Breaking the Disney Spell Essay

Jack Zipes, in his essay Breaking the Disney Spell, directly addresses the issue of what happens when a aloneegory is taken from its pilot burner viva form and written d feature. Zipes discusses in skill what Walt Disney has done to fay records and the consequences of Disneys actions. Zipes addresses m any(prenominal) issues, including those of context, society, and alteration of plot. He acc wonts Walt Disney of assail the literary usage of the fairy tale (344). age many scholars resist with Zipes accusations, his essay engages very solid and well-presented points that he promptly plump fors with fact.Regardless of what the scholars say, Zipes was in force(p) Oral tradition is important, and Disneys representations of historic family linetales damaged fairy tales as we know them. When Walt Disney began his cartoon and film c arer in 1927, he aptitude have been unaware of how the American public would rush to purchase his pilot burner creations. His head start carto on, a re-creation of Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland that added a comedic spin, began his career in the cartoon industry and eventually spun his company into a billion dollar enterprise (Funding Universe).As Disneys popularity grew, he continue to expand his film creations, exactly generally by copying or re-creating fairy tales or other historical literature. Many Americans count that Walt Disney was the first person to bring on fairy tales, and Disney failed to recognize the original creators of the stories that made him so popular the folk. Historically, fairy tales were told amongst people that historians and folklorists refer to as the folk. That is, the stories were shared orally, in what is commonly referred to as sublime space (Curry). Fairy tales were not mean to be read alone, in silence.Rather, they were created to be shared in a group of people, and, while fairy tales were saturated with message, that meaning could vary found on the degreeteller. Fairy Tales were besides often the holders of a warning or admonition that could be adjusted depending on the listener. One draw ability have told her daughter one interpreting of Cinderella in order to make a statement about her daughters lifespan, whereas another mother might have told a only different version of the aforementioned(prenominal) story. This, Zipes argues, is what made fairy tales unique and important.He comments, A narrator or narrators told tales to bring members of a group or tribe closer unitedly and to provide them with a sense of mission (332). Fairy tales were told from an older times to a younger generation. As mentioned previously, they were not shared in private, by oneself, alone with a book or videotape. Zipes comments, This privatization violated the communal aspects of the folk tale (335). The stories were a collective form of communi vomit upion that occurred in a group setting, in a safe place, in a sacred space. Fairy tales, besides communi cating example and social messages, were a sacrament of expiration.Martha C. Sims and Martine Stephens, both revered folklorists, make a statement about the richness of storytelling and teaching in their book Living Folklore. Rites of transit mark far-famed dates or stages in a persons life. Most rites of passage occur at times of change or transition birth, puberty, first appearance adulthood or coming-of-age, marriage, and death, for example (110). Fairy tales were used in rites of passage as a way to communicate with the younger generation about the changes that take place during puberty, adolescence, and marriage.Even in the written versions of Fairy Tales produced by the Brothers Grimm, Perrault, and other respected folklorists, scholars are fitted to grasp and to understand the magnificence of various elements that are present in the stories that show valuable impartiality about life adjustments and growing up. Many folklorists, however, consider Disneys version of historical fairy tales to have stripped them of their meaning. Zipes is one of them. Zipes uses the example of Disneys divagation of Puss in Boots to show that Disney altered the story to use it as a self-figuration that would mark the genre for years to come (343).Zipes argues that Disney changes the acquaintance of the story from Puss to the young king. In the original version of the tale, the cat was the hero and the young boy he was friends with played a kid role in the tale. The boy in the original tale was not royalty at all he was a commoner. Disney changed both the splendour of the boys role in the story, as well as his social status. By adjusting the story, Zipes declares that Disney communicate his own self into the story and presented it in a sort of auto-biographical fashion. Disney saw himself as the young king and projected that into the story.Disney did not see himself as simply an ordinary commoner he was far above the peasant class, at least in his own mind. W hile many of Disneys fans and put oners may argue that his recreation of fairy tales made little to no conflict on the original meaning, Zipes believes otherwise. Disneys film is also an attack on the literary tradition of the fairy tale. He robs the literary tale of its voice and changes its form and meaning (344). Disney not only adjusts the main elements of a story, just he also alters the point of view and the narrator, as we see in Puss in Boots.Instead of the story being told from Puss point of view, the hero of the story is the young boy. In Disneys other fairy tale recreations, he often adds characters and makes them the hero or savior of the story. Often, instead of being told by a female point of view and being about women, as many fairy tales are historically represented, Disney projects a patriarchal view on the story and makes it obvious to his viewers that a womans life is meaningless without a man to guide her. Disneys characters all understand the importance of wa iting around for their prince to arrive and save them from the life that they so torturously endure.Instead of the bright, intelligent, and witty women that are evidenced in such tales as Italo Calvinos The False Grandmother and Lasair Gheug, the King of Irelands Daughter, Disneys heroines appear to be lacking not only spine, but brains as well. Many American children have grown up completely unaware that the theory of a prince saving a princess is a understandably Disney thinking. The classic fairy tales often involve feminine strength and an importunity of women to be able to outsmart her predators. If a girl is not able to outsmart her attacker, she is simply killed.This is evidenced quite well in Perraults secondary red-faced Riding Hood and the Brothers Grimm tale of Little scarlet Cap. A comparison of the two stories volition bring to light the idea that if a young girl is smart enough, she can outwit any predator even a hungry wolf. The girl in Little Red Cap is able to do just that, and escapes with her life. Contrarily, the heroine of Little Red Riding Hood is not quite clever enough, and she is gobbled up (Perrault 13). The concept of women needing a savior is quite obvious in the Disney version of ascorbic acid fresh.Zipes notes, ascorbic acid White was his story that he had taken from the Grimm Brothers and changed completely to courtship his tastes and beliefs. He cast a spell over this German tale and transformed it into something peculiarly American (346). Maria Tatar also notes the impact of Disneys version on the American public as she comments, Walt Disneys speed of light White and the Seven Dwarfs has so eclipsed other versions of the story that it is golden to forget that hundreds of variants have been collected over the past century in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas (74).In the oldest versions of Snow White, the heroine of the story does not need to be relieve by a prince. The Brothers Grimm depict Snow White coming back to life by her coffin being jarred, which dislodged the apple in her pharynx (Grimm 89). Similarly, in the Lasair Gheug version of this tale, it is the kings new wife who saves Snow White by picking the ice out of her forehead and palms (94). Disney, however, shows Snow White as a idle female who must be rescued by her prince Charming. She is saved, not by accident or by a minor character, but when the prince, who has searched far and wife for her, arrives and bestows a osculation on her lips.His kiss of love is the only antidote to the queens poison (Zipes 348). Disneys portrayal of princesses or young girls as feeble and frail leads Zipes to believe that Disney perpetuated a male myth which is, subconsciously, a jubilation of his own destiny and success (348). Disney, although his primary characters are nearly unendingly female, depicts them as weak and needy. It is only the secondary male character and the adversary female in Disneys stories who appear to have spine s. By guardianship his primary female characters weak, Disney is sending the message that women are helpless without men.Zipes, in accordance with this idea, notices that not only are the primary females in Disneys stories kept weak, but that the male heroes of his tales are overly masculine and are the saviors of the stories. In this regard, notes Zipes, the prince can be interpreted as Disney Snow White cannot be fulfilled until he arrives to kiss her (349). Zipes argues that Disney, in his creation of weak females and strong male heroes, is making a statement that he, Disney, is a hero. Disneys re-telling of these fairy tales is not simply adding his own perspective to the issue at hand.Rather, Disney completely rewrites fairy tales to mean what he wants them to mean. Most historical fairy tales have a common theme and moral in them, heedless of the story teller. From Perrault to the Brothers Grimm, much retelling is similar, with only slight variances. Disney, however, with h is addition of him to the story, alters the story not only by point of view, but also in its moral and its core message. Some folklorists argue that a recreation and edict of historical folklore is necessary to ensure that the current generations retain their interest in the past.Many might argue that Disneys retelling of fairy tales has not harmed the historical value of the stories. Benjamin Filene makes this argument in his work Romancing the Folk. the backward scan can be more than nostalgic that memory can create American culture anew (236). While Filene may truly believe that it is important to incite interest in folklore amongst the youth of the current generation, Zipes disagrees. His interrogation leads him to believe that this alteration, whether for personal gain or simply for popularizing any sheath of folklore, permanently hinders the message that is inherently present in the original version.Disney, in his new representations of fairy tales, loses sight of the or iginal messages and completely removed the moral and meaning from the stories. Zipes, in Breaking the Disney Spell, provides clear evidence that Disney has violated the sanctity of fairy tales by rewriting them for his own personal pleasure and gain. By projecting himself into the fairy tales, Disney not only removes the moral message of the story, but also replaces the matriarchal values with patriarchal ones. Disney molds women to meet his standards of how women should behave, rather than word picture the strong and clever females that are visible in the original tales.While fairy tales were altered when they became a written tradition rather than an oral one, most stories still maintained their original moral values. Disney, however, strips the stories even of that in lieu of something better his own pleasure and fame. After Disney, fairy tales will never be the same. Now, society is stuck with his egotistical creations that are beneficial to no one but himself. Instead of the s tories being meaningful and a rite of passage, they are reduced to simply a meaningless tale of Disneys life and goals. Zipes was right Disney has damaged fairy tales and they will never be quite the same