Introduction: Fairy Tale Films, Old Tales with a New Spin

Notes Introduction: Fairy Tale Films, Old Tales with a New Spin 1. In terms of terminology, ‘folk tales’ are the orally distributed narratives disseminated in ‘premodern’ times, and ‘fairy tales’ their literary equiva- lent, which often utilise related themes, albeit frequently altered. The term ‘ wonder tale’ was favoured by Vladimir Propp and used to encompass both forms. The general absence of any fairies has created something of a mis- nomer yet ‘fairy tale’ is so commonly used it is unlikely to be replaced. An element of magic is often involved, although not guaranteed, particularly in many cinematic treatments, as we shall see. 2. Each show explores fairy tale features from a contemporary perspective. In Grimm a modern-day detective attempts to solve crimes based on tales from the brothers Grimm (initially) while additionally exploring his mythical ancestry. Once Upon a Time follows another detective (a female bounty hunter in this case) who takes up residence in Storybrooke, a town populated with fairy tale characters and ruled by an evil Queen called Regina. The heroine seeks to reclaim her son from Regina and break the curse that prevents resi- dents realising who they truly are. Sleepy Hollow pushes the detective prem- ise to an absurd limit in resurrecting Ichabod Crane and having him work alongside a modern-day detective investigating cult activity in the area. (Its creators, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, made a name for themselves with Hercules – which treats mythical figures with similar irreverence – and also worked on Lost, which the series references). Beauty and the Beast is based on another cult series (Ron Koslow’s 1980s CBS series of the same name) in which a male/female duo work together to solve crimes, combining procedural features with mythical elements. All these series occupy a distinct sub-genre of telefantasy – the supernatural detective series – inaugurated by the likes of Twin Peaks and The X-ﬁ les, creating a mythology that develops over the course of the series, giving viewers a number of mysteries to uncover, adding some human interest in terms of characterisation, while also making the most of fantasy’s narrative flexibility. As this summary suggests, both innovative and repetitive features are easy to discern, yet the growing interest in such shows is undeniable. For further discussion of the sub-genre see Short (2011b). 3. The ATU system was initiated by Anti Aarne in 1910, updated by Stith Thompson in 1961 and amended again by Hans Uther in 2004. Critics consider it to be too Western-centric, based on a geographically limited range of tales (the Grimm’s Household Tales being a major source), and has a tendency to be inaccurate, with the same tale potentially appearing in more than one category. The first issue has led to other classification systems, using the same principle of motif and number, for tales arising in other locations, while Uther has sought to include more international examples in his amendments to the index. A single method that will take into account cultural variants, and do away with any inaccuracy or repetition, remains the 171 172 Notes to Introduction ideal, yet the familiarity of the ATU system is considered ample justification for referencing tale types in this research, accompanied by any additional influences considered relevant to a theme. A useful comparison of the AT and ATU classification systems can be found at: http://oaks.nvg.org/folktale- types.html. 4. Warner asserts the need to undertake socio-historical analysis to try and retrieve answers about the origins of fairy tales and their intentions, yet while this is a commendable aim the result will always be hugely variable, given that stories have been retold for differing reasons over the years, and any conclusions drawn are likely to be quite speculative. 5. The film’s title is alternatively referred to as Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella, the nuts serving as the method used to hide three dresses for the heroine’s makeover. 6. Ironically, this idea of being ‘low-culture’, although often pejoratively intended, has also been a cause to take fairy tales, and their folkloric prede- cessors, more seriously. Warner cites John Updike’s negative comment that, prior to television and pornography, fairy tales were ‘the life-lightening trash of preliterate peoples’ (1995: xiv) yet Carter reclaims this notion in proudly referring to them as ‘the perennially refreshed entertainment of the poor’, representing ‘the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labour created our world’ (1990: ix), perceiving them to offer some insight into the difficulties of ordinary life, as well as common aspirations. It is their very ‘lowliness’ that has also led to claims of radical or subversive intentions smuggled through a medium that few took notice of. Warner equates this with a magic cloak of invisibility that enabled fairy tales to emerge as one of the few means of expressing female concerns (1995), while Zipes denotes politically progressive potential in stories where lowly figures triumph over the powerful, attributing certain folk and fairy tales with the ability to help us ‘break the magic spell’ that inhibits and disempowers us, enabling us to grasp our full potential (2002a). 7. Although von Trier has alluded to another source, a Danish fairy tale called ‘Golden Heart’ he was obsessed with as a boy, which ‘expressed the role of the martyr in its most extreme form’, he added features such as romantic sacrifice and a sea setting that are much closer to ‘The Little Mermaid’. (See his interview in Sight and Sound, October 1996, www.industrycentral.net/ director_interviews/LVT01.htm.) For an insightful analysis of Andersen’s tale and its cinematic treatment see White (1993), who mentions the interesting departure, I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing (Patricia Rozema, 1987). We might also add John Sayles’ The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), a variation of the mermaid legend, Selkies, which refutes Andersen’s dismal tone, and Anna Melikyan’s Mermaid (2007), which frustratingly reiterates a tragic finale for its heroine. Ch. 23 of Marina Warner’s From the Beast to the Blonde provides an interesting discussion of mermaid mythology, in which she contrasts the fatal call of sirens with Andersen’s (and Disney’s) silencing of the female voice, perceiving The Piano to reference similar themes in its heroine’s wilful silence, as well as her attraction to the idea of a watery demise (1995: 405–6). 8. Like Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997) – the first film to draw international attention to Studio Ghibli and particularly Miyazaki’s interesting depictions of female characters – the central relationship in Ponyo is framed Notes to Chapter 1 173 as a conciliation between nature and humanity, just as the ‘love’ between Chihiro and Haku in Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2000) similarly elides romantic engagement, an idea approved by some critics (see Bacchilega and Reider, 2010), yet arguably makes these films somewhat infantile. 9. The story is found in Carter’s first volume of The Virago Book of Fairy Tales (1990). While wished-for children sometimes provide great happiness, in more ominous treatments they simply bring misery, suggesting they should never have been born. In the Grimm tale ‘The Pink’, a queen’s longing for a child is granted, giving birth to a son who is able to make wishes come true, yet this gift quickly brings tragedy. The boy is stolen, his parents sepa- rate for many years (the mother cruelly imprisoned to punish her perceived negligence) and they die just a few days after their son reunites the family. In other tales a new baby often results in the mother’s imminent death; she is either jealously killed (sometimes by a member of her own family) or dies in childbirth – her wish for a child paid for with her own life. We might regard such tales as a warning about the perils of reproduction at a time of high maternal mortality, as critics such as Warner have asserted. By the same token, the motif of wished-for children that turn out to be ‘monstrous’ may have been used to discuss unspeakable ideas. The parents in ‘Hans my Hedgehog’ are so ashamed of their abnormal offspring they rue their wish for a child and desire to be rid of him (inspiring a level of resentment and cruelty in his conduct towards others). These concerns about parenting and reproduction are discussed further in Chapter 5. 10. Jamshid Tehrani’s research was particularly newsworthy in using a biologi- cal system to test a folkloric hypothesis. Inspired by the historic-geographic approach, in which the familiarity of motifs in different parts of the world is attributed to travel and migration, the co-ordinates for ‘Red Riding Hood’ (ATU 333) and similar tales such as ‘The Wolf and the Kids’ (ATU 123) were plotted geographically in the areas where they were first recorded, seeking to map the route taken by ‘Red Riding Hood’ in Europe, Africa and Asia, and the cultural variants that resulted. The findings were considerably simplified in the news however, as Tehrani admits that assigning an accurate chronol- ogy to oral tales is notoriously difficult, making any attempt to argue a clear- cut ancestry tenuous at best (see Tehrani, 2013). 11. Warner (1992: 2) (cited by Petrie 1993: 3). 1 Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams: Aspiring Underdogs and Humbled Heroines 1. For a fuller discussion of the Lurie–Lieberman debate, and the way it initiated the study of folklore and feminism, see Donald Haase’s introductory chapter (2004). 2. Lurie points out that the kind of heroine feminist critics most object to (our usual trio of Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty) are a limited and ‘unrepresentative selection’ compared to the wealth of European folklore and affirms that tales recorded by folklorists, and published in more recent collections than the typical Andrew Lang anthology, provide more active heroines.

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