English 382 Cinderella Pop Quiz

ENGL 3820, Literature for the Young Child Spring 2012 ANSWER KEY

1. Zipes begins his discussion by explaining the purpose of oral folk tales. What were they supposed to do?

According to Zipes, oral folk tales “were intended to explain natural occurences such as the change in seasons and shifts in the weather or to celebrate the rites of harvesting, hunting, marriage, and conquest” (333). Moreover, “the emphasis in most folk tales was on communal harmony” (333).

2. Zipes observes, “With the rise of literacy and the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, the oral tradition of storytelling underwent an immense revolution” (334). One of these ways was categorization. What does Zipes claim to be the sub-type of folk tale that we today consider fairy tales?

Zipes notes that the sort of texts that we consider to be fairy tales were “just one type of the folk tale tradition, namely the Zaubermärchen or the magic tale, which has many sub- genres” (334).

3. What does Zipes mean when he writes, “In short, by institutionalizing the literary fairy tale, writers and publishers violated the forms and concerns of non-literate, essentially peasant communities and set new standards of taste, production, and reception through the discourse of the fairy tale”? (336). Also, how might this passage connect to Disney?

Zipes suggests that the shift from oral to written tales meant that the audience changed markedly; authors were of the middle and upper classes, and they tended to focus on issues that would of interest to those readers, not to everyone. The fairy tale, as such, moved away from expressing common concerns and put forward the concerns of the elite. In some ways, Disney films were more democratizing because they were meant for a wide audience, but it was a wide audience of children, so the concerns put forward in the films were still narrower in scope than were the concerns of the oral folk tale.

4. Zipes notes that fairytales do “not represent communal values but rather the values of a particular writer” (337), and how might this this claim relate to the production of Disney films?

Here, and in other parts of the essay, Zipes implies that Disney would place elements of his own background and his own social outlook into his fairy tale films. Zipes seems to suggest that this narrowness of focus made the tales more conservative and less representative of communal values.

5. Zipes then makes a list of the ramifications of going from oral tales to literary tales. What do you think of points 4 and 6 on page 338? Are these still evident in fairy tales and fairy tale movies that most people have seen and grown up with?

For this answer, I was looking for responses that provided examples to back up your opinions. If you just said that you agreed, but did not offer support, then I took points off. 6. Zipes mentions Georges Méliès when talking about film (339). Have a look at his film Cinderella (1899) on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYmCUFl96PQ. (Remember Méliès’ name, because we will be reading a text about him later in the semester.) Why does he argue that Méliès could not revolutionize the film industry?

Zipes notes that because the film industry was still in its beginning stages, Méliès was unable to translate his vision onto the screen in the way that Disney and later filmmakers were able to do.

7. Why does Zipes liken the artists who worked with Disney to “that of the dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”? (341).

Zipes observes that while Disney’s animators and writers did the difficult grunt work, Disney took sole credit for the finished films.

8. Why is it important to be aware of the concept of “self-figuration” on page 340 and 341, especially in connection to Disney?

Zipes argues that the shift from the storyteller/community folk tale to the filmmaker/viewer film meant that the previous traditions associated with oral culture were superceded by a focus on the individual creator, on individualism itself, and on a narrow set of (sometimes) personal concerns on the part of the filmmaker. In the process, and especially by repeating the formulas for his films, Disney severed the connection between the folk from whom the tales originated and the films that would come to redefine how contemporary readers and viewers thought of folk tales and fairy tales.

9. Zipes notes, “Of all the early animators, Disney was the one who truly revolutionized the fairy tale as institution through the cinema” (343). He points out that Puss in Boots (1922) “is crucial for grasping his approach to the literary fairy tale” (343). What was so significant about this film?

Zipes suggests that Puss in Boots is significant because Disney appeared to wish to erase all previous variants of the folk tale from the public’s imagination, both by reworking the text entirely and by placing autobiographical elements into the film.

10. Next, Zipes discusses Disney’s history with Snow White. He notes the changes Disney made from the Grimm text, but also how certain things stayed the same. Zipes writes, “There is no doubt that Disney retained key ideological features of the Grimms’ fairy tale that reinforce nineteenth-century patriarchal notions that Disney shared with the Grimms” (348). What main example does he give in this paragraph?

Zipes observes that in the Disney version, Snow White’s obvious desire to be domestic and to carry out chores for the dwarfs echoes the sort of patriarchal ideas that were current in the 19th and the 20th centuries regarding women’s roles.

11. Zipes ends his essay with a discussion of the “power of Disney’s fairy-tale films” (351). Pay close attention to points 4, 5, 7, and 8. Are any of these points still applicable to Disney fairy-tale movies today or to ones that most viewers grew up watching? Explain.

Again, here I was looking for you to provide specific examples to back up your claims.