more than grateful. Post links here, or email me at libraryalexandria@home.com . Thanks a lot
Oh, and a note to Jill, Chrony and manhatten, sorry if this is the wrong forum, but it’s not really pointless or a debate…
No doubt you already know this for your essay, but it bears mentioning that many of the tales collected by the Grimms were already somewhat popular folk tales. In most cases, the Grimms were the first to write them down. To my knowledge, the Grimm version is the first written account of Snow White. Other stories, like Cinderella, show up in earlier written versions. Some scholars believe the very first version is a Chinese folk tale, dating to about 850 AD. Needless to say, many folklore enthusiasts have different opinions about which Cinderella story contains enough of the Cinderella themes to merit the title of “first.”
For the Little Mermaid, be sure to also check out the Hans Christian Anderson version, which is probably more familiar to most modern day readers. IMHO, the movie is more directly taking from Anderson than from Grimm.
You might wish to make a distinction between Disney movies that are based on original works (One Hundred and One Dalmations or Mary Poppins) and the validity of those changes, and those that are based on folk tales, which have a long tradition of changing the stories’ details to suit the time and audience. Just a thought.
Thanks so much! I actually just put the Grimm’s in the subject because it sounded better than Anderson’s
I’m not sure what version of TLM I have, but I like it better than disney, in any case :). Also, this report isn’t a huge deal, so I don’t need to go so indepth as to focus on things like audience :p. Also, one key point of this essay is not put not a single arguement against my case in it.
Is there even a Grimm’s version of “The Little Mermaid”? I thought it was an original short story by Hans Christian Andersen, and not a folk tale at all. A surprising number of fairy tales fall into this category.
As delphica suggests, in the case of true folk tales there will be no “original version”, although you may be able to find an “earliest recorded version”. This won’t always be the Grimms; some of the folk tales they collected were inspired by even earlier written works.
According to James Burke, the Grimm Brothers greatly sanitized the fairy tales when they commited them to writing. In some of the original tales, one character’s eyes were pecked out, and Sleeping Beauty was about necrophilia, and someone else (whose name I don’t recall) became pregnant after being raped.
(One of those that I don’t recall was Rapunzel, just don’t know which.)
So, another interesting essay would be about the “grimmification” of the early fairy tales.
IIRC, Grimm’s underwent a major overhaul at one point and they cleaned up what they had collected… so it was something that happened after originally putting the collection together.
Sleeping Beauty was raped & concieved a child while she slept.
The eyes being pecked out I think was one of Cinderella’s sisters - but that is still in Grimm’s Complete.
The most noteable change was the “stepmother” replacing “mother.” The idea was too horrific that a mother would try to kill her own child (snow white, etc) out of jealousy.
In one fairy tale the wicked stepmother is dragged through the streets in a coffin lined with nails… so even the “cleaned up” Grimms were still…er…Grimm.
Disney’s reproductions of fairy tale I guess technically can’t be considered bad for morphing from what we know as the “original” tale, since the nature of fairy tale and folklore is that it changes over time anyway - however, I get the urge to bang my head against the wall (ow, ow, ow) everytime they come out with a new folklore based animation. It’s like “oh great, NOW what are they going to do to it.” I mean, really, like where were Beauty’s 2 sisters? And of course, instead of just having the Beast, we have to throw in Gaston le eediot.
I would suggest just taking one fairy tale and finding as many versions you can to read and you’ll note that everyone puts in their own twist… there was a great woodcut illustrated early 1900’s version of Beauty and the Beast where the Beast was truly hideous, instead of a combination of animals most people consider beautiful and noble. I mean, c’mon, what girl wouldn’t get a rush out of taming a lion? I think if you try to dig through all of the movies disney has made from fairy tale origins, you’ll be doing a ton of digging (is this a paper, or a thesis?).
Also, if you really like folklore in general, check out Robin McKinley’s writing - she redid Beauty and the Beast twice -the first one after seeing the tv show and being frustrated with how warped it was from the “original” theme of the tale… the second one was after she matured more as a writer… she also rewrote the Grimm’s fairy tale “Roughskin” with her own twist on it…however, the incindiary point to the tale - a father raping his own daughter - is of the uncleaned up Grimm variety. There is also a collection put out and edited by Ellen Daltow & Terri Windling called Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears (there’s a whole bunch of them, but that’s the only one I can remember OTOH) that takes the idea of the tale itself and then just goes crazy -they go from the macabre to the surreal and right around to modernistic. It’s pretty neat… There’s also a set of books called Newfangled Fairy Tales - written for kids and adding all kinds of neat twists and the same publisher puts out “girls to the rescue” -rewritten fairy tales putting the girls into more empowering roles (cinderella skips the ball and starts her own dressmaking business). Oh boy, more… there’s the red, blue, green, purple, yellow, etc. fairy books that are a good mix.
This being a pet subject of mine, I could ramble for hours, so I’ll quit… but last point of mention, Hans Christian Anderson was Dutch, Brother’s Grimm were German, IIRC… there are loads and loads and loads of native folklore to dive into… it’s quite literally a well with no bottom… and if you like to write, it’s a never ending well of inspiration. Disney has basically taken a thimbleful of well known stories and capitolized off of them, don’t let the inaccuracies get you down - people have been doing this for centuries, only, in different formats.
My largest pet peeve is movies made from books that are totally inaccurate in ridiculous ways. In that situation, I can totally jump on the bandwagon as I see no reason to take someone’s form of expression and alter it… like for instance, changing Pip’s “expectations” and name to “Fin” in the latest movie adaptation. Ugh. bitch bitch bitch moan grumble gripe rant bitch pardon my noise over here.
Oh, and yes, the prince was blinded by thorns in Rapunzel.
I bet we won’t be seeing a disney version of “the maiden with no hands” anytime soon.
Gaston was lifted from Jean Cocteau’s 1946 “La Belle et la Bête” (although Cocteau named the character Avenant), as were many other elements of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”. I don’t know if this will be of use to Speaker for the Dead or not, but Disney’s fairy tale films often owe as much to earlier film versions of the stories as they do to any literary sources.
I’ve heard that Disney outright copied The Lion King from an old Japanese cartoon called Kimba the White Lion. Some of my friends are very into anime, and just mentioning The Lion King to them makes them froth at the mouth and go into long lectures comparing every aspect of the two movies. They do sound very much alike from what I’ve heard.
“…over 50 of the Grimms’ tales as they were originally intended. They’re violent, dark, gruesome and even funny (in a weird sort of way) with more than few overtones that would make Freud blush.”
It lists a whole bunch of fairy tails, with links out. Some are pretty cleaned up, but others are worthwhile.
I remember that the Grimm version of Cinderella includes her two stepsisters mutilating themselves to get into the glass slipper-- one cuts off her heel, and the other cuts off her toe, each with the stepmother’s encouragement. The Swan Maiden gets blinded as well, and is rescued by her enchanted brothers just moments before being burned at the stake. I’ve also read a very old version of Little Red Riding Hood wherein the wolf coerces LRRH into eating meat and drinking wine, but the meat is her grandmother’s flesh and the wine is her grandmother’s blood. Eeewwww.
I think if you try to dig through all of the movies disney has made from fairy tale origins, you’ll be doing a ton of digging (is this a paper, or a thesis?).