Salon.com Asks Jack Zipes "Are dark fairy tales more authentic?"

From Are dark fairy tales more authentic?: Disney and others are chasing dollars, not keeping it real, one expert argues by Emma Mustich:

There's long been a "survival of the fittest" aspect about folklore. Just as animals evolve and become better adapted to their environments over time, stories such as "Snow White" and "Beauty and the Beast" have weathered many centuries, improving -- and becoming better suited to contemporary audiences -- over the course of their many reimaginings.

These stories have entertained and comforted, spooked and delighted audiences for countless generations. Many who are alive today find Disney's adaptations of these tales -- from "Cinderella" to "The Little Mermaid" -- familiar; children reared on the animation giant's brightly-colored, upbeat and music-saturated films may view the glut of live-action fairy tale film adaptations headed our way -- three new "Snow Whites," two "Sleeping Beauties," a "Beauty and the Beast" and a "Little Mermaid," among others -- with a curious sort of caution.

A number of these films (which are in various stages of planning and production) have been pitched as "dark" retellings of familiar tales. At this year's Comic-Con, Charlize Theron likened her "Evil Queen" character in "Snow White and the Huntsman" to a "serial killer" (not a total departure for Theron); the new "Little Mermaid" is based on Carolyn Turgeon's novel "Mermaid," which Booklist reviewed using words and phrases like "dark," "foreboding," "heartache," "misery," "constant pain," "catastrophic consequences," "brooding," "tragic" and "not exactly a cozy bedtime story."

Does this "dark turn" in fairy-tale filmmaking represent a return to older, more forbidding versions of stories Disney gussied up for 20th-century kids? Or are these new movies simply cogs in the wheel of folk tale re-telling?

For answers, I turned to Jack Zipes, an emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota and prolific author whose books include "The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales" and "The Enchanted Screen: A History of Fairy Tales on Film."

What follows is an edited and condensed transcript of our conversation.

That's the introduction. You'll have to click through to the article to read the conversation with Zipes. And if you want his opinion on Disney, Hoodwinked, Red Riding Hood and others, be sure to read the entire thing.

And don't miss the reader comments if want some extra vitriol for your morning reading...

Lisa Stock's Production of Snow, Glass, Apples

If you are in the Atlanta area this weekend, you can see Lisa Stock's production of Snow, Glass, Apples.

From Snow White, snow fright: Lisa Stock's production of Snow, Glass, Apples takes a bite out of the EAV Farmers Market by Jonathan Williams:

With two new live-action versions of the famous fairy tale currently in production, it seems that Snow White has awakened from a proverbial pop culture slumber. But before either of the films hits the big screen, a group of accomplished local thespians is staging a retelling of the familiar story. Snow, Glass, Apples, based on the Neil Gaiman short story of the same name, is a dark take on the tale, portraying Snow White (Carrie Anne Hunt) as a supernatural being and told from the point of view of the stepmother/queen. Produced by Lisa Stock's creative company InByTheEye, Snow, Glass, Apples is Stock's directorial debut in Atlanta after relocating from the Big Apple after 20 years. Stock discusses the play, which runs Aug. 24-28 at the East Atlanta Village Farmers Market.

This is your first production in Atlanta, so let us know a little about your background.

Everything I do is heavily steeped in fairy tales and mythology. I like to put new perspectives on stories we're so familiar with, which is what drew me to Gaiman's story. For me the tales in their earlier forms are really compelling. I like flawed characters a lot and I like to see characters that are making mistakes and not trusting themselves, things I think we can all relate to. Fairy tales are wonderful character studies and the so-called villains are often the most interesting characters and the ones we remember the most.

Before the Brothers Grimm started adding the princes and huntsmen and changing the values, and changing the mother to a stepmother because they couldn't believe that a real mother would be so awful to her child, they had a much harsher and more realistic look on the world. This story is from the stepmother's point of view, which some people might consider the villain or the monster, and I feel like that's just an ages-old tradition of looking at ourselves. When I'm doing Snow, Glass, Apples, I'm sort of focusing on what happens when we don't trust our own instincts.

There's much more in the article, of course. You can click through and read the rest. You can also visit Lisa Stock's website.

Conference in India: FOLK TALES AND AFTER: THEORY & PRAXIS IN STORYTELLING

Children’s Literature Association of India’s [CLAI] 5th International Conference

FOLK TALES AND AFTER: THEORY & PRAXIS IN STORYTELLING

Place: Pune, Venue : to be announced

Date: 25th to 27th November 2011.

“A folktale is a poetic text that carries some of its cultural contexts within it; it is also a travelling metaphor that finds a new meaning with every telling” – A.K. Ramanujan.

The above comment by one of the prominent folktale scholars of India embodies the essence of both theory and praxis of folktales and storytelling.
As literacy grew and the art of printing made books more accessible, storytelling began to die out. Worried that these folktales would fade from memory and disappear, collectors of folktales published them in books. Has the excessive presence of modern technological media almost eliminated the fashion of storytelling? Or viewed differently, are the hypnotic appeal of mass entertainment in television, music, video, films etc. just telling us stories in which we see ourselves, sometimes as we are, sometimes as we would like to be, sometimes as we hope we will never be? Then, as Julius Lester, the great African American children’s writer tells, “Story is who we are.” Folktales and After: Theory & Praxis in Storytelling is an academically worth mental exercise to explore into our own identity and it will be greatly exciting to be involved in this venture in the great central city of education in India, Pune, where cultural artefacts of east and west meet in a unique proportion and balance.

Traditionally, folktales taught the adults and children of a region how to live; it set a pattern for right living, directing almost a moral code of behaviour for a group of people. These tales were passed from one generation to the next and framed a set of rules for emulation. Today, the oral tradition has been replaced by mass media and children’s books have become the conservators of the oral tradition. Hence, the topic for the conference is a wide one that encompasses the total sphere of folktales, storytelling, and oral tradition, the whole gamut of tales and narration of children’s literature.

Folktales and storytelling are inseparable. This conference proposes to invite an international band of scholars in children’s literature to engage in various deliberations and themes associated with folktales and story telling. Discussions may be based on defining folktales, as folktales are often confused with fairy tales, myths, legends, fables, and other terms. Defining the realm of folktales in theory and praxis is essential to the critical evaluation of folktales study. Or, further explorations can be based on common characteristics of folktales. The themes of topics may vary as concerned with the setting, characters, plot, presence of animals, presence of tricksters, etc. in folktales. Another perspective may direct scholars to present papers on the structural aspects of folktales, especially on the Mnemonic devices used in folktales such as stock or set openings and closings in the narration of folktales, various formula and set descriptions in narration, etc.

Indian scholars, we suggest, may, perhaps, make a theoretical as well as performing effects of folktales narrated from different regions of the country and represent in papers topics such as themes, motifs, narrative structures peculiar to the folktales of the subcontinent. Or, for the more serious scholars, we propose a postcolonial study of folktales! British colonial officials, writers, missionaries, and their helpers collected a number of Indian folktales during colonization. Rich in local cultural details, these collections of tales contain elaborate prefaces and explanatory notes that often reveal how these colonial collectors of folktales delineated the other and dwelt with subjectivity while themselves experiencing shifting subaltern positions.

Other scholars can be more incisive in their criticism of folktales as for example by interrogating the presence of outmoded values of an earlier time preserved in ancient folktales or even by probing into their suitability as literature for children today. You may even go to the extend of breaking all norms of submissiveness questioning certain tales that might be communicating attitudes we no longer consider appropriate for children.

For the more serene scholars, we also put forward topics more child-centred like folktales and their contemporary impact on children, or characteristics of oral literature for children as exposed in certain examples of folktales of your choice.

We promise it to be an exciting experience in Pune – a unique instance of academic collaboration in children’s literature with Bhaasha, an NGO actively working for children. The local organizers of the conference in Pune require immediate email messages of confirmation in participation. Please send a message to Ms. Swati J. Raje as early as possible.

The abstracts of your paper presentations as word attached file in Times New Roman 12 point font, with double spacing, and the words limited to a maximum of 250. The abstract should reach Children’s Literature Association of India in the email address antoct@yahoo.co.in on or before 30 August 2011.


For further details of the conference venue and other requirements including accommodation and local hospitality, please contact:

Ms. Swati J Raje, Children’s Writer, Pune, India.

Phone: 91-9822401876

Mail to: swatijraje@hotmail.com

swatijraje@gmail.com

Fairy Tales Are About Hope, Once Upon a Time Producer

Another article about ABC's Once Upon a Time, but it also contains the producers' philosophy about fairy tales so I thought I would share. We are still two months away from the premiere, alas.

From Fairytales: Twisted:

TVA Plus: Once Upon A Time takes a very different look at fairytales and fantasy TV. How long has this idea been in gestating?

Adam: It’s been a long time. Eddie and I actually had this idea together about eight years ago. We were fairly new at the time so was probably not readily accessible for a couple of young writers. We love fairy stories and we always thought it would be fun to do a show that attacked them from a different angle and kind of used that as a jumping off point for something else.

Edward: When we were on Lost, it started to kind of click how we wanted to tell these fairy stories. We weren’t interested in retelling Snow White. Let’s start at the end of Snow White for instance. We will tell you what you’ve never seen before. We don’t want to retell Pinocchio; we want to tell you how Jiminy Cricket became homeless and sneaked into Gepetto’s workshop.

Also something else we picked up on, if you look around the world, no matter what country you’re in, no matter where you are, everyone is kind of grasping for hope right now. The reason I personally love fairytales, is the same reason why you buy a lottery ticket. It’s the belief that one thing can change your life.

The way that Lost is about redemption, this show is about hope. Storybrook kind of represents every town, represents everybody. We say it’s a town full of cursed people looking for hope, looking for their happy endings but that could be anywhere. If it’s Singapore, Hong Kong or Minneapolis, everybody feels like maybe I’m not where I want to be. And I feel like that’s kind of what our show is about.

****

Adam: When you look at fairytales, a lot of them are terrifyingly dark stories. But when you look at them in terms of the context of which many of them were for, which were to teach children how to deal with the world and how to deal with their fears, those kinds of scary moments are the undercurrents of hopefulness and also paired with humour also.

Have I mentioned I am really, really curious about this series? And I hate ongoing storyline plots that may take seasons to resolve so this is saying a lot! I don't mind seasonal arcs, but leaving plot resolution to the vagaries of networks, actor changes, writers, etc. irks me no end. I don't trust it and won't get caught up in it willingly but this might convince me otherwise.

Anyway, I am happy with their philosophies on fairy tales, so I will be setting my DVR!

Bargain Ebook: Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut

Bluebeard (Kurt Vonnegut series) by Kurt Vonnegut has just been released in a $3.99 ebook version.

Book description from the publisher:

BLUEBEARD (1987) is Vonnegut's late-career meditation on art, artists, surrealism and disaster. Rabo Karabekian, a modestly successful surrealist painter, is seen in late life struggling, as do all of Vonnegut's principals, with unresolved human pain and the consequences of brutality. Loosely based on the legend of Bluebeard (best realized in Bela Bartok's one-act opera), the novel follows Karabekian through the last events in a life embedded in women, painting, artistic ambition, artistic fraudulence and unknown consequence. Vonnegut's intention here is not really satirical (although the contemporary art world would be easy enough to so deconstruct) nor is it documentary (although Karabekian carries elements of Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko). Instead, Vonnegut is using art here for the same purpose that he used science fiction clichés in SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, as a filter through which can be illumined the savagery, cruelty and essential comic misdirection of human existence. Familiar Vonnegut characters and archetypes drift through the background while Karabekian, as betrayed as he was betrayer, sinks through a bottomless haze of recollection. Like all of Vonnegut's late works it is both science fiction and cruel contemporary realism which uses its science fiction as a metaphor for human damage and failure of perception. As Vonnegut's protagonists can never quite clarify whether they are victims or barbarians, Vonnegut can never be quite sure if he is writing science fiction or a mockery of science fiction. The purposes fuse.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is perhaps the most beloved American writer of the 20th century. His audience has built steadily since his first pieces in the 1950's. Vonnegut’s 1968 novel, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE has become a canonic war novel - with Joseph Heller's CATCH-22 the truest and darkest of all to have come from World War II. Vonnegut began as a science fiction writer and his early novels PLAYER PIANO and THE SIRENS OF TITAN were so categorized even as they appealed to a young audience far beyond science fiction readers. In the 1960's he became the writer most identified with the Baby Boomer generation. Like the novels of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut’s large body of work is now understood as unified. There is a consistency to his satirical insight, humor and anger which makes his work synergistic. The more of Kurt Vonnegut’s work you read, the more the work resonates and the more you wish to read. Vonnegut’s reputation - like Twain’s - will grow steadily through the decades to come as his work grows in relevance, truthfulness and searing insight.

Word for Teens Blog: Thoughts On: Disney Princesses (And, you know, YA books.)

  

A blog, Word for Teens, had an interesting post last week on Disney Princesses and YA books, titled: Thoughts On: Disney Princesses (And, you know, YA books.). No, there's nothing overly profound but I enjoyed the entry and wanted to share. Essentially she breaks down the Disney Princesses to types and then offers YA books that use the same types of heroines/love stories.

From her introduction:

You know the ones I'm talking about. Snow White. Sleeping Beauty. Jasmine from "Aladdin". Mulan. Belle from "Beauty and the Beast". Ariel from "The Little Mermaid". Rapunzel from "Tangled". Cinderella. Pocahontas.

They all get the happy ending with the guy they love.

And you know what? That's GREAT. But it's the way the princesses themselves fall in love that worries me, not their characters or anything. (Note, however, that Disney doesn't have love triangles. Take a lesson, YA writers.) And you can see how this influences YA writing.

Let me explain.

The most interesting is Little Mermaid which she saves for last.

Obsessive Love
Or, my annoyance with Ariel.

Ariel is a lot of my friend's favorite princess. She's spunky; like Jasmine and Belle, she longs to explore and be somewhere she's not. And she's a red head!

But unlike Jasmine and Belle, when it comes to love, she's a bit of a moron.

Part of her falls under the concept of "love at first sight," which is a concept I loathe. Don't get me wrong - I get instant attraction and the instant feeling that you're going to love someone. That this is "the one."

But Ariel takes that a step further to where most paranormal romances are right now, minus the love triangle. She gives up everything for a man she hasn't even talked to. Yes, part of it is her longing to live on the shore, but that's just an added bonus for this girl - the big thing is getting the guy.

There's more, click through to read it, and it's funny just how many books she pulled to compare to Little Mermaid vs the other princesses, such as Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) and Evermore: The Immortals and Shiver (Wolves of Mercy Falls) and Sea Change. I also enjoyed it because while I enjoy Little Mermaid as a musical--if you like musicals it's hard not to enjoy Disney's Little Mermaid on that level--I dislike the story and Ariel for many of the reasons discussed here. I wasn't this type of girl, was never this type of girl and don't see myself becoming one. These types of girls annoyed me.

   

And I'm not dissing the HCA version either which has an entirely different message, ending and purpose from the Disney version of his tale. I don't love either version, but I accept HCA's much more easily.

Anyway, I don't have time to delve further into this, but it stuck with me for a few hours after I read it and thus deemed it quite worthy of sharing here on SurLaLune.

Mermaids Annual from Faerie Magazine Publisher

The publisher of Faerie Magazine is starting an annual Mermaid magazine, the first issue of which is due out next month. From the website:

Mermaids - Over 200 pages of lush photography, renowned authors and artists, packed with information including the current revival of interest in Mermaids. Advice for aspiring mermaids! Fiction, non-fiction, aquariums and aquatic wonderland, find out what's happening under the sea! Designed to be collected and treasured for years, Mermaids will stun you with 'lore' and the 'lure'!

Pre-orders for Mermaids, orders placed before September 15, 2011, will cost $11.95 (a savings of 20%), plus shipping. Beginning September 15, 2011, Mermaids will cost $14.95 plus shipping.