Short, sue fairy tale and film

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

Fairy Tale and Film Old Tales with a New Spin

Sue Short

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Fairy Tale and Film

www.ebook777.com

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Also by Sue Short CULT TELEFANTASY SERIES CYBORG CINEMA MISFIT SISTERS: Screen Horror as Female Rites of Passage

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

Fairy Tale and Film Old Tales with a New Spin Sue Short Birkbeck College, University of London, UK

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com © Sue Short, 2015 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN 978–1–137–02016–1 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Short, Sue, 1968– Fairy tale and film : old tales with a new spin / Sue Short, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. pages cm Includes filmography.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978–1–137–02016–1 1. Fairy tales in motion pictures. 2. Fairy tales—Film adaptations. I. Title.

PN1995.9.F34S57 2015 791.43'6559—dc23 2014028335 Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

www.ebook777.com

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com To Leah – already a keen lover of fairy tale films.

In loving memory of her mother, Dani.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

This page intentionally left blank

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Contents Preface

viii

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

1

1 Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams: Aspiring Underdogs and Humbled Heroines

21

2 Curses, Wishes and Amazing Transformations: Male Maturation Tales

50

3 Wealth through Stealth: Evening the Odds, or Flirting with Disaster?

71

4 Dangerous Liaisons: Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

92

5 Houses of Horror: Domestic Dangers and Man-made Monsters

113

6 Postmodern Revisions: New Tales for Old?

140

Epilogue: The Importance of Enchantment

163

Notes

171

Bibliography

195

Filmography

204

Index

209

vii

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Preface This work constitutes a key area of fascination; seeking to better understand the kinship between fairy tales and contemporary film. My earlier book, Misfit Sisters, examined how film and television series with horror and supernatural elements could be seen to revise some familiar motifs. I was particularly drawn to a rite of passage theme discerned in a number of narratives, in which female protagonists were forced to demonstrate considerable fortitude and fearlessness to overcome various perils. Like their folkloric predecessors, such heroines were forced to learn some hard lessons about the hazards of unhappy families, dangerous relationships and female rivalry; lessons learned in adolescence and beyond. This new book widens these concerns, in terms of both genre and gender, evaluating both male and female protagonists in a number of scenarios and the fairy tale tropes they can be seen to revise. It stems from a conviction that our understanding of film has much to gain from examining the repetition and revision of particular stories and themes.

Cinematic retellings of ‘Red Riding Hood’, ‘Snow White’ and ‘Cinderella’ occur for a host of reasons, and the way each version tinkers with the tale reveals a great deal about their narrative flexibility, responsiveness to key social changes, and enduring level of appeal. The pronounced interest taken by the studios in repackaging fairy tales for a modern audience stems from this last point – the fact that they have pulling power.

Multi-million dollar budgets, A-list stars and renowned directors are now regularly utilised to enhance this appeal, with the added attraction of 3D technology used to lure audiences back to the cinema, yet I believe we are looking for something more than spectacular entertainment from cinematic fairy tales. Like past audiences, happy to rehear the same tale, the point is not simply to pass the time but an experience that will stay with and sustain us in some way. I have selected some unusual examples, one might say unorthodox variations, in order to challenge preconceptions about what constitutes a ‘fairy tale film’. Comedies and romances are discussed, together with thrillers and tales of terror, hoping to point out not simply how old many seemingly contemporary stories are, but how relevant they remain.

In the opening to a televised version of The Arabian Nights the heroine, Scheherazade, is reminded of the importance of telling tales by a master storyteller. ‘People need stories more than bread itself,’ he informs her, viii

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Preface

ix

‘they tell us how to live – and why.’ Although I wouldn’t go as far as to say that fairy tales are necessarily morality tales, with a lesson of some kind to impart, many of the most intriguing, arguably, have something to say about our hopes and aspirations, as well as our greatest fears. The driving force behind this research is to question how much such tales have altered in their cinematic treatments, and what this reveals. We have seen some important developments. Protagonists have matured, the contrast between villainy and heroism is often obscured, we tend to expect more from heroines than a wistful hope for romantic escape, and heroes are also asked to prove themselves in some interesting ways, defying attendant assumptions along the way. What do such tales have to say about what we want from life, and what we are prepared to do to get it? The examples discussed aim to question what constitutes a fairy tale film and to challenge some of the prevailing criticism surrounding this subject, yet it is presented as an unfinished tale (as they all are invariably) which the reader is invited to conclude.

Research interests tend to be influenced by the personal, to some degree, and this work is no exception. In the preface to Misfit Sisters I noted a particular fascination with Red Riding Hood, mentioning a maternal grandmother named after this character, and dedicated the book to the women in my family who have inspired me. I would like to repeat this intention by dedicating this work to one particular individual, my late sister-in-law, Dani, who showed astounding courage, dignity and selflessness in her fight against cancer. On our last evening together I told her I’d be telling her daughter tales of maternal spirits guiding their girls from beyond the grave, and I’ll pledge the same here in print. The fact that mothers are lost in so many fairy tales doesn’t lessen the tragedy – or the keenness of our grief – but adds a new shape to it. Sometimes telling stories, and placing our faith in them, no matter how patently wish-fulfilling they may seem, is all that we have.

www.ebook777.com

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

This page intentionally left blank

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction: Fairy Tale Films, Old Tales with a New Spin

The downtrodden heroine who triumphs in the end; an enchantment that forces a male protagonist to change; the acquisition of fabulous riches – and their potential cost; marriage to a monster; and unhappy families rife with danger and abuse – these are all familiar narratives, with a history that extends back to some of the earliest stories people have exchanged. Cinema has continued this process, effectively telling the same tales (or, rather, variations on a similar theme) since the medium began, and the focus of this book is to examine this fascinating interrelationship, paying particular attention to contemporary narratives that take such tales as ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Ali Baba’ and ‘Bluebeard’, and give them a new spin. Films and fairy tales go back a long way. As scholars such as Marina Warner (1993a) and Jack Zipes (2011) have pointed out, the film industry’s interest in adapting fairy tales is evident from the earliest days of cinema, when film-makers were drawn by the familiarity of the material, its propensity for staging visual spectacle and potential to attract widespread appeal. In many ways not much has altered in terms of these incentives; a film industry, struggling to hold the attention of a global market, has ploughed considerable resources into reimagined fairy tales. A notable trend in adapting fantastical stories has been apparent since the mammoth commercial success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001, 2002, 2003) and Tim Burton’s 3D Alice in Wonderland (2010), prompting a spate of remakes, including two versions of the ‘Snow White’ story released in the same year, pantomime renditions of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Hansel and Gretel’, and revised treatments planned of virtually every well-known wonder tale, from novels such as Peter Pan and Pinocchio, to classic fairy tales such as ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Cinderella’.1 If the Disney Corporation once seemed to have a monopoly on such rewrites 1

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 2

Fairy Tale and Film

this is no longer the case, with other major studios keen to invest in the current vogue for refashioned fairy tales. However, this is not their sole appearance on the big screen, with less conspicuous referencing an ongoing cinematic concern, from the industry’s origins to the present day. Film-makers have often borrowed motifs and plot features from fairy tales, albeit, as Maria Tatar puts it, better disguised (qtd in Gilsdorf, 2013). In some cases this ‘disguise’ may amount to situating ideas in a contemporary context, or adding a few narrative spins. Nonetheless, we can often recognise a ‘Cinderella’ or ‘Bluebeard’ plot, partly because these are some of the earliest stories we hear, but also because we have grown accustomed to seeing fairy tale motifs redeployed in popular culture. Not only are they regularly referenced in music, advertisements and literary rewrites, they have served as the inspiration for a clutch of contemporary TV series such as Grimm (NBC, 2011–), Once Upon a Time (ABC, 2011–), Sleepy Hollow (Fox, 2013–) and Beauty and the Beast (CW, 2012–) – many of which rely on our familiarity with conventional tropes, as well as occasionally testing underlying assumptions.2 Recent films have accordingly adopted a playful attitude to their source material, seeking to retell familiar stories in new ways. As a result we have a Snow White who does not simply rely on a passing prince to take her off to a better life – but ousts her rival and claims her right to the throne, a grown-up Hansel and Gretel who make it their mission to kill witches, and a version of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ where the villain’s plan to exploit giants for his own gain is simply copied by the film’s hero. Although it is tempting to assign progressive concerns to some retold fairy tales, many recent films appear to have a similar intent as some of the earliest film versions: visually inventive perhaps (3D replacing the tinting and special effects employed in ‘trick films’), narratively irreverent and often name-checking fairy tale characters in the title in the hope of attracting a wide (potentially worldwide) audience.

Other examples are less conspicuous in their allusions – yet frequently all the more interesting in the readings they invite – sometimes aiming to prompt a reassessment of the plot. If a red hoodie worn at the end of Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005) seems too subtle a reference to ‘Red Riding Hood’, the film’s marketing image has Ellen Paige, similarly attired, standing as bait in a giant mantrap, alerting viewers to expect a different take on the traditional tale. Freeway (Matthew Bright, 1996) makes the same point in a title sequence of garish cartoons showing the fairy tale heroine (depicted in ‘seductive’ dress) under attack – and names its predatory male ‘Bob Wolverton’ for good measure. Both films seek to confront the idea (instigated by Charles Perrault’s version of

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction

3

events three centuries ago) of a young female provocateur who is asking for trouble, inviting us to rethink assumptions about female sexuality and victimhood. Alternatively, a film may include a fairy tale reference not simply to question the assumed meaning of the tale, but to imbue the story with added significance. A Pinocchio doll that appears as a brief prop in The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam, 1991) is arguably more relevant to the narrative than the medieval tale cited in the title, paralleling the hero’s required maturation, while the reading of Collodi’s story in AI: Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001) adds a sense of poignancy for the film’s own artificial boy who, by contrast, will never grow up. Just as fairy tales are far from ‘purposeless entertainments’ (Warner, 1993a), films that have drawn upon them are similarly deemed significant, revealing a great deal about what we desire (whether it be in the sphere of relationships, family or material success) as well as attendant dangers and difficulties, yet how are we to define and discuss such films, especially given the varying tones and treatments of established narratives?

For over a century, films have reworked or referenced fairy tales in some way, yet their analysis has been subject to certain shortcomings.

Film critics have tended to analyse fairy tale films as part of a sub-genre of fantasy, limiting discussion to examples such as Disney’s adaptations of classic tales popularised by Charles Perrault and the brothers Grimm, or epics inspired by the Arabian Nights such as the ‘Sinbad’ tales made famous by Ray Harryhausen’s extraordinary effects work. Other films that draw upon fairy tales, such as La Belle et la bête (Jean Cocteau, 1946) or The Red Shoes (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger, 1948) tend to be evaluated in different terms, usually as part of the directors’ oeuvre rather than via their narrative influences. Cinematic snobbery is doubtless responsible for influencing the way films are defined and discussed, for if the term ‘fantasy’ still carries a certain stigma, fairy tales are beset with additional (often negative and frequently erroneous) assumptions, particularly the idea that they are aimed primarily at children and have no relation to reality. Curiously, although Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale (1928) has successfully made the crossover from folklore to film studies – with his idea of archetypes and their associated action often used to explore narrative structure – this has proved to be one of the few intersections in a discipline that tends to negate fairy tales as unworthy of serious study, leading to an area of critical neglect which has required the intervention of folklorists to redress.

One of the first scholarly works to assess cinema’s relationship to fairy tales was Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment (Petrie, 1993), a

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 4

Fairy Tale and Film

collection of essays, published by the BFI, including films ranging from early silent cinema, European cineastes such as Renoir and Vigo, the 1940s Cat People films produced by Val Lewton, to Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Batman Returns (1992). Although slim, the volume marks an important attempt to consider the breadth of examples we might view as fairy tale-inspired films. This is partly attributable to the significant contribution made by historian and mythographer Marina Warner, whose approach to identifying fairy tale motifs is refreshingly inclusive. Although she admits to the potential hazard of being too keen to find connections, ‘stretching fairy tale as a genre to fit anything ... finding Cinderellas and Bluebeards here, there and everywhere’ (1993a: 27), she also argues that our usual associations need to alter, pointing out that ‘the never-never land, bright as sweet wrappers and crowned with towers or castles, long ago and far away’ is by no means the only way to define ‘the territory of the fairy tale’ (1993a: 27).

They do not have to have a medieval storybook setting, in other words, much less conform to cheery family entertainment – an admission that requires us to despatch with any prior assumptions and focus instead on discerning conspicuous plot features.

This necessitates a widening of our critical faculties and an engagement with films on the basis of the stories they are telling, enabling us to identify points of reference with older tales in order to understand mutual concerns and desires – as well as equally significant points of departure and difference. In this sense, the fairy tale becomes ‘a tool for thought’, as Warner puts it, and also a way to rethink reality, rather than escape from it (1993a: 17). The inclusion of fantastic elements is not necessarily a given. Fairy tales may routinely involve supernatural features and extraordinary figures (such as the fairy godmother or genie able to conjure miracles, or an apparently dead princess brought back to life) yet this is not the case with many modern updates. Hence, Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990) is clearly a ‘Cinderella’ tale, although ‘the Fairy Godmother’s magic wand is replaced by a businessman’s credit card’ (Butler, 2009: 49), just as many variations of this perennially popular tale ditch the supernatural features, knowing that audiences will get the reference without seeing a pumpkin coach. By contrast, magical transformations in films like Shallow Hal (Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 2001), 17 Again (Burr Steers, 2009) or Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) may not immediately bring ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to mind, yet in featuring a flawed male character who is tested via an enchantment and redeemed by love they all rework a common fairy tale trope. These comedies mine their humour from a central moment of whimsy (magically

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction

5

altering a vain man’s perception, restoring another’s youth or forcing a curmudgeon to relive the same day) requiring flawed men to undergo a transition of some kind that will effectively make them lovable. In other cases the supernatural is removed altogether, often to avoid a sense of hokey-ness or contrivance, bringing events more recognisably into this world. Women perilously involved with dangerous men, for example, a staple of Gothic melodramas, thrillers and horrors, can be traced back to the serial-killing fiend in ‘Bluebeard’ (as well as demon lovers found in earlier folk tales) and while less visibly conspicuous in modern appearances (or necessarily diabolical) this serves to make new versions all the scarier. Although The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) deliberately flags up its connection by including a shadow-show of Perrault’s tale, films such as Sleeping with the Enemy (Joseph Rubin, 1991) or Campion’s later In the Cut (2003) might equally be regarded as modern-day ‘Bluebeard films’, playing on the same motif in differing ways. In a similar vein, while some horrors make their fairy tale allusions manifest – the wicked stepmother in Hellraiser II (Tony Randel, 1988) explicitly voices her kinship with the villain in ‘Snow White’ and affirms ‘they’ve changed the rules of the fairy tale!’ – other films allow us to make connections for ourselves. This brings us to the thorny question of interpretation and intention: when is a film a ‘fairy tale film’, specifically, and does a film-maker need to be aware of any thematic associations for this to count?

Although some films announce their origins via their title, or make their allusions clear in other ways, others may be more subtle in their influences, or perhaps update an idea without any direct intention to be regarded as a ‘fairy tale film’, yet may still be considered as such if shown to have recognisable attributes, as a growing number of critics have noted. In her publications From the Beast to the Blonde (1995) and No Go the Bogeyman (2000), Warner discusses contemporary cinema on a par with art and ancient myth in an effort to understand where some ideas have come from and how they have altered. Other scholars with an interest in folk and fairy tales have increasingly started to include cinematic examples in their discussions, noting that cinema offers another medium where specific stories are being retold, often in novel and notable ways. Maria Tatar’s Secrets beyond the Door (2006) makes a case for ‘Bluebeard films’ as a distinct genre emerging in the 1940s and which is still evident today, as well as publishing recent articles discussing cinematic and televisual updates of ‘Snow White’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and various female ‘tricksters’ on screen who subvert our expectations.

Cristina Bacchilega references a few films alongside literary examples in

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 6

Fairy Tale and Film

Postmodern Fairy Tales (1997) and has recently focused more exclusively on film, as have a number of other academics in the field, highlighting an area of significant expansion. This growth in critical attention coincides with the increasing deployment of fairy tale motifs in cinema, what Donald Haase refers to as the ‘continually emergent nature of the fairy tale’ (2004: xi), widening the scope of discussion considerably and enabling us to evaluate a number of films from a new perspective – although what counts as a ‘fairy tale film’ remains a tricky issue.

Continuing the critical questioning begun in Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment, a more recent collection of essays, Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity (Greenhill and Matrix, 2010), reveals equivalent diversity among its contributions and further highlights the complexity of categorisation. Reasserting a need to extend our usual parameters in recognising a fairy tale film, Jack Zipes, in the opening foreword, contends that while some of the examples discussed – including the cinematic adaptation of the Harry Potter novels, Tim Burton films and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut – are not ‘strictly speaking’ fairy tale films, ‘the motifs, characters and plots of these films have clearly been borrowed from fairy tales, and they exemplify how complicated the definition of a literary or film genre can be’ (Zipes, 2010: x). In his view, these recognisable references affirm a common point of affiliation, despite their ‘tantalisingly diverse forms’ (xii). The book’s editors, Pauline Greenhill and Sidney Eve Matrix, also acknowledge the wide range of films discussed and the differing genres they would conventionally be assigned to, but claim that we can evaluate them as one specific genre – ‘the fairy tale film’. As they affirm, ‘a genre comprises a series of narrative conventions, including characterisation, plot and style, common to each iteration of a story’ and ‘their patterns fall into recognisable and specific forms’, yet, instead of the usual cinematic generic templates, they cite the ATU index of folk tale types to make a case for reclassifying films in similar fashion (2010: 2). Although this system has met with some criticism, as they note, it remains useful in categorising key elements of a tale and thus enabling researchers to compare different variations.3 The merits of adopting this method in helping to identify specific fairy tale markers in film are thus evident, utilising a familiar system to discern how a theme is articulated on screen, although some drawbacks need to be admitted. The system is not comprehensive enough to cover every theme (not including examples initiated by books, rather than tales, such as Peter Pan, or motifs derived from stories beyond the Western European tradition, although recent expansions seek to address this).

It is also scant in terms of the level of detail provided – Warner has

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction

7

likened it to ‘a list of ingredients and recipes with no evocation of their taste or the pleasure of the final dish, or a sense of how or why it was eaten’ (1995: xviii)4 – yet it remains a useful summative tool, despite these shortcomings – and I accordingly use ATU citations in this present work, as a means of identifying key themes linking films with tales of the past, providing additional references where relevant. Nonetheless, it is important to consider films within a cinematic context, as much as a thematic one. Tale types, by themselves, are an inadequate means of understanding the particular generic features involved in the way a narrative is delivered, potentially negating some important cinematic considerations. Labelling a vast array of films under the category ‘fairy tale film’ may draw attention to the specific way they are being evaluated (focusing on the story told and its relationship to similar versions) yet there are other dynamics involved in how a story is shaped on screen. A film’s meaning will be informed and affected by a number of factors: its cast and production staff (and the expectations we, as an audience, have of them), the culture and country in which it was produced, its intended market and its relationship to other films (this last point being particularly apposite given the degree of referencing that occurs in film today, especially films utilising fairy tale motifs). Citing an ATU number to alert us to its folkloric connections may be a useful starting point in suggesting a particular way to read a film, but this will not tell us everything about it. In Zipes’ foreword to Fairy Tale Films, written while completing his own epic investigation, The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films (2011), he notes the critical neglect the ‘fairy-tale film’ has had from film critics, regarding the lack of any entry under this heading in The Oxford History of World Cinema (1996) as omitting what he (in keeping with Greenhill and Matrix) clearly perceives as a genre unto itself (2010: ix). However, different criteria are evidently being used to assess films, and while I understand the intention behind constructing a singular generic category, this is quite a recent endeavour, made by folklorists rather than film scholars, and not necessarily the only way to understand them.

Accordingly, a key aim here is to situate fairy tale motifs and their cinematic examples within the different genres that are conventionally used to make and market films, and the analysis is structured accordingly: separating films discussed into recognisable groups such as romcoms, crime dramas, thrillers and horror. This approach endeavours to widen our expectations about where fairy tale references are likely to be found and also makes their breadth of influence on film clear. While relating films to certain tale types is agreed to be a helpful means of

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 8

Fairy Tale and Film

identifying fairy tale associations, there is an additional benefit to be had from assessing their wider generic features, as these crucially shape the way stories are told and understood. In this regard, although Greenhill and Matrix are right to defend fairy tales on screen as being ‘as much the genuine article as their telling in a bedtime story or an anthology’ (2010: 3), the medium in which they are delivered is nonetheless of great significance. Films are an expensive business, and we need to be mindful of the bearing this has on what gets made, which stories are chosen and how they tend to be interpreted – just as their need to market themselves to an audience plays a crucial part in their formation and reception. Regarding them simply as a text – to be considered in like fashion to literary forms – misses this crucial economic fact. It is because of their commercial draw, after all, that we are seeing a surge of interest in big-budget remakes, a phenomenon we might refer to as the Alice effect – hoping to match its billion-dollar box-office draw – and although the resulting films are arguably some of the least interesting endeavours discussed here, the motivations underlying them remain an important point.

That is not to say that commercial imperatives are necessarily inimical to creativity, although it is academically unfashionable to say so, and a further aim is to challenge the often quite negative conclusions drawn by some critics. One of the most prominent and prolific fairy tale scholars, Jack Zipes, has tended to be a little jaded in assessing cinema’s relationship to fairy tales. Despite acknowledging progressive potential, arguing that ‘we use the classical fairy tales in mutated forms through new technologies to discuss and debate urgent issues that concern our social lives’ (2006: xii–xiii), he is also wary of their ‘civilizing’ function, shoring up conformist attitudes and ideologies via what he terms as the culture industry. A similar ambivalence is apparent in The Enchanted Screen (2011), which discusses early cinema, animation, and cinematic examples from both East and West. While Zipes finds some interesting cases of innovation, for the most part these are considered exceptions to the rule, particularly where Hollywood cinema is concerned. The varying treatments of ‘Cinderella’ offer a case in point. Said to be one of the oldest tales in existence, and certainly one of the most appealing for film-makers – with over 130 different cinematic adaptations to date (2011: 174), the tale’s message (popularised by Perrault’s ‘Cendrillon’, the Grimms’ ‘Aschenputtel’ and Disney’s film version) is considered to be quite negative, essentially advising girls ‘to show off their beauty and docility to win the appropriate mate’ (173). Few versions are deemed to deviate from this imperative, although one that is particularly

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction

9

commended is the Czech film, Vaclav Vorlicek’s Three Wishes for Cinderella (1973),5 in which the heroine, Popelka, is refreshingly assertive, adept at riding and hunting, and even manages to outshoot the prince while disguised as a forester. Zipes is not alone in commending it, with David Butler similarly noting its active and empowered heroine who ‘does not swoon and sing at the first sign of the Prince but must be pursued and won’ (2009: 53). Although Zipes attributes the source of Vorlicek’s film to Czech folklorist Bezena Nemcova, and aligns its feminist features with the changing role of women in postwar Czechoslovakia, its heroine bears an interesting resemblance to a narrative (and geographic) kinswoman, the heroine of Russian folk tale ‘Vasilisa the Priest’s Daughter’, ‘who rode horseback, was a good shot, and did everything in a quite unmaidenly way’ (Carter 2012: 61).

We might additionally consider another crossbow-wielding princess, Merida – the defiant young heroine in Brave (Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman and Steve Purcell, 2012) – who uses her skill at archery to prove herself better than any of the three princes competing for her hand, thus sending an even more defiant note against expectation – and in a narrative that is much better known. It is in making this kind of connection, realising how much stories and their protagonists may have in common, and affirming how specific impulses in contemporary cinema often have much deeper roots that makes the examination of fairy tales and film so fascinating. It is also in acknowledging that a film owned by the much derided Disney Corporation can create a heroine of equivalent – if not greater – feminist interest (Merida does not marry in the end, after all) that we are given good grounds for dispensing with a number of preconceptions – including where a radically revised heroine may be found.

Greenhill and Matrix attest to the disproportionate influence some fairy tales have had over others, asserting that ‘statistically, a familiar tale like “Cinderella” stands a much greater chance of being retold for the nth time than a less well-known example’ (2010: 16). The point is apposite, yet despite its familiarity this does not mean it will always be told in the same way, and I discuss a number of Cinderella-inspired rom-coms in which humour undercuts romanticism, arguably, as much as a crack archer is able to pierce the restrictive conventions of her day, while updated heroines pursuing college courses and careers suggest widening aspirations, in line with a more egalitarian age. Although Zipes (along with a number of other critics) is dismissive of ‘modern remakes with a faux feminist touch’ (2011: 174), accusing them of co-opting radical ideas for revisionary purpose, I invite readers to

www.ebook777.com

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 10

Fairy Tale and Film

appraise what I have to say on the matter, watch these films for themselves and make up their own minds.

This brings us to another potential dilemma, for if discerning what constitutes a fairy tale film poses ample difficulties in itself, differentiating between those deemed of merit or otherwise is equally contestable – and likely to yield considerable differences of opinion. Terming fairy tale films ‘visions of ambiguity’ – as alluded to in the subtitle to Greenhill and Matrix’s collection – highlights the differing approach adopted by films in referencing fairy tales, perceiving a distinction between what are considered to be conservative and more questioning examples.

Zipes makes a fairly frank distinction in the book’s foreword between films that seek either to titillate or to teach us (2010: xii), later amended in his Enchanted Screen as a delineation between the ‘conventional’ and ‘experimental’ (2011). Greenhill and Matrix are more circumspect, affirming that conflicting opinion is inevitable, with every film open to question and reassessment, claiming ‘its metaphorical flexibility means that viewers can return at different times and receive different, sometimes even contradictory impressions of the film’s meanings and intentions’ – only to add ‘nevertheless, we suggest that within the genre of the fairy tale film – apart from Disney – experiments, departures and innovations predominate’ (2010: 17). This positive claim (their caveat aside) largely stems from a desire to disprove negative evaluations of fairy tale films as ‘at best, diversionary kid stuff, or at worst utterly facile predictable disposable low-culture trash’ (22), understandably seeking to legitimate their investment in a frequently maligned subject.6 Not only do fairy tale films have greater diversity than we might assume, they argue, but they have greater depth also, contending that we are seeing more fairy tale films made for an ‘adult’ audience (pointing to the fact that many films discussed in the collection are certified PG and above). In their view this entails sexual, violent and supernatural themes that mark a return to their folkloric roots, citing ‘contemporary, sometimes radical, and innovative’ film-makers such as Guillermo del Toro, Neil Jordan and Tim Burton as heralding a bold new form of fairy tale film (9).

Ethan Gilsdorf similarly notes a resurgence of darker fairy tale motifs in film, yet perceives an accompanying degree of reassurance, partly ‘because we know these stories in our bones’, assuming nostalgia to be key to their appeal (Gilsdorf, 2013). While an older audience has evidently been targeted by the industry, many films are intended to appeal to an adolescent audience, rather than an ‘adult’ one, influencing the age given to on-screen characters and the scenarios they are

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction

11

placed in. Teens have become a key market for fairy tale films, receptive to wry revisions such as Ella Enchanted (Tommy O’Haver, 2004) and 10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger, 1999) as well as angsty treatments emulating the Twilight saga, including Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood (2011). As for a return to ‘edgier’ folkloric features, there is often a tendency to provide a sweetener of some kind, to avoid giving us too bitter a pill, with commercial incentives still evident. Even auteurs such as Guillermo del Toro and Tim Burton, who have undoubtedly helped to improve the critical cache for fairy tale films, might be accused of trading on their established reputations to cash in on the trend for spectacular remakes, their names (already used quite cynically to ‘present’ films they did not direct) attached to a number of upcoming projects.

Herein lies another layer of complexity for fairy tale films: not only the breadth of potential examples, but the differing markets they are aimed at. An online list of the ‘50 Greatest Fairy Tale Movies’ (published in 2012 by Total Film.com) reiterates this diversity, including some quite oblique examples we might not consider to have much to do with fairy tales. The list is highly subjective (A Tale of Two Sisters ranks at no. 49 while Hook, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast all make it into the top 5), yet while the compiler’s comments betray a preference for fairly sappy productions, The Red Shoes – one of the oldest films on the list – makes it in at no. 1 on the grounds that it ‘contains everything a good fairy tale needs: a beautiful young heroine, a tragically fateful twist, and a sinister edge a mile wide’; ultimately approving the fact it is ‘an unsettling affair, as classic tales tended to be’ (Wales, 2012). Given the predominance of feel-good films on the list (admiring features such as costumes and catchy songs) the criteria suddenly seem to shift with this final admission, yet even this apparent inconsistency reveals why fairy tale films are so intriguing – because they can incorporate so many different features and have attracted such a range of responses.

Although often unfairly regarded as children’s entertainment, ‘diversionary kid stuff’ as Greenhill and Matrix put it, films utilising fairy tale motifs attest to a range of interests and intentions, from examples aiming to be ‘family friendly’, those targeting a teenage market and some with a more mature audience in mind. As an illustration, we might consider the vastly different approaches taken to a single source.

Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ is barely recognisable in both Disney’s animated version The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1989) and Splash (Ron Howard, 1984), both of which allow their heroine a happy end with her human ‘prince’, while Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves (1996) may be read either as a parody of

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 12

Fairy Tale and Film

Andersen’s tragic tale – highlighting the extent to which the heroine’s naïve romanticism (and faith) cause her undue suffering – or as a misogynist vehicle that delights in her masochism.7 Although more faithful to the source in terms of its unhappy ending, von Trier’s distinctly more ‘adult’ approach affirms that intensifying sexual and violent elements does not necessarily result in a positive viewing experience (confronting critical assumptions that fidelity to a tale, including a willingness to retain an unhappy ending, should be deemed an attribute). In fact, Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2008) is, in some ways, a far more progressive adaptation in allowing its heroine to not only survive, but making her responsible for her own transition to human form, staked as a protest against her controlling father rather than romantic devotion. Ponyo keeps her voice, increases her mobility (becoming a creature of both land and sea) and ultimately maintains a connection to her roots – although her extreme youth also removes any sexual dynamic with the film’s hero, reducing a point of identification with older viewers.8 Another attempt at giving the tale a positive spin, M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water (2006), was critically lambasted, yet Greenhill and Matrix consider it ‘a postmodern engagement with Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” that amplifies the ancient supernatural power of the sea nymph so she is no longer a tragic romantic figure but instead humankind’s savior’ (2010: 14). The fact that said ‘nymph’ spends most of the film crouched naked in a shower, while Shyamalan places himself in the self-aggrandising role of the ‘Writer’ who will save us from ourselves, is evidently not considered problematic to this progressive reading, exemplifying that what we perceive in a film – and approve or otherwise – is always going to be fairly subjective, just as film-makers will be drawn to a fairy tale motif with what are liable to be hugely contrasting aims.

We might consider, for example, the theme of childless parents whose wish comes true in the form of a magical child, and appraise two contrasting cinematic interpretations of this idea. Fairy tales tend to treat this motif as a bittersweet tragedy, often making the parents’ happiness fleeting. Examples include a child made of snow who cannot outlive the winter, typically dying with the heat of the sun or close proximity to a fire. (The Inuit tale, ‘Blubber Boy’, collected by Angela Carter, offers an interesting adult take on the theme when a girl creates a lover from whale blubber who is similarly doomed to perish with heat – adding an explicit eroticism to the tragedy.)9 The magic child motif is reworked in Disney’s The Odd Life of Timothy Green (Peter Hodges, 2013) which provides a sentimental idealised notion of child-rearing when an infertile

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction

13

couple write a list of desired attributes for their child and bury it in the garden, only to see the results embodied in a strange boy who comes the next day, with leaves growing around his ankles. Although Timothy cannot remain with them, their time together affirms their nurturing skills and their dream is finally realised through fostering a real child.

Czech director Jan Svankmeyer’s Little Otik (2000) revisits the theme of a child created from its parents’ wishes, yet gives it a far more sinister edge. In the source tale, ‘The Wooden Baby’, a child is born from a log of wood that is sung to life with a lullaby, only to wreak havoc for its parents through its insatiable hunger, feeding on neighbours until it is eventually destroyed. As Zipes notes, the parents in the tale never again wish for a child, and although he equates the theme (in the film version) with rampant consumerism in modern Czechoslovakia, we might equally understand it as a rare admission of the hardship and sacrifice that parenthood involves, using black comedy to suggest that childlessness, contrary to conventional wisdom, may actually be a blessing (2011: 353). If Timothy is the best child imaginable, a literal dream come true, Otik is the worst, presented as a terrifying threat to the parents’ lives, yet although it is tempting to argue that these radically different treatments typify a commercial studio offering against that of an East European auteur, it is simplistic to claim greater worth for either film, particularly given their contrasting intentions, and neither should it be assumed that more interesting fairy tale allusions are only to be found in independent art-house fare. This assumption seems implicit in many critical discussions, in Zipes’ distinction between ‘conventional’ and ‘experimental’ films (2011), or Greenhill and Matrix’s claim that the fairy tale films discussed in their collection range from ‘entertaining and escapist’ endeavours to ‘deeply political’ fare (2010: 8). Although they note that fairy tale motifs can be found in ‘Hollywood, international, and independent productions’ (8), there is a tendency to privilege the latter categories while negatively conflating Hollywood with escapism (in direct contrast to the criteria used for the online top 50 mentioned earlier, which explicitly allots points for such features!). Are we all simply looking for different things in the fairy tale film? And is academic derision, largely on the grounds of popularity, necessarily correct?

A central aim in this work is to counter some questionable assumptions, asserting that we should not reject, out of hand, fairy tale-inspired films produced by a major studio, intended for mass appeal, or which are ‘feelgood’ in tone, but should appraise each film on its own merits, challenging what is regarded as politically progressive or unorthodox. Fidelity to the source is beside the point – as Warner puts it, ‘shape-shifting is one of

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 14

Fairy Tale and Film

fairy-tale’s dominant and characteristic wonders’ (1995: xvi) – and claims about a radical folkloric past are too patently idealised to consider here, yet neither are irreverent or tongue-in-cheek versions necessarily deemed alternative – in the true sense of the word. Instead, the films selected for discussion have been chosen because they highlight the multiple generic features of fairy tale tropes and exemplify how certain themes remain recognisable in film, albeit frequently altered to reflect changing times.

This includes rom-coms that give ‘Cinderella’ a modern makeover in which finding a prince is secondary among the heroine’s aspirations; comedies that use magical transformations to turn male protagonists into more appealing partners; crime dramas that revise some interesting moral lessons of earlier tales – combining the appeal of seeing underdogs triumph with salutary warnings about the potential cost of avarice; thrillers that rewrite the Gothic template of ‘Bluebeard’ yet significantly make heroines responsible for saving themselves; and horrors that affirm profound dangers in the family home – while supernatural interventions additionally seek to restore a sense of hope. Familiar tropes are thus discerned among some very contemporary narratives in order to make clear how diverse the fairy tale’s influence on film has been – aiming to contribute another voice to the growing critical interest in this subject.

Beyond demonising Disney, or applauding artier twists on the fairy tale for their supposed ability to ‘disenchant’ us, a more considered approach asks that we evaluate every example in terms of what it has taken from older sources, what is added, and what it has to tell us about who we are today and what we want from life.

In seeking to explain the similarity between tales found around the world, folklorists have tended to promote two different explanations.

Psychoanalytic accounts argue that tales are essentially symbolic, encapsulating inner drives and conflicts that are innate, unchanging and universal – which is why the same types of stories have been told through the ages. An alternative explanation is the historic-geographic approach, which contends that tales have travelled with us around the globe, migrating and mutating over time. The similarity between certain stories may offer a means of reassurance, suggesting that, despite our differences, we share mutual interests and aspirations, yet the appeal of forging connections (with both one another and our forebears) should not come at the expense of recognising interesting points of difference also, in terms of not only regional variations, but the impact of a changing social milieu. Recent research on ‘Red Riding Hood’ – attempting to plot the tale’s global transition – received considerable attention in the press, affirming a continued fascination in these tales, their origins

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction

15

and the journey they have made, while also leaving us with no definite answers.10 Although a symbolic quality is undisputable, fairy tales are also cultural documents, informed by the period and politics of their age, and inflected by the particular interests of their tellers. Tales have always been subject to revision, in their transition from oral to print forms, as well as their various incarnations on screen. Writers and film-makers are as inspired as prior generations in retelling such tales – often keen to find new ways of updating and adapting them – while the pleasure of recognising themes, and seeing how they have been altered, is not simply confined to critics, but an evident appeal for viewers also.

We might find some comfort in seeking to establish a continuity with the past, claiming an immutable alliance with our ancestors in being drawn to the same tropes (romantic aspirations, coming-of-age tales, stories of wonder, enchantment and dread, validating the triumph of unlikely heroes and the impact of incredible transformations) yet it is in terms of discernible changes that such stories come to life, and become newly relevant for our age.

The aims of this book are as follows: • To examine key themes and archetypes in cinema that rework folk and fairy tales of the past.

• To evaluate different assessments of the ‘fairy tale film’, in line with recent scholarly work in this field.

• To pay particular attention to unusual, wayward and unorthodox examples, especially where scope for derailing prior conventions is discerned, whether it be in terms of gender roles, narrative goals or attendant twists.

• To challenge the idea that the fairy tale film is limited to a specific genre – or audience – and scrutinise the breadth of narratives in which fairy tale tropes can be found.

• To ask what has led to the popular interest in revising fairy tale concerns in film.

• To encourage the reader to familiarise themselves with relevant theories, and question why particular ideas remain so enduring.

A fraught area of critical debate is the question of how feminism has informed our understanding of fairy tales and whether they offer suitable role models. Critiques of the ‘innocent persecuted heroine’, relying on marriage to a prince, have led to claims that we should either extend the examples discussed beyond the usual trinity (‘Cinderella’, ‘Snow White’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’) or rewrite these figures to give

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 16

Fairy Tale and Film

them greater contemporary relevance. The first chapter uses the romcom to reassess this debate, perceiving the key influence of two tales on the genre: ‘Cinderella’ (a downtrodden girl gets a rags-to-riches makeover) and ‘King Thrushbeard’ (a haughty heroine gets what’s good for her). Examples such as A Cinderella Story (Mark Rosman, 2004), Never Been Kissed (Raja Gosnell, 1999) and My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel Zwick, 1992) are discussed as inspiring new versions of ‘Cinderella’ with ambitions that attest to feminism’s positive impact.

However, a contrasting note of caution is offered in films such as Monster-in-Law (Robert Luketic, 2005), The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006) and My Best Friend’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1997) which rework questionable fairy tale tropes such as humbled heroines and female rivalry to discredit emancipated or assertive females. Humour is shown to be a double-edged sword in these comedies, skewering clichéd claims about romantic saps yet exposing some female characters to unnecessary ridicule. The role women have played in producing, writing and occasionally directing these films is noted to provide no guarantees in terms of ideology, affirming a hesitancy about feminist impulses in such films.

The second chapter turns its attention to male figures in comingof-age comedies who are themselves required to have a makeover. In examples like Beastly (Daniel Barnz, 2011) and Bruce Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2003) men undergo a transformation through supernatural means designed to teach them a lesson, firmly repudiating vanity and self-interest. Reworking ‘Beauty and the Beast’ with an inverted ‘King Thrushbeard’, an engagement with feminism is again apparent, reconceiving masculine attributes in line with new gender roles and changing family structures. Notably, if women are urged to get themselves a career in the preceding chapter, rather than placing their faith in love, these narratives ask male protagonists to put their personal lives first in order to become better partners and fathers – thereby achieving the happiness and satisfaction craved. These films are thus deemed progressive in terms of reconsidering gender identity as mutable rather than fixed, notably approving caring nurturing men, although conflicts arising from changing masculine ideals are also acknowledged. The chapter concludes with a contrasting examination of male figures who are unable to ‘mature’ in the same way, assessing Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990), AI: Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001), Lawn Dogs (John Duigan, 1997) and Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton, 1996) with reference made to Pinocchio and Peter Pan – concluding that masculinity is multiply inflected in these narratives, reminding us

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction

17

that being male does not automatically confer privilege, and that male rivalry (although rarely discussed as much as female rivalry) can prove equally divisive and destructive.

Chapter 3 moves the analysis from comedies to crime. Social advancement through wits, cunning and dishonesty (and sometimes a level of extraordinary good fortune) is often approved as the means to get ahead in tales such as ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ or ‘Ali Baba’, creating the wishfulfilment fantasy of earning a fortune without having to labour, as well as outwitting powerful figures such as kings, ogres and career criminals.

Yet many cautionary tales also warn against greed, advice that a number of crime dramas corroborate in ‘heist gone wrong’ plots and scenarios in which lucky finds prove to be the exact opposite. Cinema’s questioning of materialism is examined via three such examples, Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994), A Simple Plan (Sam Raimi, 1999) and No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Cohen, 2007), narratives that reprise the concern – voiced in a number of fairy tales – that greed brings out the worst in us, with no such thing as easy money. The chapter also includes some cases where crime does pay, providing examples of female schemers who evade punishment, as well as some interesting political thrillers in which riches are redistributed to those deemed most deserving. The capitalist imperative to get ahead, by any means necessary, is strongly criticised in many such films, yet a desire to see underdogs triumph is a vicarious pleasure for audiences, regardless of merit, as the conflicting impulses towards money as eminently desirable, yet also invariably tainted, make clear.

A well-known tale that foregrounds the peril of putting profit first is Perrault’s chilling portrayal of a tyrannical husband, ‘Bluebeard’. The latest of his wives marries for money yet realises the terrible cost when he is exposed as a serial-killing fiend, and only narrowly escapes death.

The fourth chapter takes this central tale, and variants like ‘The Robber Bridegroom’ and ‘Fitcher’s Bird’, and examines the continued currency of ‘damsel in distress’ narratives. The tale’s cinematic legacy includes Gothic melodramas and modern-day thrillers, and a range of films are cited as emblematic of the transition the imperilled heroine has undergone – serving not only as victims, but as empowered investigators who often thwart their attacker single-handedly. The heroine of In the Cut provides room for thought, flirting with masochistic impulses yet ultimately fighting to save herself. Progressive potential is discerned in these resistant figures, while also noting an evident double standard in cinema’s attitude to violent women. The chapter includes a brief assessment of films that ask us to pity wife killers, such as Christopher Nolan’s

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 18

Fairy Tale and Film

Memento (2000) and Inception (2010), and considers their relationship to Gothic romantic figures. Why female writers and directors have been so drawn to ‘Bluebeard’ is considered towards the end. Are such projects intended to warn women about the hazards of a potentially fatal attraction, extolling female self-sufficiency as the only means of survival, much like the folk tales they emulate? And do they suggest, quite cynically perhaps, that we have not progressed much, given the apparent inevitability of violent men, as well as the failures of a social system that women cannot rely on for protection?

Chapter 5 takes us into the murky world of horror, and specifically the dangers located in the family home – a theme popularised in tales such as ‘Snow White’ and ‘Donkeyskin’. The opportunity is used to question psychoanalytic readings of abusive parents in fairy tales (typically viewed as Oedipal dramas transferring the child’s animosity onto mothers and incestuous desire to fathers), evaluating the ‘knowing’ redeployment of such theories in films like A Tale of Two Sisters (Ji Woon Kim, 2003) and its US remake The Uninvited (The Guard Brothers, 2009).

Examples are cited that seem to invert Freudian interpretations of family discord (often repeated in the fairy tale), including the tendency to reprieve abusive fathers from blame while falsely accusing mothers.

Asian horror seems especially astute at such debunking and is admirably unafraid to approach conventional tropes from a new perspective.

Dumplings (Fruit Chan, 2004) presents its ogre-ish women as man-made monsters who simply fulfil patriarchal demands, just as the monstrous children in films like Rungu and Ju-on are a reflection of their ‘damaged’ upbringing. The motif of child victims of abuse, reborn as supernatural avengers, is found in tales from many cultures, including ‘The Juniper Tree’, yet far from offering any sense of assurance, the appeasement of unhappy spirits is often tentative, with a number of examples discussed in which the supernaturally reconstructed family is shown to be far from ideal, suggesting continued conflicts and uncertainties that deny easy resolution.

The final chapter looks at the array of postmodern devices used in adapting fairy tales for a modern, more cynical, audience, asking if tactics once used as a means of dismantling classic tales – including dramatic role reversals and extensive rewrites – have genuine grounds for being considered experimental or innovative, particularly given a tendency to be used in questionable ways. The fact that fairy tales have long been subject to revision is noted, with reference made to various literary examples, including experimentation by the seventeenthcentury French writers of the Contes de Feés and subsequent innovations

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Introduction

19

by figures such as Angela Carter and Gregory Maguire. Films discussed include revised versions of ‘Snow White’, ‘Rapunzel’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, questioning the extent to which parody and playfulness have superseded the ability to take anything seriously, and contrasting positive and negative evaluations to ask what constitutes a radical rewrite today.

The genres have been chosen because of their thematic resonance with fairy tale tropes, demonstrating the persistence of identifiable motifs and their engagement with contemporary concerns. As is apparent from this overview, I have tried to avoid simply including films that I ‘approve of’ in some way, including examples that may contradict a point in order to make clear the underlying ambiguities of any group of films. Restrictions of space have required me to be fairly selective in terms of the number discussed and the degree of detail provided, yet all are assumed to be familiar films (or are otherwise easily available) with the accompanying aim of encouraging the reader to contribute their own awareness and understanding to the critical evaluation made.

Although I have endeavoured to marshal a convincing argument I don’t expect my views to be unquestioningly accepted but hope instead to fuel further discussion and consideration of key ideas. I have also opted to assess popular well-known examples simply because I feel many such films merit attention yet appear to have been critically overlooked, seemingly on the basis of their popularity, with the attendant assumption that crowd-pleasers are inherently conformist vehicles, without any other aim than making money. Sadly, snobbery and elitism are as prevalent among folklorists as film critics, which is particularly surprising given an oft-voiced interest in uncovering progressive potential in tales. This kind of criticism is regrettably quite common, appearing to lose sight of the fact that a major incentive in relating films to fairy tales is their applicability as barometers of widespread concerns. Marina Warner puts the point eloquently in reminding us that ‘cinema desires the audience’s pleasure and consciously observes its possible constituency, its tastes and interests, as a storyteller in the bazaar responds to its audience’ – negating popular cinema thus precludes our ability to denote prevailing attitudes, as well as significant changes.11 The intersection of films and fairy tales is a subject that has long been a fairly exclusive preserve (limited to contributions to specialist journals such as Marvels & Tales or academic collections which often fail to attract the level of attention they deserve) so this is written in the hope that further work will follow. The fact that folklorists are increasingly turning their attention to cinematic examples is encouraging, affirming

www.ebook777.com

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 20

Fairy Tale and Film

the importance of the medium in reworking familiar tropes and revitalising critical interest in this area. There is, however, still some way to go to redress the ‘disciplinary myopia’ that has dogged productive affiliations in fairy tale scholarship, as Donald Haase has argued, and additionally avoid simply reiterating a preconceived and somewhat fatalistic assessment. As Haase contends, ‘we need to reappraise the successes and failures of the last thirty odd years, question what has become too familiar, and become more curious about things not yet familiar enough’ (2004: xiv). In many ways this book is a response to these aims. Fairy tale films tend to be interpreted in very particular ways that demand reassessment. We need to look seriously at films that are often overlooked, and ask how feminist criticism and other discourses have impacted on the retelling of tales – both positively and negatively.

Fairy tale films ultimately service differing needs, and what their audiences want from them will differ also. As Maria Tatar notes, ‘No fairy tale is sacred. Every printed version is just another variation on a theme – the rewriting of a cultural story in a certain time and place for a specific audience’ (2003: 229). The same might be said of the cinematic interpretations made of such tales, altering according to the time and place of their creation, informed by the intentions of their producers, and the interests of their presumed market. Reiterating the same ambivalence that Greenhill and Matrix, Zipes, Bacchilega and other scholars in the field have all attested to, Tatar argues that ‘making a new fiction means refashioning – in ways that may be conciliatory or conspiratorial, but also in ways that may be contestatory or subversive’ (2003: 230). Quoting Carolyn G. Heilbrun’s stirring affirmation that ‘one cannot make up stories: one can only retell in new ways the stories one has already heard ... out of old tales we must make new lives’, Tatar adds the equally inspiring point that ‘we create new tales not only by retelling familiar stories, but also by reinterpreting them’ (230). This is a process that is not simply the task of writers or film-makers, but something we all actively participate in – every time we read or hear a story, or watch a film, that prompts us to consider its potential meaning to our lives. I provide my impression here of some familiar narratives that have been reworked in cinema (some of which are clearly deemed to be more positive than others) but the conclusions drawn are ultimately up to you.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

1 Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams: Aspiring Underdogs and Humbled Heroines

The romantic aspects of fairy tales are perhaps their most familiar (and most criticised) feature. After all, the heroine who rises above misfortune and marries a prince is a plot that distinguishes many of the best-known tales, with the protagonists of ‘Cinderella’ (ATU 510A), ‘Snow White’ (ATU 709) and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (ATU 410) all decisively putting an end to their woes by marrying Prince Charming. Criticism ranges from the fact that such heroines are largely characterised by passivity and prettiness, threatened by vindictive female counterparts and ultimately ‘saved’ by a well-heeled partner – making their potential lesson for female audiences somewhat suspect. Of course, this depends on how literally we take such tales, and how negatively we view their perceived influence, with a number of conflicting ideas raised about this point over the years. While fairy tales frequently came under attack with the emergence of the women’s movement, an important detractor asked us to think again. In two articles published in the early 1970s, Alison Lurie contended that such tales have a great deal to offer feminist thinking in terms of the powerful females at their centre, pointing out that a wider variety of heroines exist – beyond the usual suspects – and attributed the limited range of ‘classic’ tales to male editorial policies.

Marcia Lieberman’s response, ‘Someday My Prince Will Come: Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale’ (1972), denied any progressive features. Ignoring Lurie’s remarks about the part gender has played in selecting and shaping fairy tales (claiming this to be ‘beside the point’), she affirmed it is the most popular tales we should concern ourselves with and accused them of exerting a detrimental socialising effect, encouraging female docility and dependence on men.1 These critics thus sounded the opening salvos of a debate that has raged on ever since in seeking to determine whether fairy tales set good or bad 21

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 22

Fairy Tale and Film

examples for women, asking how they might be deployed as a means of interrogating gender roles, and questioning whether they shore up patriarchal concerns – or might potentially undermine them. Writers have been inspired by such thinking to rewrite heroines in some interesting ways, and a number of cinematic variations provide the opportunity to question the extent to which archetypes have altered, with ‘Cinderella’ proving especially influential as a source text for contemporary romantic comedies. The rom-com is a genre that is often either overlooked or critically derided, without adequate attention paid to its capacity to surprise us – much like Cinderella herself in some ways. Is romance idealised in the genre, or comically undermined? In what way has feminist criticism – and accompanying socio-cultural changes – impacted on narratives and the differing aspirations shown? Are modern-day Cinderellas still waiting for a prince, or making their own way in the world via college courses and careers? And why have apparently progressive features been either ignored, or otherwise accused of being insincere to feminist aims?

In his account of the Lurie–Lieberman debate, Jack Zipes gives Lurie remarkably short shrift, claiming ‘most feminist critics tend to agree with Lieberman’ (1984: 5), yet in retrospect Lieberman arguably fares worst – demonstrating an extremely limited knowledge of fairy tales, using questionable means to support her argument (evaluating tales from a century-old collection) and simplistically assuming a direct influence on audiences without a shred of evidence.2 While Lurie’s claims largely met with a hostile reception they have since been corroborated by scholastic research into the transition fairy tales have undergone (from oral to print form) as well as further exploration of differing tales – and heroines – around the world. Her landmark article, ‘Fairy Tale Liberation’ (1970), may have made a bold claim in contending that fairy tales ‘suggest a society in which women are as competent and active as men, at every age, and in every class’ (1970: 42)3 – yet presents an important case for the defence that was integral to reinvigorating feminist interest in fairy tales. Where Lieberman flatly refuted Lurie’s ideas, others tested and elaborated them. For example, in her follow-up article, ‘Witches and Fairies’ (1971), Lurie asserted that fairy tales may constitute the first women’s literature – with female figures often the main focus of their content and the main gender responsible for their dissemination – an idea subsequently developed by feminist scholars,4 while her point that fairy tales underwent an editing process largely conducted by men would be further explored by Zipes (ironically enough) similarly asserting that a matrilineal past, reflected in oral tales, became obscured by

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 23

male collectors. Lieberman was uninterested in either the history or the range of fairy tales, emphasising instead what a select number are perceived to do, yet makes a number of assumptions about their negative effect, claiming they ‘reward submissive, meek and passive behaviour’ in females and reflect a bias against ‘the active assertive “pushy” woman’, arguing that those ‘who have power, or seek it, are nearly always portrayed as repulsive’. Her final point is that marriage is the sole approved ambition for females, likening fairy tales to ‘training manuals for girls’.5 Kay Stone’s ‘Things Walt Disney Never Told Us’ (1975) offered an interesting middle ground in some respects. Affirming Lurie’s claim that alternatives to the ‘passive’ heroine exist, she particularly commends the lead characters in British tales ‘Kate Crackernuts’ (ATU 306/711) and ‘Molly Whuppie’ (ATU 327B), whose chief attributes are courageousness and cleverness.6 As Stone argues, ‘active heroines are not victims of hostile forces beyond their control but are instead challengers who confront the world rather than waiting for success to fall at their pretty feet’, only to add ‘unfortunately, heroines of this sort are not numerous in oral tales and do not exist at all in any of the Grimm tales or the Disney films’ (1975: 46). Stone ultimately corroborates Lieberman’s claims – stating ‘it does not seem like an exaggeration’ to consider fairy tales ‘training manuals in passive behaviour’ – and to ‘prove’ this point she assesses 40 women (of ‘varying ages and backgrounds’) to gauge which characters they most identify with. Her own perspective is most apparent, however, noting that some respondents ‘performed a fascinating feat of selective memory by transforming relatively passive heroines into active ones’ (48). Decades later, Stone would concede that tales were open to interpretation, admitting that her former distinction between female figures regarded as ‘persecuted, trapped, tamed, or heroic’ was vastly oversimplified. What matters most, she concludes, is a means of moving beyond the dichotomy between ‘negatively passive and positively active heroines’ (2004: 125). Assessments made by her respondents, and formerly disparaged as ‘misremembering’ heroines, would subsequently be acknowledged as a key ideological tool, affirming that rewriting tales is a powerful means of reclaiming them.7 This is exactly what feminist writers and critics turned their attention to in the latter part of the seventies as dissatisfaction with popular heroines resulted in two main options: rewrite these roles to reflect more progressive qualities, or find new heroines.

Despite this creative work, many critics confined themselves to restating the Lieberman case. Karen E. Rowe’s ‘Feminism and Fairy Tales’ (1979) complains that marriage functions as the sole approved means

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 24

Fairy Tale and Film

of social and financial security for female characters – claiming that ‘status and fortune never result from the female’s self-exertion’ – and berates ‘the fairy tale’s potency as a purveyor of romantic archetypes’ (1984: 217–18). Like Lieberman, Rowe makes a number of assumptions about negative influence, without providing any supporting data. Lucie Armitt reiterates the standard argument. Objecting to the limitations offered to female characters (and, by extension, female audiences), she asserts ‘as feminists argue, one can reduce the role played by women here to “mother, witch or princess: bad, mad, or invisible”’ (1996: 28).8 With the first two roles invariably demonised in the best-known fairy tales – good mothers tending to die soon after childbirth and thereby leaving their daughters at the mercy of villainous stepmothers and witches – the princess is left in an obvious quandary. Powerless and threatened (with fathers who are either absent or who also threaten the heroine in some way), Armitt affirms that ‘the only way “out” for the female protagonist is by winning her prince and embracing the enclosures of the “happily ever after”. The political dangers of this are that if we are seduced into believing the fairy-tale world to be one of order and harmony, we may end up following the rules of these stories ourselves’ (1996: 28). Armitt voices a familiar criticism here, yet a great deal depends on how much we are genuinely ‘seduced’ by fairy tales, or believe their contents to be credible. As well as being wary of assuming any direct sociological influences we need to consider such tales with appropriate understanding of the circumstances that shaped them.

Angela Carter reminds us that marriage signified a form of wishfulfilment in times when lives were precarious, affirming that Most fairy and folk tales are structured around the relations between men and women, whether in terms of magical romance or of coarse domestic realism. The common unspoken goal is fertility and continuance. In the context of societies from which most of these stories spring, their goal is not a conservative one but a Utopian one, indeed a form of heroic optimism – as if to say, one day we might be happy, even if it won’t last. (1990: xviii) Within this context marriage functions as a simple desire to claim a stake on the future, and Carter’s distinction between ‘magical romance’ and domestic realism is equally pertinent, with differing stories presenting contrasting relationships – including examples where women have the upper hand. Rowe’s hyperbolic view of marriage ‘as the victory of patriarchal culture itself’ (1984: 221) exemplifies a need to be cautious

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 25

about making critical evaluations solely through contemporary mores.

We also need to consider the diversity of responses that have been made to such tales and the impact feminist criticism has had in generating alternatives.

In some respects there seems to be a vested critical interest in not seeking alternatives, largely in order to repeat the same negative assertions. The inordinate degree of attention given to a handful of fairy tale heroines – namely Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty – is attributable to one main factor: they are consistently targeted by critics for the same reasons that they were initially selected and shaped by collectors and editors – because they fit a particular stereotype, or, rather, they have been made to fit one. In each tale the central female character is said to typify the ‘innocent persecuted heroine’ (ATU 510), relying on a heroic male to transform her life, yet these tales were subject to quite radical transformations prior to reaching their ‘canonical’ status, and have been imbued with renewed significance ever since.9 As a number of critics have noted, stories underwent a considerable process of alteration and refinement prior to being published.10 A male bias is apparent in the gender of those most closely affiliated to the burgeoning fairy tale industry – such as Charles Perrault and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm – who may have been inspired by a variety of influences yet filtered ideas through their own particular values and concerns, including what was perceived to be appropriate conduct for females. The result was not only a tendency to endorse monogamous relations via the institution of marriage, but a number of accompanying narrative interventions. As well as alienating women from one another through an emphasis on female rivalry, negative male characters were conspicuously replaced by the heroic prince that ‘saves’ the heroine. From unnatural fathers intent on ‘marrying’ their daughters to male intruders who take advantage of incumbent women, fairy tales once included a host of unsavoury male figures and their erasure is not solely attributable to having a newly conceived child audience in mind, particularly given the way in which female villainy was not only retained, but distinctly amplified.11 Maria Tatar argues that a primary intention behind fairy tales includes female socialisation, affirming that they set out ‘models of successful acculturation while supplying women with what conventional wisdom perceived as the correct program for making and preserving a good marriage’ (1992: 96), yet she also points out that many contrary examples exist around the world, including tales where female curiosity and resourcefulness are championed rather than censured, while male versions of ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ further warn us against applying too

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 26

Fairy Tale and Film

narrow an interpretation. As Tatar argues ‘we must show caution in drawing generalizations about female developmental patterns on the basis of ... plot. And we are obliged to think twice about male hero patterns when we come across a collection of tales depicting heroines who carry out tasks normally put to male heroes alone’ (2003: 47).

We should additionally note that heroes of both genders undergo ‘persecution’ of some kind, prior to being rewarded through marriage, and that even tales that supposedly reflect a matrilineal society share the same goal. Clearly, the history of fairy tales, their transition from oral to print culture and their alleged influence on gender roles are a complex matter.

A variety of tales have been told over the years, as Lurie and others have pointed out, including stories where women depend on other qualities than their looks, and any romance (where it occurs) is conducted on their terms. Not only have scholars and folklorists taken an active interest in examining these tales, writers and film-makers have also drawn upon such examples in creating new depictions. Acknowledgement is gradually being made of the extent to which fairy tales have served to inspire the female imagination, including writers with a particular interest in revising fairy tale motifs – a phenomenon that has proved to be increasingly popular, both in print and on screen.12 In the 40-plus years since Lurie and Lieberman first drew scholarly attention to fairy tales, motivating discussions about their potential usefulness in re-evaluating norms and expectations concerning gender, related ideas have permeated popular culture, including cinematic reworkings. Romantic comedies conspicuously reprise fairy tale motifs, with the ‘Cinderella’ story encapsulating the standard rom-com plot in charting a heroine’s struggle to overcome specific obstacles before being united with her love.13 Placing the plot in a humorous context does interesting things to the tale, and the fact that modern variations tend to keep the makeover, but dispense with the marriage, affirms a response to contemporary audiences and their view of romance. What changes can be discerned in the roles played by women, their relations with men and the aspirations they hold? Does the wish-fulfilment fantasy suggested by Carter still apply to marriage as a means of staking a claim on the future, or are different ideals evident? To what extent are male/female relations tested, rather than cemented, in these films, and is Zipes right to object that any seemingly progressive gestures are simply paying ‘lip service’ to feminism? (2009: 129).14 The rom-com provides an interesting means of interrogating romantic fantasies and accompanying socio-political ramifications. Notably, just as fairy tales have earned criticism for the presumed values endorsed,

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 27

romantic comedies are generally treated with critical derision, pejoratively labelled ‘chick flicks’ and either considered to have little substance or deemed ideologically suspect. Again, we need to remind ourselves of the variety of stories told, the differing female characters featured and the options presented for revising established ideas. There is a tendency to regard popular cinema as inherently reactionary – generally seen to be peddling escapist nonsense to the masses – an equation that affirms an overwhelmingly negative, snobbish and simplistic idea. If many people like it, the logic goes, the film must surely be worthless – and if it appeals to women, in particular, this assertion is seemingly compounded. Yet the sheer fact that the rom-com is generally marketed at women provides good reason for taking it seriously, providing as it does, like the fairy tales noted above, narratives where women take centre stage – and often containing some interesting surprises, particularly in terms of the relationships depicted, the way they contrast to those found in classic fairy tales, the wider ambitions motivating heroines and an acknowledgement (at the very least) of contemporary gender politics.

Although romantic comedies tend to be aimed at an adult or adolescent market, Disney – the company most responsible for mass-marketing fairy tales on screen – has conspicuously amplified the romantic elements of many tales, accordingly attracting feminist criticism due to the prominence and alleged power of their films. The Disney empire has made its name through popularising fairy tales yet also earned considerable scorn for its methods, dubbed a ‘paratext’ by Greenhill and Matrix due to the way in which its interpretations of the fairy tale ‘has so saturated mainstream Euro-North American culture and gained such legitimacy through market dominance and repetition’ (2010: 7).

Disney’s proclivity at altering tales is a common criticism, as well as being accused of a patriarchal agenda. Zipes puts this point most clearly in response to Disney’s version of that troublesome trio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959), arguing that The rugged male hero is, of course, daring, resourceful, polite, chaste, and the conqueror of evil. This evil is always associated with female nature out of control – two witches and a bitchy stepmother with her nasty daughters. The ultimate message of all three films is that if you are industrious, pure of heart, and keep your faith in a male god, you will be rewarded. He will find you and carry you off to the good kingdom that isn’t threatened by the wiles of female duplicity.

(2002b: 60–1)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 28

Fairy Tale and Film

Why focus on such dated examples, we might ask, particularly as the female roles created in the last few decades suggest a response to such criticism? Belle, the heroine of Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991), was one of the first female characters to affirm an overhaul of the Disney ideal: presented as a book-loving young woman who favours the Beast over an arrogant macho rival. A similar scenario is set up in Aladdin (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1992), with Princess Jasmine defying her father’s right to decide whom she will marry – and eventually forcing a change in the constitution. The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements and John Musker, 2009) opens with a flashback showing the heroine sneering at the romantic impulse behind ‘classic’ fairy tales. As adulthood dawns she adheres to her father’s belief in getting ahead through hard work and although she falls in love over the course of the film this doesn’t deter her entrepreneurial aims, finally setting up a restaurant business with her new-found love. These more recent films feature assertive heroines who defy expectations in choosing their ‘princes’, while other examples eschew romance altogether. Mulan (Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, 1998) tells the tale of a young girl who, far from simply aiming to be someone’s wife, poses as a man and becomes a successful warrior, while Brave (Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman and Steve Purcell, 2012) kicks the passive princess firmly into the twenty-first century by taking issue with the whole marriage question: its heroine, Merida, competes for her own hand to maintain her independence. In Frozen ( Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, 2013) a princess finally takes her place on the throne without any need for a consort, aided by her loving sister, archly subverting Disney’s usual take on ‘true love’.

In sum, the corporation has provided heroines with greater ambition and interest than earlier incarnations, suggesting some response to feminist criticism.15 It is easy to be cynical about Disney’s reasons – recognising changing times and knowing they have to appeal to a new generation of mothers, as well as their children. Beauty and the Beast is claimed by Warner to be the first Disney film to reflect an awareness of contemporary sexual politics, explicitly designed for female approval, yet she also claims that it constitutes ‘Hollywood’s cunning domestication of feminism itself’ (1995: 313). A similar wariness has been exhibited by other critics, claiming any suggestion of emancipated heroines is a cynical co-optation of feminist thinking intended to disarm dissenters. For example, although Enchanted (Kevin Lima, 2007) sends up Disney’s patented idealism by exposing the rift between reality and fantasy, romance remains key. The wide-eyed Giselle (Amy Adams), who emerges from the animated world of fairy tales into modern-day

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 29

New York, ultimately wins over a cynical divorcee, while his careerist girlfriend falls for the storybook prince Giselle has jilted, implying that while some may scorn romantic dreams ‘true love’ triumphs in the end. Although many were won over by its self-effacing premise, and Giselle defies the usual stereotype by not relying on her new man (saving him from harm in the finale and setting up a business making fairy tale costumes to give herself some financial independence), some critics nonetheless regard the film as a regressive repudiation of feminist thinking. (See Bacchilega and Reider (2010) who similarly take exception to Dreamworks’ Shrek films, contending that while Princess Fiona evades the fate of a conventional princess in opting to marry an ogre, she remains a marginal character defined by her relationship to the hero.16) The overwhelming negativity of such interpretations is reminiscent of the dismissive critical reaction to Lurie’s championing of the fairy tale four decades ago, similarly failing to find anything to commend contemporary fairy tale films, and regarding any seemingly progressive revisions with suspicion. This is particularly galling when certain films, singled out for praise, seem extremely questionable.

In fact, Ever After: A Cinderella Story (Andy Tennant, 1998) might be regarded as still more reprehensible, investing its heroine with a sense of political commitment, only to abandon her ideals for a less than inspiring romance with the film’s hero (Dougray Scott). Danielle (Drew Barrymore) may repudiate the standard fairy tale heroine ideal – strong enough to fell the knavish hero when he attempts to steal a horse, smart enough to outwit a group of gypsies and skilled enough with a sword to evade a would-be rapist – yet romantic ambitions ultimately efface any other consideration, making the film’s approval by some as baffling as it is frustrating. The problem for film-makers is how to update old stories in a familiar manner without replicating more negative tendencies, yet also achieving maximum appeal. A heroine that leaves all the action to the men is evidently not very enticing for a modern audience, yet one who shows no interest in love is clearly a departure too far.

Contemporary versions of ‘Cinderella’ may provide us with a love story – indeed, that archetypal story with the ball, the disguise and the lost shoe has inspired a number of cinematic retreads – yet the most interesting examples provide heroines that do not simply rely on a man to make their dreams come true, and certainly don’t forfeit their ambitions as Danielle does. Some films may provide a lowly heroine with a time-honoured means of social ascent through an advantageous romance, with Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990) and Maid in Manhattan (Wayne Wang, 2002) both tapping into a familiar fairy

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 30

Fairy Tale and Film

tale ideal of exchanging a life of labour for one of wealth, yet this is clearly quite a regressive message. Of greater interest here are young women who forge their own social progression through education and work. Although it offers a clear contrast in this respect, Zipes views Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988) as equally problematic, claiming ‘it is ridiculous to try to salvage these films for contemporary feminism by analysing how all the Cinderellas in these films demonstrate their talents and are active, humane, thoughtful and assertive’. In his view this merely ‘rationalises the sequence of demeaning behaviour that the female protagonists must exhibit: they must obsequiously learn the male rules of the game to attain status and wealth’, while ‘a true rebellion is out of the question’ (2011: 189). It seems difficult to please Zipes in this regard, with success in the world of work derided for upholding capitalist values and any romantic affiliations denounced for affirming patriarchal convention, yet many of the films discussed here question what he terms as ‘the male rules of the game’, with women proving they have an equal right (and ability) to advance themselves at college and the workplace, with love interests often sidelined.

A Cinderella Story (Mark Rosman, 2004) is a teen update of the classic tale. Its heroine, Sam Montgomery (Hilary Duff), loses her father and is treated as a servant by her stepmother. Although mockingly referred to by bitchy classmates as ‘Diner Girl’ she dreams of going to Princeton and shares her ambition with a secret love on the Internet, who turns out to be a popular high-school jock – and partner of the queen bitch.

The mismatched pair share a dance (in disguise) at a Halloween prom yet he breaks her heart when he realises who she is (exposed by her ‘ugly’ stepsisters) and is evidently embarrassed to learn his mystery love interest is one of the school geeks. Her working-class status is another point of ridicule, yet he also works part-time at his father’s garage, revealing a sense of denial about his own socio-economic background, simply to fit in with the in-crowd. He realises his failings when Sam confronts him, calling him a phony, and the pair are united, yet ultimately he’s an aside in this Cinderella story. It is Sam’s abilities, and the discovery of her father’s will, that changes her life. Finding the document in a fairy tale book her father read to her, she takes over ownership of the diner and puts her former co-workers in charge. She also finds the college acceptance letter her stepsisters threw out and departs for Princeton with her new beau, her closing voice-over breezily stating that she has no idea how long their romance will last – a cool riposte to the usual ‘happily ever after’ which suggests that, in the great scheme of things, their relationship is relatively unimportant.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 31

Never Been Kissed (Raja Gosnell, 1999) similarly cultivates a secret affair at high school, in this case a clandestine connection between undercover reporter Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore), posing as a schoolgirl for a newspaper article, and the English teacher who becomes attracted to her. When her true identity is disclosed this immediately creates a rift yet, eager to atone for deceiving him, she puts her heart on her sleeve in the article used to explain her story, upping the ante in confessional journalism by admitting she is as pure as the driven snow (as the film’s title implies) and offers to publicly humiliate herself still further by waiting on the pitcher’s square before a baseball game if he is willing to be her first kiss. Another table-turning underdog (flashbacks to her tortured school-years as ‘Gross-y Josie’ explain her lack of romantic interests), she attracts both the school heart-throb and finds a soul-mate in her class ‘crush’, creating an appealing nostalgia-driven wish-fulfilment fantasy, although we might well ask if so much soulbearing is really necessary to get herself a man. Perhaps the most commendable aspect of this second ‘Cinderella’ film featuring Barrymore is that Josie is not simply a bookworm but a professional writer, whose nerdish passion for words singles her out from her classmates, whose ability to write is used to successfully woo her man, and who also takes the trouble to commend the school outcasts that took her in before she became accepted by the sneery cool kids. Like A Cinderella Story, which it has much in common with, the film has been overlooked by critics, who tend to assume that a film aimed at teens is not worthy of serious interest. I would argue, however, that the message of these updated tales is too positive to ignore, with central protagonists who may experience loneliness and ostracism yet are also made responsible for improving their own futures. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel Zwick, 2002) provides another ‘Cinderella’ update in which romantic interests coincide with the heroine’s career ambitions. Toula (Nia Vardalos) is another outsider character, lacking self-esteem and stuck in a rut until night school offers a means of gaining control over her life. It is seemingly to fit in with her college peers that prompts the makeover we have come to expect from such scenarios, trading glasses for contacts and investing in outfits that defy her father’s limited appraisal (‘you look so old!’). The result is a visibly rejuvenated woman who gets herself a loving husband, largely through the increased confidence her new skills have given her.

A further variation on the theme of outsider heroines is Miss Congeniality (Donald Petrie, 2000) in which female cop Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock), routinely overlooked, gets the chance to prove herself by going undercover at a beauty pageant. Cue a parody makeover in which

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 32

Fairy Tale and Film

she is starved, plucked and groomed to fit in with the other contestants, eventually earning recognition from her boss for successfully unearthing the security threat posed, and even becoming a national celebrity. From awkward tomboy, Gracie ends the film with a sense of personal as well as professional triumph, gaining a new admirer in the form of her work partner, Eric. In an interesting attempt to confront rom-com expectations, the film’s sequel, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (John Pasquin, 2005), reveals that this romance ends after only three weeks, putting Gracie in a tailspin of depression.17 Allowing her bosses to make her ‘FBI Barbie’ again, she loses herself in the superficial role of a media PR person, and it soon becomes evident that the core relationship in this film is with her security officer, Sam (Regina King). Eventually bonding after countless fights, Gracie dispenses with the bitchy demeanour used to hide her pain and the film delivers its message: getting the man is not the point, and neither is prioritising looks. Eric is forgotten, Sam becomes her new partner at the FBI, and Gracie returns to the job that ultimately provides her with a sense of self-worth.

What these heroines share is a mutual sense of awkwardness that may attract amusement yet also makes them both endearing and inspiring.

None conforms to the conventional stereotype of approved ‘femininity’ in terms of their dress and demeanour, yet neither do they rely on the idea that a man is the answer to their troubles. In fact, they each provide the solution to their problems through their own resources and abilities.

As ‘Cinderella’ stories go, we would be hard put to find more empowering messages. In addition to the non-stereotypical looks of the chief protagonists, or the relative absence of wicked stepmothers, who gets to play the fairy godmother is also of note, with men selected in most cases, revealing that gender roles are being interestingly revised. ‘Cinderella’ provides an apt means of playing with such ideas, with its emphasis on costume, disguise and transformation, and it seems film-makers are keen to take advantage of such features to play with convention.18 The most progressive examples revise our understanding of heroines as figures to be applauded rather than pitied. However, this is by no means the only fairy tale to have inspired cinematic updates via the rom-com. While ‘Cinderella’ emphasises marriage as the heroine’s desired goal (an aspiration altered in modern variations, which have heroines improve their lot through making the most of their abilities, rendering any love interests secondary), contrasting tales feature heroines who evince reluctance about finding a partner, yet are forced to overcome such feelings, with disguise and transformation key tropes once again.19

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 33

Many folklorists contend that tales play out Oedipal dramas in their emphasis on family conflicts, yet it is not simply dealing with parental conflicts that characterises the main narrative action, but leaving home and forming relationships with others. The tale type commonly referred to as ‘The Animal Groom’ (ATU 425A) cycle has been praised by Bruno Bettelheim (1977) as a means of discussing – and overcoming – fears of sexual intimacy, while others (such as Warner and Tatar) have looked more closely at gender roles in such narratives. Typically, a male figure is placed under a curse that transforms him into a beast, requiring a gesture of female devotion to regain his humanity. Related tales ask a sister to reverse such a curse by a degree of debasement and fortitude, yet the ‘Animal Groom’ tale explicitly romanticises the plot in demanding a stranger’s love. ‘The Frog King’ (ATU 440) is one of the best-known examples, yet what is curious about this particular tale is that it is not a kiss (in its original version) that turns an enchanted frog back to human form, but a gesture of rage, the princess throwing him against her bedroom wall when she tires of his demands.20 Having retrieved her golden ball she agrees to be his ‘friend’, yet baulks at allowing her loathsome helper to share such intimacies as eating from the same plate and sleeping on her pillow, and shows her true feelings once they’re behind closed doors. As many have noted, the story has features of a bawdy tale (particularly in occurring in the bedroom where the young couple have no chaperone!) yet while folklorists tend to interpret the tale as one of sexual initiation unconvincingly transformed into a treatise on the importance of keeping your word, it is equally pertinent as a tale of a humbled heroine. The princess is a haughty figure, believing she does not need to show appreciation for another’s kindness, and clearly feels superior to the frog. She learns a lesson in humility by complying with his demands – at her father’s odd insistence – and wins herself a partner as a result. As Tatar affirms, vanity and pride are foremost among ‘the cardinal sins of women in folk tales. These vices make for the strong will (familiar enough to us from fairy tales about children) that must be broken before a woman is sufficiently obedient to qualify for matrimony’ (1992: 103). The father’s role in ensuring his daughter’s compliance is pertinent in this respect (as is the fact that a kiss has popularly been substituted with the original act of rage), and the beast’s adoption of human form (a handsome prince no less) rewards the heroine for overcoming her initial revulsion.

‘Beauty and the Beast’ (ATU 425C) provides another familiar variant on this tale of daughterly devotion and romantic transformation, although we might note that other versions have far less idealised results.21

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 34

Fairy Tale and Film

In the best-known, most feel-good version, written in the seventeenth century by Mme de Beaumont, a merchant, having lost his fortune, elicits the wrath of a beastly figure, appeasing him with what seems to be a scandalous agreement. Having taken avail of his host’s hospitality by spending a night at his home and enjoying a good meal, he foolishly steals a rose for his favourite daughter, consequently condemning her to the Beast in exchange for his life. The family’s impoverished financial circumstances, and the daughter’s lack of choice about her situation, affirm Tatar’s point that such tales reflect the reality of arranged marriages at the time. ‘In agreeing to marry a suitor chosen by her parents a young woman could bring prosperity and honor to her family ... but arranged marriages had an obviously disagreeable side to them. The woman who was to make such a match had every right to feel frightened by an alliance of such sudden intimacy with a stranger; hence it is no wonder that fairy tales turn the grooms of these unions into beasts’ (1992: 141). The fact that the daughter turns the situation to her advantage – overlooking the Beast’s appearance and locating finer qualities within – suggests Beaumont intended her tale as a means of dispelling fears about marrying a stranger. Although she experienced an unhappy arranged marriage (which she ran away from), her tales were primarily informed by her job as a governess, leading Warner to conclude that her main purpose was ‘preparing her charges for ... wifely duty, readying them to find the male spouse a beast at first, but, beneath the rough and uncivilised exterior, a good man’ (1995: 294).22 Cinematic adaptations have sought to find novel ways to set up a similar scenario. Green Card (Peter Weir, 1990) provides a modern variation in which Brontë (Andie Macdowell) enters into a marriage of convenience with French pianist Georges (Gerard Depardieu). Her aim is to renovate a beautiful conservatory in an apartment only leased to married couples, while he seeks a right to stay in the United States. Like Beaumont’s Beast, Georges’ gruff exterior conceals an inner sensitivity and although the pair clash the film ends with them realising their true feelings and seeking to make their marriage real. What Happens in Vegas (Tom Vaughan, 2008) follows a similar narrative trajectory. Two newly-weds wake up, following a drunken betrothal in Las Vegas – and a big pay-out on the slots – and promptly go to court to resolve their mistake (and decide who gets what). Refusing to annul the marriage, they are forced to cohabit by a judge, declaring that their winnings will be retained by the court and only determined after an agreed period living as husband and wife. Relations become increasingly acrimonious as each sets about trying to force the other to leave the apartment, aware

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 35

this will entail forfeiting the winnings, yet they ultimately fall in love over this fraught time together and agree to work at the relationship by the time they arrive back in court. Importantly in this case, much like equally sardonic affairs such as War of the Roses (Danny De Vito, 1989) and Mr and Mrs Smith (Doug Liman, 2005), gender allows no one the upper hand, with both parties proving to be equally ruthless and malicious in their conduct. Although neither woman marries for love, the wives in Green Card and What Happens in Vegas experience a profound change of heart about their spouse, like Beaumont’s Beauty, and realise he’s the one for them.

Fairy tale narratives concerning a reluctantly wooed woman can veer towards questionable ideological ground, with ‘humbled’ heroines typically forced to concede to male love interests after an appropriate degree of humiliation. Unlike ‘Beauty and the Beast’, which insists that its heroine must look beyond her companion’s unprepossessing exterior, and endure any moody outbursts, a woman’s negative attributes (generally pride or aloofness) do not need to be accepted, it seems, but actively altered. A wilful woman is thus brought into line by a man who asserts an equivalent will of his own, often treating her with a level of contempt that brings about a (supposedly) necessary transformation.

Related tale type ‘The Princess’s Laugh’ (ATU 559) similarly sets about taking the wind out of a haughty woman’s sails, and promising her to whoever can make her laugh is suggested as a form of comic matchmaking, yet a nastier side is shown in the tale type ‘King Thrushbeard’ (ATU 900), punishing a princess for being too picky about a spouse (which is regarded as thinking too much of herself) by removing any semblance of pride. Clearly not keen to marry anyone, the heroine finds fault with every potential suitor, including the titular king, who vows revenge for being spurned. Enlisting her father’s help in tricking her, she is told she must marry the first beggar who calls at the castle (really the king in disguise) and forced to live with him in poverty. Although she struggles to adjust to her new life she is progressively degraded. A pot-making business does surprisingly well yet is deliberately ruined by her husband, forcing her to work in the castle kitchens and steal scraps. The king finally humiliates her in front of the court by revealing the theft, while also unveiling his true identity. Far from expressing anger or hurt over this deception, she has been so soundly humbled by her experiences that gratitude and devotion are the result.

Of course, this kind of tale belongs to another time, yet while its tenets may seem objectionable in an apparent age of equality, it continues to enjoy a level of interest in cinematic remakes, with the accompanying

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 36

Fairy Tale and Film

intimation that strong-willed women ultimately benefit from being tested and tamed. This is conventionally dubbed a ‘battle-of-the-sexes’ comedy, yet the point is that one sex wins – and no prizes for guessing which one. The Ugly Truth (Robert Luketic, 2009) provides one of the most recent, and perhaps most objectionable, versions, with an unreconstructed male chauvinist, Mike (Gerard Butler), making a name for himself on cable TV by spouting sexist rants at women. Hired by the same network as successful yet lonely singleton Abby (Katherine Heigl), the unlikely pair are forced together. Although she initially claims to loathe him, Abby nonetheless appoints Mike as her romantic advisor, confirming his conviction that women like herself are fundamentally desperate and clueless. The result is a skewered charade affirming that men know what women want better than they do themselves. Far from fighting her corner as a liberated and intelligent woman, Abby is an American Bridget Jones, losing any dignity to find herself a man, unhesitatingly following Mike’s advice, and finally succumbing to his very questionable charms. The fact that the film seeks to rework a Doris Day/Rock Hudson-style chemistry with a crude contemporary angle (complete with sex toys) makes it all the more reprehensible, the ugly truth proffered being that a successful career is no substitute for a relationship, albeit one with a man who is fundamentally out of touch with his feminine side. The fact that the film was written by three women is particularly disconcerting, as is the fact that we have seen similarly sexist nonsense before, again with female writers involved and seemingly no shortage of prominent actresses keen to be involved in such films. Goldie Hawn’s interest in co-starring with long-term partner Kurt Russell may have played some part in attracting her to Overboard (Garry Marshall, 1987), which provides another contemporary spin on the theme of a humbled heroine, yet the result seems hideously dated, even at the time of release, and this is largely due to the fact that it updates a tale that is quite a few centuries old. A carpenter, left unpaid by a snooty heiress, decides to take revenge when she falls from her yacht and experiences amnesia, claiming she’s his wife and the mother of his four bratty sons.

The fact that he clearly takes advantage of her is scarcely considered problematic, with audiences invited to think that Joanne gets what’s coming to her. By the time her memory returns she realises she’s happy being a housewife and mother, evidently softened by some hard work, and pleased to have met her match – something all women presumably desire at heart. Even supposedly ‘feminist’ iconoclast Madonna has starred in a version of the same tale, Swept Away (2002), directed by then husband Guy Ritchie. Stranded on a remote island together, a snooty

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 37

socialite and coarse sailor immediately find themselves at loggerheads – until their enmity gives way to passion.

More recent variations have modified the tale somewhat, as well as the degree of antagonism between the pair. 10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger, 1999) updates ‘King Thrushbeard’ for a teen audience, or, more accurately, Shakespeare’s variant, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’. The narrative challenge is issued by a well-meaning yet overprotective dad, who affirms that only if his oldest daughter gets a date for the prom can her popular younger sister attend. The names of the principal cast alert us to the Shakespeare references. Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) is the sharp-tongued ‘feminist’, who archly deters any likely candidates, and Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) is the new boy at her high school, lured by money to court her – as well as curiosity. He makes some headway in claiming to like the same female rock band and starts her thinking this boy may be different to the others, yet rather than show us a meeting of equals Kat embarrasses herself at a party, getting so drunk she requires Patrick’s help to get home (so much for her claimed independence and intelligence!). Still more lamentably, when she realises the financial agreement made to woo her to the prom her response is not the anger we might expect from an adolescent virago (already hurt by the rich kid now trying to bed her sister) but despair. No longer content to keep her emotions to herself, she elects to read a poem (a sonnet no less) in class, declaring the ten things she hates about Patrick, although her sobs reveal the depth of her heartache. Despite aiming to come off as a wry teen rom-com, the laughs are sadly at our heroine’s expense.

Not only is the formerly formidable Kat resoundingly humbled, she opts to humiliate herself, exchanging her former self-possession for self-pity in a patent act of ‘over-sharing’. However, while the confession may ridicule her in the eyes of her peers, it pays off where it counts, earning her an equivalent declaration of love from Patrick, albeit made privately in his case, and the fact that he buys her a Fender guitar with his reward money evidently shows he’s sincere. Whether they have any kind of future together is uncertain, but the film seeks to offset its somewhat risible message about the importance of opening up to emotions by attempting a progressive ending, one that interestingly recalls A Cinderella Story, with Kat eventually realising her dream of going to Sarah Lawrence College (previously attended by her late mother), her father finally consenting to her leaving home.

The Proposal (Anne Fletcher, 2009) provides a similar update of the humbled harridan scenario, affirming that underneath a tough female exterior there’s a softer side waiting to be prised out. Bitchy boss

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 38

Fairy Tale and Film

Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) coerces her put-upon assistant, Andrew (Ryan Reynolds), into marriage in order to avoid extradition to Canada and the prospect of losing her job as senior editor of a publishing company. Convinced by the promise of a promotion, he immediately takes advantage of his new-found power over her to hammer out the terms of his new contract – asking her to propose to him in public on bended knee. They plan a weekend together with his family to convince an immigration official of their relationship’s veracity and Andrew uses the opportunity to get his revenge for three years of faithful service running errands for her. The point is made by leaving Margaret struggling with her baggage (telling his mother ‘she insists on doing everything herself, she’s a feminist’), yet the pair soon make the transition from squabbling adversaries, feigning a romance, to the real thing. It helps that Margaret is considerably softened over the weekend, revealing that she was orphaned at 16, growing close to his family and finally calling the marriage off when her conscience prevails. Of course, this is rom-com territory and an appropriately dashing ending reunites them. He intercepts her at her office as she packs to leave, tells her to stop talking in front of his awestruck intimidated colleagues and proposes for real. She admits her fears, allowing her professional mask to slip in front of the staring crowd, but their kiss earns cheers of approval and a ‘yeah, show her who’s boss, Andrew!’ from a male peer. The film could have done without making this point quite so crudely, yet while it may ridicule its heroine in a number of ways it also sets itself apart from others of its ilk because it remains very much on Margaret’s side. Andrew may secretly liken his boss to a ‘witch’ and ‘mistress of Satan’ yet also defends her as ‘one of the most respected editors in the country’, and Granma Annie (Betty White) provides an interesting affirmation in comparing her to a female relative, stating, ‘She was a lot like you. Tough. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was good for him.’ By the end of the film they genuinely seem to be good for each other, with Andrew’s commitment evident, and Margaret helping him to value his family. This is not a clash or battle as such, there is no real enmity on either side, and with their shared profession and passion for books there is a sense of a much sweeter union being forged in unusual circumstances. While King Thrushbeard was intent on removing his wife’s dignity, including an independent livelihood, ensuring her absolute reliance on him in order to show her who’s boss, The Proposal informs us how a twentyfirst-century romance can rework certain narrative elements without subjecting its heroine to the same humiliation. In a pivotal moment during their weekend together, Margaret confesses to Andrew that she

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 39

secretly cried after a rival editor called her a ‘poisonous bitch’. She evinces the same vulnerability in the office she once presided over, yet in a crucial difference to the likes of 10 Things I Hate About You, when she admits to being scared at the prospect of a relationship, Andrew readily and publicly admits to the same feelings, affirming an interesting equivalence between them. For the most part, the film clearly seeks to elicit sympathy for Margaret (largely due to her bereavement and the effect it has had on her) and affords her a level of respect other generic examples distinctly lack. Refreshingly, she gets her man without having to grovel, and presumably keeps her job too.

While The Proposal manages to avoid the pitfalls of other rom-coms adopting the humbled heroine motif, it also makes some pertinent references to the question of women in the workforce, particularly those who make it to the top of their profession. When Margaret sacks slacking male colleague Frank at the start of the film, his response is an outraged public outburst, terming her a ‘monster’ and a ‘bitch’ and seeking to hurt her where he perceives her to be most vulnerable: ‘Just because you have no semblance of a life outside of this office you think that you can treat us all like your personal slaves. You know what? I feel sorry for you because do you know what you’re gonna have on your deathbed? Nothing and no one.’ She coolly responds by dubbing him ‘lazy, entitled, and incompetent’, before having him escorted from the premises, but although his words don’t make a dent in her demeanour, we realise, as the film progresses, that he’s touched a nerve. What is the point of everything she’s achieved if she has no one to share it with?

It is this ominous question that hovers unsettlingly around many of the rom-coms featuring haughty heroines. Contemporary ‘Cinderella’ tales may progressively aim to reconcile romantic concerns with the need to forge good career prospects, but the anti-feminist warning, unsubtly stated by Frank, is that a career alone is worth nothing at all.

The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006) similarly centres on the relationship between a ruthless female boss and her apprentice, albeit one that is platonic in this case, and with a boss who never quite defrosts.

Generally considered to be a pastiche of Vogue editor Anna Wintour, the formidable Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) treats her assistants with barely concealed contempt. New girl Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) takes a job as Miranda’s PR at high-profile fashion magazine Runway in order to gain valuable work experience – considering the position a stepping stone to her dream job at The New York Mirror – yet the demands of her boss are such that Andy soon finds herself sacrificing everything for her, including a boyfriend who resents the time she is no longer able to

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 40

Fairy Tale and Film

spend with him and his similarly underachieving friends (who consider her a sell-out). The fact that he doesn’t make enough money to meet their rent may contribute to his resentment, yet while his failure to be a supportive or understanding partner suggests the end of their relationship is no great loss, a core aspect of this film warns against women striving too hard and losing sight of what is supposedly most important.

Indeed, its tag line might as well read ‘beware ruthless ambition’. Andy gets the customary makeover to impress her boss, trading in her former preppie look for a chic new style. Her boss barely seems to register the change but increasingly comes to rely on her, while Andy’s respect increases, stating an evident double standard at work in affirming that if Miranda were a man she would receive no criticism for her brusque demeanour. Sadly, the film must nonetheless vilify Miranda as a warning against losing one’s integrity. When her position is threatened she rallies with a list of employees she vows to take with her in setting up a rival magazine and exploits a long-serving colleague (Andy’s confidante at work and in-house fairy godmother) to stay ahead in a treacherous business. This is the wake-up call her protégé needs. Having witnessed Miranda’s marriage recently ending, Andy realises it’s lonely at the top, and that single-minded careerism is liable to end any relationship – a point that is hammered home when she embarks on a night of passion with a smooth-tongued Lothario who simply uses her to get at her boss.

Not only does she quit her job, Andy resumes her relationship with the unsupportive deadbeat by the end of the film. Better the devil you know, it seems, than having no one at all, as her time with Miranda has taught her. Lest we think that her mentor has been easily discarded, we realise that she has played a pivotal role in Andy’s future career, providing the reference needed to get her dream job, turning from fledgling fashionista to serious journo. Miranda’s final wave from a taxi cab and rare smile suggests a fleeting camaraderie between them. Like the heroine in ‘Baba Yaga’ (aka ‘The Household of the Witch’ ATU 334) Andy has served an essential apprenticeship and returned home, having learned to be tenacious and to work hard, yet also a valuable lesson in humility.

Monster-in-law (Robert Luketic, 2005) provides another take on a conflict-ridden relationship between two women – and presents a still more overt backlash against feminism. Veteran broadcaster Viola Fields (Jane Fonda) has a meltdown on TV, prompted by a violent clash with an inane female pop star. (Interestingly, what infuriates her is the woman’s lack of interest in current affairs and ignorance over a pivotal law that changed women’s rights to abortion in the US. When asked about Roe vs Wade the young woman blithely responds that she has no interest in

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 41

boxing – an exchange that reveals how much the younger generation have taken for granted in terms of women’s rights, as well as highlighting Viola’s supposedly rabid feminism, responding as she does by launching herself upon her!) With her career now seemingly over, Viola has her only son Kevin (Michael Vartan) to fixate on, yet when he announces an engagement with the nice yet manifestly unmotivated Charlotte (Jennifer Lopez) Viola takes an instant dislike to her and sets about deterring the marriage. The two women couldn’t be more different. Where Viola has had a high-profile career, travelled extensively, speaks various languages, and holds a party attended by various foreign dignitaries and celebrities, ‘Charlie’ has no career to speak of, walking dogs and temping for a living, and wears a question mark around her neck for reasons she cannot explain. Clearly Kevin has sought a very different woman to his mother and a mutual love for him is all they seem to have in common.

A no-holds-barred contest is pitched as both women, unbeknownst to Kevin, battle it out for supremacy. Despite her accomplishments, Viola is portrayed as privileged and potty, yet also a sad and lonely figure, and Charlie proves to be her match. Having used all manner of nasty methods to undermine one another, the pair call a truce after Viola’s mother-in-law Gertrude (viciously played by Elaine Stritch) shows how damaging such rivalry can be. Viola admits that she is the one with the problem, fearful of losing her son, and Charlie responds with a list of rules for her rival, affirming that she is the one with the power. Her promise to have Viola over for holidays, and insistence on a close relationship with any grandchildren, may sound conciliatory yet is also a reminder of how much Viola needs her friendship. Charlotte’s hopes for a family are the closest thing she has to an ambition, and the apparent lesson of the film is that she belongs to a ‘simpler’ generation of womanhood with a greater prospect of happiness than domineering, driven yet fundamentally dissatisfied women like Viola. Mothers-in-law conventionally act as the heroine’s rival in fairy tales, often tormenting them for no reason other than possessiveness over a son, and this film reprises the theme, together with the heroine’s triumph. Although their rivalry ends once they become ‘family’, the ageing ‘feminist’ is nonetheless humbled through her dealings with a seemingly guileless young woman, who wins her desired man in the end.

The theme of a virtuous woman fighting a duplicitous rival over a man is a core theme of the tale type known as ‘The White Bride and the Black Bride’ (ATU 403). My Best Friend’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1997) pitches a modern variant on the theme – with the man in question again being none the wiser. Perplexingly, just as Kevin is a fairly bland

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 42

Fairy Tale and Film

character, the mutual object of affection hardly seems worthy of one woman’s devotion, let alone two. Michael O’Neil (Dermot Mulroney) is a sportswriter, engaged to a young woman who is so smitten with him she’s prepared to give up her dreams of becoming an architect to follow him around the country. Kimmie (Cameron Diaz) is thus evidently cast as the White Bride, the woman who most deserves to be his partner because she has the attributes he most desires. The obstacle to their union is his best friend, Julianne (Julia Roberts) – introduced as a self-possessed unconventional woman with a good career, yet also what appears to be some commitment issues that have led to her remaining resolutely single. That is, until the engagement is announced and she becomes obsessed with claiming the groom for herself. Julie, we realise, from the way she dresses to the cigarettes she smokes and her increasingly ruthless conduct, lacks the ‘feminine’ charms that Michael finds so attractive about Kimmie. Formerly involved, yet breaking up largely due to her undemonstrative nature (she reveals early on that she has only cried a handful of times in her life, including her parents’ deaths, and has problems with public displays of affection), the fact that Julie wants him back seems more attributable to a sense of entitlement than love. Prepared to resort to the most underhand tactics, she pretends to be close to Kimmie so that she can use any confidences as ammunition against her. Objecting to her decision to give up her career for Michael, for example, is not staked through any sense of female solidarity, just an attempt to drive a wedge between the couple, and we see her shocking duplicity again and again. However, Julie is forced to pay for her actions. As her former confidence and composure crumble, resorting to ever more desperate measures, we realise she is another example of a humbled heroine – and one who doesn’t even get her man in the end. The irony is that the more she humiliates herself – reneging any sense of self-respect at a pre-wedding party when she shamelessly implores the groom ‘choose me’ and manically runs after him, even as he runs after Kimmie – the less these strategies work. Michael is simply disappointed by her behaviour, unmoved by her ardour and eventually marries Kimmie as planned, leaving Julie to do the decent thing by serving as Maid of Honour and crying into her champagne. The emotion that Michael clearly wanted in a relationship – and ‘sweet chocolate covered Kimmie’ cries at the drop of a hat – is something Julie wasn’t able to offer until too late, providing another warning against being too independent, single-minded and emotionally ‘withdrawn’.

Yet we might also consider it to be a fairly progressive end, particularly given the demands made of the somewhat insipid yet eminently more

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 43

‘marriageable’ Kimmie, leaving the far more interesting and unorthodox female single, yet far from necessarily defeated.

Like any other genre, rom-coms enjoy playing with conventions (within accepted parameters) and a number do not necessarily proceed as we might expect. Indie variations have tended to levy a sense of cynicism about love and thus pitch themselves as anti-rom-coms. One of the most unusual films to result from such experimentation is Waitress (Adrienne Shelley, 2007). Jenna (Keri Russell) is unhappily married to the abusive Earl (Jeremy Sisto) and discovering she is pregnant seems to affirm no way out of the marriage. She starts an affair with newly arrived doctor Jim Pometter (Nathan Fillion) – both seeming to succumb to the magical effects of her ‘falling in love pie’ – yet her daughter is, we realise, the true love story here, her birth immediately prompting Jenna to ask her husband for a divorce, end her affair and start her life again. She fulfils her dream of winning a pie-baking contest, uses her prize money (and a handy cheque from her boss) to buy the diner she works at, and the film ends on an idyllic note as mother and daughter, in matching yellow outfits, walk happily down a path together into the sunset. The narrative, needless to say, is unconventional. In contrast to ditzy colleague Dawn (played by Shelley) who implicitly believes in ‘Prince Charming’ and marries an obsessive oddball after a whirlwind romance, Jenna’s marriage to a controlling immature man has left her with no expectations of happiness. Her interest in Dr Pometter is partly motivated by his contrasting respectfulness towards her, yet also seems more hormonal than emotional, and the relationships she values most are with other women: the mother who taught her to bake, her workfriends and ultimately her daughter. Becoming her own woman, earning recognition for her pies and having her dream come true does not (directly) involve a man.

Effectively, Jenna’s life starts again with the birth of her daughter, which galvanises her to make key changes. The transformation in her attitude is all the more notable because of Jenna’s profound reluctance to become a mother, adding a subversive feature in the resentment she admits to throughout her pregnancy. This motif of rebirth through motherhood shares traces with a tale often discussed as a precursor of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, Basile’s ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’.23 In this story a woman is impregnated whilst asleep and subsequently gives birth to twins, only reviving from her slumbers when their suckling dislodges an enchanted thorn from her breast. Although the abuse element is obviously unsavoury, the key point of the tale is that motherhood revives this early Sleeping Beauty, not a prince. We might consider this

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 44

Fairy Tale and Film

an overly sentimental idea, yet it’s one that Waitress, which goes out of its way to demythologise motherhood, ultimately attests to. Jenna resigns herself to an unhappy existence until her daughter gives her a reason to live the life she wants. While Talia reconciles with the father of her children, keen to construct a conventional family unit (irrespective of the circumstances of their conception and what this reveals about his character), Jenna rejects the abusive Earl and forges her own path as a single mother.

Although very different in style, Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003–4) has traces of the same source tale. The principal character, initially known only as The Bride (Uma Thurman) and later revealed to be Beatrix Kiddo, is first seen in a coma, sexually abused by two men. Waking during the assault, she violently defends herself, steals their car and mounts what will turn out to be an epic revenge mission against her former lover – the man responsible for having put her in the coma – together with everyone else involved. In a flagrant rebuttal of romantic inclinations, we learn that Bill (David Carradine) became filled with hatred for his former lover when she chose to marry another man, ordering a team of assassins to kill the wedding party.

A flashback reveals that she was heavily pregnant at the time and we assume that she lost the baby as a result of her injuries, yet the shock denouement to this two-part film reveals that she had a daughter – and that her hated enemy has been raising her. After putting the child to bed she completes her mission and kills Bill. An interesting sense of serenity is finally allowed for The Bride in the closing scene, her life beginning again (indeed, finally becoming her own) now that she is united with the daughter she never knew she had. Given her first appearance, pimped out by a hospital orderly, Kiddo’s experience might be seen as a radically altered version of ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’, yet in place of a heroine characterised through victimhood and forbearance, this version gives us a woman motivated by revenge, whose feats are manifestly heroic, in the style of the martial arts epics that clearly influence the film.24 Contending that ‘Sleeping Beauty’ might be understood as a story of death and resurrection, Zipes could be discussing The Bride’s narrative journey when he states, ‘The rising from the dead is an uprising, an attack on the borders of mortality. After her uprising, Sleeping Beauty will know how to avoid danger and death ...

Once awakened, Sleeping Beauty is the knowing one’ (2002b: 215).

Tatar discerns another ‘Sleeping Beauty’ reference in a later Tarantino film, Django Unchained (2012), yet one that is much less inspiring.

The hero’s wife, Broomhilda, named after the legendary Brünnhilde,

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 45

emulates the fate of another mythic sleeping beauty, albeit without any of her fire: ‘When she finally appears on-screen, she emerges from a claustrophobic underground cage, naked, dehydrated, immobilized, and painfully vulnerable. Like her namesake, who was narcotized with a “sleep-thorn” and sealed off from the world, Hildy can do little more than suffer and endure, not just in the tomblike vault in which she was imprisoned, but everywhere else’ (Tatar, 2013).25 Of the three ‘princess’ archetypes feminist critics have most objected to, it is small wonder Sleeping Beauty is the most difficult to recuperate.26 Not only is she the most passive of fairy tale figures, spending her existence – from adolescence on – unconscious, a tawdry element to the source tale is still more disturbing. Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty (2011) draws attention to these negative features in an apparent attempt to remind women that they are complicit in the relationships they forge, and the actions they take, and it is time to wake up. The heroine (if we can even use this term) finances her studies with a seedy form of employment, taking a strong sedative while clients ‘sleep’ with her.27 Untroubled by what they do, because she has no memory of it, she is a difficult character to sympathise with, and this is largely the point.

No curse, as such, has placed her in this position and only she can save herself. An opaque ending has her madam wake her with a ‘kiss’ of life, her sedative proving dangerously strong, but whether this serves as a wake-up call is left open. The film has baffled many, yet Leigh apparently strives for a sense of symbolism, referencing feminist rhetoric in affirming that we need to kiss sleeping beauty goodbye and take responsibility for our lives.

The ‘Snow White’ story has similar tropes to ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in terms of a ‘persecuted heroine’, almost killed by a malevolent female yet resurrected by a male, and cinematic attempts to invest the character with greater assertiveness have tended to have difficulties of their own. The two versions released in 2012 both make their heroines older figures who battle to regain their kingdom, rather than rely on a prince to save them, although these efforts at independence are undermined by the love interest in each case. As we might recall, the romantic features of the original tale are curious to say the least, with a passing prince falling in love with our heroine as she lies, seemingly dead, in a glass coffin, and convincing her dwarf benefactors to give him the apparent corpse. Whether she is resurrected from the poisoned apple being dislodged from her throat by a jolt (as written by the Grimms) or a Sleeping Beauty-style kiss (added by Disney), the assumption that the heroine also falls in love at first sight is the kind of fancy we are

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 46

Fairy Tale and Film

simply asked to accept. In a world where a prince can fall deliriously in love during a dance – and commit himself to marrying the mysterious stranger – it is perhaps no surprise that one can do so with an apparently dead woman, just as we are asked to accept that such intense feelings will simply be reciprocated by the revived female. However, a degree of conflict between the pair has been added in cinematic treatments to tease out a romance. Hence, both ‘Snow White’ films released in 2012 create tension by making their leading men involved, in one way or another, with the wicked queen, requiring the respective heroines to change their loyalties.

Mirror Mirror (Tarsem Singh, 2012) makes its Snow (Lily Collins) responsible for the disenchanting kiss used to reclaim the enchanted prince from her stepmother’s clutches and the film concludes with their marriage, opting to overlook the fact he’s an arrogant scoundrel. Snow White and the Huntsman (Rupert Sanders, 2012) tries a different twist, making the huntsman a potential love interest, although he similarly seems unworthy of the heroine’s devotion. In each case, the representation of vain egotistical men may attempt to de-romanticise such tales, yet the result can scarcely be deemed feminist when they secure such unabashed ardour from naïve heroines. Even as archetypal symbol of female virtue, Snow White is recast as a warrior, despatching her rival (rather than fleeing from her) and serving as a more benign ruler due to her brief encounter with her lowly subjects, there is an essential contradiction at the heart of these films: presenting active heroines who take control of their lives as they come of age whilst exhibiting a traditional deference to male figures (and vilification of the wicked stepmother) which simply reiterate regressive overtones. These films, and other examples of the ‘Snow White’ tale, are further discussed in Chapter 5 (noting how some horror films subvert our usual understanding of the tale) and Chapter 6 (in which postmodern variations are further scrutinised).

All that remains to be said in this context is that ‘Snow White’ is a difficult narrative to recuperate, partly failing to work as a love story because the usual romantic denouement seems tagged onto the end, yet also because the chief relationship, ultimately, is between mother and daughter. Modern variations tend to stress this archetypal rivalry, which is obviously questionable in terms of undermining female bonding and vilifying the older woman, a tendency that remains all too prevalent in many fairy tale films. While even revised versions of ‘Snow White’ tend to reiterate female rivalry, additionally asking their heroines to maintain a questionable allegiance to dubious males, contemporary ‘Cinderella’ tales offer more positive features, presenting young women

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 47

who make the most of the opportunities available, together with help from both men and women, to positively alter their lives, and seem far more liberated. Indeed, many of the Cinderella stories reworked in recent rom-coms affirm important changes in giving heroines wider narrative ambitions than meeting Mr Right, even if they are somewhat restricted by generic limitations.

Tellingly, however, even where feminist critics have discussed these films, they don’t seem to have paid much attention to them.

For example, while Kim Snowden describes A Cinderella Story and 10 Things I Hate About You as ‘Cinderella-style rags-to-riches’ stories aimed at teenage and early twenties female viewers which appear to draw on feminist ideals (with protagonists evincing greater interest in education than relationships), she erroneously states that ‘these characters’ ambitions are invariably derailed when romantic dilemmas supersede them’ (2010: 161). In both cases, however, their greatest ambition is going to college, which they accomplish, proving that even in romantic comedies romance is not necessarily the priority. Zipes’ dismissal of modern Cinderella films emerging in the 1980s and 1990s as ‘remakes with a faux feminist touch’ (2011: 174) is similarly cursory, contending that ‘they patch up the narrative in response to the changing role of women, but they still insist that Cinderella uses her talents and beauty in a public spectacle so that she can impress a young man and wed him’ (2011: 174). In fact, many narratives dispense with marriage, as we have seen, and heroines rely more on their ‘talents’ than looks to secure a love interest, overtly updating his ‘beauty contest’ claims.

The critical negation of these films is a frustrating matter, failing to acknowledge where interesting revisions are apparent, and almost wilfully misreading examples to voice continued disapproval. As Donald Haase argues, in place of the negativity that often emanates from applying feminist criticism to fairy tales, we need ‘approaches that discern the ideological ambiguities and textual complexities inherent in texts that paradoxically both reject and rely on the fairy tale’s power to define gender’ (2004: xiii). Although residual concerns about ‘proper’ feminine conduct are apparent in some of the examples assessed, appearing to regard feminist impulses with suspicion in narratives keen to humble ‘haughtiness’, together with a vilification of ambitious older women (affirming a tendency to repeat some problematic fairy tale tropes), these ideas have also been questioned in films like The Proposal and we need to give credit and recognition where it is due, acknowledging progressive features – and their causes. While rom-coms have a tendency to be sentimental wish-fulfilment fantasies featuring

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 48

Fairy Tale and Film

outlandish plots and fairly predictable outcomes, some response to gender politics is clearly evident, particularly modern-day Cinderellas who balance romantic desire with career aspirations, affirming the positive influence of feminist criticism and changing expectations. The pursuit of a feminist Cinderella (as Christy Williams has put it) may sound like an implicit contradiction, particularly where romance serves as a woman’s ultimate means of deliverance from life’s difficulties, yet what is commonly held to be the oldest tale in existence is enduringly popular not only in the appeal of its rags-to-riches plot but the way its heroine overturns expectations. Classic versions may depict this as scrubbing up well and attracting an affluent partner, but modern variations ask that she proves herself as more than a pretty face, adding elements of the tale type ‘The Clever Peasant Girl’ (ATU 875) in attracting admiration for her mind also. Female writers and critics have played a part in reshaping such tales for a modern sensibility yet, as we have noted, a woman behind the script, or even the production, does not necessarily guarantee a progressive film – while the ability of male writers and directors to voice recognisably ‘feminist’ ideas further suggests a need to despatch with simplistic ideas about gender, ideology and attendant affiliations. Kenneth Branagh, chosen to direct Disney’s new live-action version of ‘Cinderella’, has notably claimed the tale has universal appeal because ‘everybody identifies with that underdog story, we are her and we want her to succeed against all odds and believe that goodness can win out ... and that doesn’t suggest that life is only worth living if a rich man comes along’.28 While this point might easily be dismissed as ‘lip service’ to feminist concerns, it affirms the passive princess has indeed had a makeover, thanks in part to the criticisms voiced over the past few decades and resulting changes that have arisen. Acknowledging such developments is an important and necessary undertaking, inviting us to re-evaluate our assumptions about male and female roles, affirming them to be more dynamic and diverse than the few archetypes with which we are most familiar, with a message that need not speak to one gender alone. As Zipes admits, ultimately Cinderella’s power lies in an aspect we can all identify with: ‘a constant utopian need, especially on the part of the disadvantaged in society, to reshape the prescribed plots of our lives’ (2002b: 205) and it is this potential for positive transformation – and its relevance to male as well as female characters – that is the subject of the next chapter. If female aspirations clearly extend beyond romantic ideals – partly affirming changes created through the women’s movement, as much as the increased sense of

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 49

disparity between fairy tale fiction and lived experience – we might ask how such changes might be discerned in male-led comedies, particularly where male protagonists are set a romantic challenge. Although folklorists and feminist critics have often focused on female roles (using a select group of tales as reference), it is time to evaluate the models given to men, the ideals they aspire to, and assess how the resulting narratives might similarly be seen to reflect changing times.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

2 Curses, Wishes and Amazing Transformations: Male Maturation Tales

Transformation is at the heart of many fairy tale narratives, whether it be charting a protagonist’s journey from ‘rags to riches’, witnessing a haughty princess curtail her pride, or seeing an apparent beast return to human form: changes that include astonishing makeovers, rapid social climbs, dramatic changes of heart and magical enchantments. So far, this discussion has confined itself to romantic narratives featuring female characters, noting how a number of rom-coms have updated certain fairy tale motifs. This chapter adopts a contrasting mode of inquiry by evaluating romantic concerns from a male perspective; assessing how male coming-of-age tales have been depicted on screen, and asking how certain fairy tale tropes have accordingly been revised – especially in terms of the qualities deemed most desirable in men and the tests they are given. For the most part, popular comedies are the main focus of discussion, examining the changes characters undergo and highlighting some interesting role reversals. Particularly notable is the fact that examples of male pride, vanity and egotism are routinely taken to task in what might be considered a male variant of the ‘humbled heroine’ motif, while an emphasis on compassion and kindness is overtly fostered as a positive sign of male maturation. Put simply, if Cinderella has had a modern makeover in some films, how do male ‘coming-of-age’ narratives compare? In what way are changing expectations and gender roles evidenced by such films? Are the results a genuine reflection of altering male aspirations, and to what extent has this been informed by what women want?

On the whole, male fairy tale characters receive much less critical interest than female counterparts, and some scholars even claim that they are largely forgettable. In his article ‘The Fairy-Tale Hero: The Image of Man in the Fairy Tale’, Max Luthi complains that there is a paucity 50

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 51

of memorable male characters in European folklore, asserting ‘we find ourselves at a loss when called upon for the names of male protagonists: Iron Hans and Tom Thumb perhaps; the Brave Little Tailor, Strong Hans and Lucky Hans – but here we are already in the realm of the folktale jest’ (1991: 314). Maria Tatar concurs with Luthi on this point, arguing that while the most popular Grimm heroines are named, ‘male heroes are exceptionally unmemorable in name, if not deed’ (2003: 85) and generally distinguished by a degree of naïveté – if not outright foolishness.1 Nonetheless, Tatar has unearthed some additional characteristics that prove especially significant to this discussion, particularly in detailing the qualities exhibited by apparent ‘fools’ that come of age. Drawing comparison between approved females in the tale type ‘The Kind and Unkind Girls’ (ATU 480), and their lazy or cruel counterparts (a variation on ‘The Beautiful and the Ugly Twin Sisters’ (ATU 711)), Tatar observes that tales featuring ‘Three Brothers’ (ATU 654) typically imbue the youngest son with the same favoured qualities as these girls, often proving more caring and considerate than their siblings. In each case, irrespective of gender, ‘the protagonists must demonstrate compassion, humility, gratitude and kindness’ (1992: 67) and are accordingly rewarded in some way – often with help (usually supernatural or animal intervention) that results in their betrothal.2 A similar point was noted

by Carolyn G. Heilbrun, who argued that women might identify with the youngest brother in these stories, perceiving them to have ‘feminine’ virtues, listed as ‘animal loving, generous, affectionate and warm to the possibilities of affiliation’ (1993: 150).3 (In fact the ‘youngest son’ plot is akin to a male version of ‘Cinderella’, enabling the most downtrodden of three siblings to triumph, with marriage presented as their reward.) Although Heilbrun appears to essentialise what constitutes ‘feminine’ characteristics, her point is to affirm the progressive implications of cross-gender identification, applauding a specific male character in fairy tales with whom women can identify. Significantly, in all the films discussed in this chapter, the same traits tend to be approved, asking protagonists to dispense with the self-interest and conceit that typifies older siblings in such tales, and prove themselves to be caring individuals that women are able to relate to.

‘Coming-of-age’ in these films does not necessarily occur in adolescence, but later in life, and is demonstrated through becoming a more responsible, empathetic and emotionally open man – promoting a particular view of masculinity that is seemingly designed to meet with female approval. Male characters are often on the brink of divorce, or otherwise estranged from loved ones or potential love interests – a

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 52

Fairy Tale and Film

situation that requires them to change in order to get the relationship they seek and the contentment presumed to derive from romance and a family. Significantly, while modern ‘Cinderella’ tales present heroines widening their horizons beyond finding a ‘significant other’, a reversal is evident for male protagonists, particularly where careers are shown to distract them from relationships or familial obligations. Additionally, although magic is often elided in contemporary ‘Cinderella’ scenarios (substituting mortals for the conventional fairy godmother), supernatural intervention is explicitly retained in many of these male-led narratives. An enchantment occurs, initiating a transformation that tests their character and forces them to amend their flaws. As such, although they may not undergo a physical transformation, there is a connection to the ‘Animal Groom’ (ATU 425A) cycle of fairy tales, in which male figures are magically altered and eventually rehabilitated.4 In pointed contrast to such tales, however, which make female characters the catalyst for disenchantment, the onus is placed on men to redeem themselves in some way. It is in terms of the desired attributes sought from male figures in these films that they are deemed ideologically significant, revising assumptions about masculinity and the contrasting demands placed upon men.

If romantic inclinations are largely beside the point for many fairy tale heroes (the princess generally comes with the castle, once the hero has satisfied a task given by her father), modern-day romances affirm a need to win (or frequently win back) female love interests through more than feats of bravado or wit, requiring an ability to elicit affection, and demonstrate it also. This is quite a departure from the norm.

As Zipes contends, Grimm heroes are generally motivated by ruthless self-interest: ‘Given a chance he uses every opportunity to economize his energies and advance himself without really giving a thought to people around him ... More often than not the hero is out to prove himself at all costs and to survive – and love has very little to do with his actions’ (2002b: 100). Female partners thus tend to be won, rather than wooed, and although the wider fairy tale canon provides a number of males pursuing women, emotional declarations are rarely the way to romantic victory. (We might note that while the Aarne–Thompson– Uther index includes a category of comic tales entitled ‘Looking for a Wife’ (1450–74) the attributes deemed most desirable are thriftiness, industriousness and good housekeeping skills, the onus being on prospective wives to prove themselves, rather than a prospective suitor!)

Where a favoured female is in demand, requires persuasion, or male protagonists have a certain ‘disadvantage’, the shoe is placed on the

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 53

other foot. The unattractive hero of Perrault’s ‘Ricky with the Tuft’ manages to talk a beautiful but essentially dumb woman into falling for him through a combination of his eloquence and her willingness to put aside conventional aesthetics. Repeating a similar idea in The Invention of Lying (Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson, 2009), Mark (Ricky Gervais) eventually persuades the beautiful but dim Anna (Jennifer Garner) to marry him, although her superficiality contrasts so greatly with his wit and kind-heartedness to make us question why she would appeal at all. Initially rejected on the grounds that their children might physically resemble him (!) she changes her mind about the importance of looks, leaving her vain fiancé for the world’s first liar, yet also the most genuine character in the film. Although Anna is as gullible as her fellow citizens, Mark avoids manipulating her for his own gain and it is his kindness, rather than his exceptional ability to distort the truth, which enables him to get the woman he desires, a feature he shares with the ‘youngest son’ in fairy tales featuring male rivalry and romance.

In similar vein, many cinematic depictions of male transformation both solicit and reward traits that challenge conventionally approved masculine ideals, and again we can find some interesting precursors in fairy tales, especially those featuring ‘enlightened fools’. Contrasting tales involving romantic pursuit – ‘The Search for the Lost Husband’ (ATU 425) with ‘The Man on a Quest for his Lost Wife’ (ATU 400) – Tatar contends that while females are required to make an overt demonstration of their love to regain lost loves, men tend to be rewarded for stoicism and a level of restraint described as a ‘nearly pathological absence of affect’ (1992: 160). The Grimm tale ‘The Youth Who Wanted to Know What Fear Is’ (ATU 326) – sometimes titled ‘The Boy Who Wanted to Shudder’ – is considered a rare example of male behaviour because emotion is sought – and finally evinced – by the hero, and Tatar commends ‘its move towards a rapprochement between male resistance to affect and female affiliation with feeling’ (1992: 162). We might note, however, that this is a comic tale of surprising social ascent, with a bawdy punch-line that is not exactly romantic. Having won a princess through spending three nights in a house of ghouls, yet proving equally unmoved in the marital bed, a maid intervenes with an upturned bucket of live fish, giving him the sensation he desires yet could not properly articulate. Warner describes the story’s end as ‘a metaphor of the overwhelming power of physical passion’, signalling his first orgasm (1995: 276), although we could equally regard the scene literally, as an amusing confirmation of his extreme ignorance and naïveté – akin to the comic/bawdy tale type ‘The Boy Who Had Never Seen a Woman’

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 54

Fairy Tale and Film

(ATU 1678).5 (Interestingly, in Tatar’s Hard Facts, she simply describes this youth as a fool, protected by his ignorance (2003: 99), and while Zipes notes substantial revision to the tale by the Grimms – its hero changing from a ‘resolute young boy from a peasant family’ to a dumbbell king’s son who is too stupid to be fearful – the point about sexual excitement is seemingly missed altogether!! (2002b: 31).)

Even if we read the tale as one of maturation through sexual initiation, we might question how unique it is in presenting a hero craving ‘emotion’. Contrary to Tatar’s claim about male stoicism in fairy tales, various figures are far from chaste or chivalrous in their pursuit of wives, and ‘love’ is assumed to simply occur between spouses. Female characters rarely have an opportunity to decline marital arrangements (haughty brides are humbled into submission, as we have seen) and few tales delve into any ensuing difficulties, leading Marcia Lieberman to argue that fairy tales are ‘preoccupied with marriage without portraying it; as a real condition it’s nearly always off-stage’ (1984: 199). It is consequently notable that an attempt to interrogate matrimonial relations should be a key theme for so many female writers in seventeenthcentury France, who were accustomed to arranged marriages and either voiced objection to such a union (with tales featuring ogre husbands) or endeavoured to idealise the prospect by showing how a beastly man can transform into a caring partner. At the time, as Warner asserts, ‘romance – love-in-marriage – was an elusive ideal, which the writers of the contes de feés sometimes set up in defiance of destiny’ (1995: 278). Interestingly, in the first published version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’, written by Mme de Villeneuve in 1740, the curse is attributed to a wicked fairy who was romantically spurned. As Warner puts it, ‘Villeneuve portrays the Beast as the victim of an aged and malignant fairy who laid the terrible curse on him when the handsome youth turned down her amorous advances’ (1995: 290).6 The Disney film, Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991), reworks this explanation, suitably sanitised, yet significantly reproves the Beast’s demeanour. The prince rebuts an old woman at his door, who asks for a night’s shelter in exchange for a rose. The point is doubly ironic: having twice (mis)judged by appearances, the crone turns out to be a beautiful enchantress and the rose (whose worth he similarly dismisses) a magic device that will henceforth monitor his fate. Stating that he has no love in his heart, she turns him into a Beast until the last petal falls, asserting that if he finds no one to love him by this point (his twenty-first birthday) he will remain forever in this state. Although he initially treats Belle brusquely when she comes to live at his castle, the narrative reveals

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 55

him to be capable of change, favourably paralleling him against the dastardly Gaston. Chest swollen with pride, surrounded by flunkies and hunting trophies, misusing his power in his pursuit of Belle (and persecution of her father), Gaston is an old-fashioned alpha male whose arrogant machismo simply aligns her loyalty to the Beast, and ultimately humanises him. Warner asserts that ‘attitudes to the Beast are always in flux, and even provide a gauge of changing evaluations of human beings themselves ... and specifically, since the Beast has been primarily identified with the male since the story’s earliest forms, what it is to be a man’ (1995: 279). Disney’s film version is considered a key turning point in this respect, the Beast winning Belle by his ability to change – under her guidance – and Warner goes so far as to claim ‘this fairy tale film is more vividly aware of contemporary sexual politics than any made before it’, its screenwriter, Linda Woolverton, deliberately aiming at a generation of ‘mothers who grew up with Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem’ (313). Nonetheless, for all the ‘emancipated touches’ given to the heroine, ‘the film’s message concerns maleness, its various faces and masks, and in the spirit of romance, it offers hope of regeneration from within the unregenerate male’ (315).7 Beastly (Daniel Barnz, 2011) offers an interesting update. A young witch, offended by a rich brat at high school, decides to make the conceited bigot as ugly as he is inside to teach him a valuable lesson. His transformation – bald, tattooed and scarred – turns him into a virtual recluse, rejected by his father, with only a housekeeper and (blind) tutor for company. Humbled by his experience, he learns to care for these ‘servants’, as well as a girl at school whose life is endangered due to her father’s involvement with drug dealers, bringing out his finer qualities.

Paralleling Disney, it is not our Beast who is presented as the threat, but another male, and by offering the girl his protection their love is nurtured, helping to restore his humanity. An additional test of character is passed when he asks the witch, instead of returning his looks, to help the people he has learned to care for instead (granting a visa for the housekeeper’s children to prevent their deportation, and sight for his tutor). Such selflessness is rewarded, the hero having evidently benefitted from his transformation. Despite modernising the story, essential features remain the same: redemption is achieved through female approval, and the hero proving himself to be a better man.

Although some of his flaws can be attributed to youthful immaturity, affluence also plays a part, giving him a nasty sense of superiority.

It is only when he loses his conceit, alongside his looks, and is rejected by his father, that a kinder disposition is located, and the fact that he

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 56

Fairy Tale and Film

displays compassion towards people formerly considered beneath him adds some interesting political overtones.8 The other films discussed here involve male maturation tales with notably older protagonists, yet similar points are made in terms of the changes demanded – all being required to show a degree of kindness to others (not solely a potential love interest) in their efforts to improve themselves. Maturity is signalled by rethinking their aims, securing and subsequently valuing partners, learning to communicate their feelings and undertaking greater responsibility for their families. A degree of enchantment gives what are presented as immature men the means to grow up, providing an interesting inversion of Peter Pan. Pinocchio also offers an important antecedent in terms of male maturity – particularly in aligning emotional development with greater familial responsibility. This motif has been increasingly apparent in film. Indeed, in terms of reflecting an awareness of ‘contemporary sexual politics’, Warner’s claims for the innovations of Beauty and the Beast demand reconsideration, with many cinematic precursors questioning masculinity and approving more nurturing qualities.

Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979) inaugurated the trend, depicting a husband forced to undertake childcare duties for his young son when his wife suddenly leaves, affirming the difficulties of struggling to balance work and family commitments, as well as the painful realities of divorce. These concerns gained resonance throughout the following decade, often with a humorous tone added to the theme of strained father–son relations. Vice Versa (Brian Gilbert, 1988) uses fantastical means to bring the pair closer together. Granted occasional weekend custody of his son, yet too involved in work to enjoy any kind of relationship with him, a divorced father undergoes an important transformation in a body-swap comedy in which a mutual wish to change places is realised. A magic skull serves as the catalyst and as they work to return the skull to its owner they become closer.9 Liar Liar (Tom Shadyac, 1997) revises a similar idea when a young boy, continually let down by another distant and highly self-interested dad, wishes for his father to simply be honest for a day. The wish is granted, making life difficult for his lawyer dad (and creating much mirth in the courtroom) while transforming his father into a nicer person, and a better role model. By the end of the film the wish has worn off yet the boy’s powers have seemingly extended to reuniting his separated parents. These films and other variations on the theme tell effectively the same story: men can mature, no matter how selfish, egotistical or ambitious they may be. They can improve as partners and fathers and they will benefit

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 57

in the end as better-adjusted, more fulfilled human beings.10 There is an obvious feel-good quality to these films, yet while their tendency to promote caring, sharing partnerships and family values might be seen as somewhat conservative, an additional set of ideas can be found in such stories, moving us beyond the strictly sentimental. New gender roles are in evidence, highlighting male nurturing skills and eschewing the simplistic and damaging machismo fantasies of a prior generation.

We might also perceive a wider set of ideals underlined in a number of films. When characters start caring about others, beyond partners or their immediate family, a progressive socio-political outlook can be discerned. It is all very well to put one’s ego aside for loved ones in order to maintain a relationship, or reunite a fragmented family, yet when this is extended to other people, even strangers, the lessons learned are a great deal more inspiring. A good example is a figure who finds himself stuck in a small town he purportedly loathes, regarding its citizens with barely concealed contempt, yet undergoes an astonishing transformation.

We are never given a reason why the curmudgeonly Phil Connors (Bill Murray) in Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) is forced to live the same day over and over again. There are no angry witches or hokey magical devices hovering somewhere in the background, and his experience hardly seems to be a wish-come-true; yet it is precisely through being forced to stay in the town he disparages – and becoming part of its community – that he develops as a human being worth caring about, and ultimately gets the woman he loves to reciprocate his feelings.11 What brings him to Punxatawney, Pennsylvania is a meteorological myth, with the groundhog of the title (curiously also named Phil) assigned powers of prediction about the possibility of an early spring, yet this local superstition fails to explain the temporal repetition our weatherman experiences, leaving us with no explanation other than Fate. The narrative provides an interesting transformation for the character due to the range of responses made to his predicament. He initially seeks to profit from the situation by robbing a bank, seducing local women and overeating, yet drifts into suicidal despair when he realises there are no consequences for his actions (failing even to kill himself).

It is only when he puts self-interest aside and becomes involved in the lives of the townspeople that he finally becomes a nicer person, earning his co-worker’s love, that his life finally moves on. Phil learns to pay attention to others – even those he dismisses as dumb ‘hicks’ at the outset of the film – he learns to put his ego aside and, crucially, he learns to care. One of the most poignant moments of the film is not when

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 58

Fairy Tale and Film

Phil finally gets his love interest to stay the night, but when he tries to save a tramp’s life, a man he continually disregarded as he stood in the street and begged for change, only to see him collapse and die – the shock of which forces him to acquire a new perspective on life. Reprising the kind of motif often seen in The Twilight Zone, the film’s Capraesque quality is also apparent in both its touch of whimsy and its final message. A miserable man realises the value of small town life and is cherished by his adopted community in response. He may not save the tramp’s life, discovering that feeding him well for a day cannot reverse a lifetime’s damage and the destiny assigned to him, but the fact that he tries to make a difference is what counts. Phil is transformed from a misanthrope into a caring and considerate man because he genuinely feels remorse when this man dies. Significantly, although unable to save this individual, he sets about helping others in the community, with this seemingly unimportant outsider inspiring him to make a difference. The desired romance with his colleague, Rita (Andie Macdowell), may eventually serve as his reward, but this is only achieved once Phil becomes a truly changed man, and oddly once he no longer seems that interested in her. Acquiring an understanding of the world, proving oneself as a man, and growing up are key fairy tale motifs that have found their way into films, yet Groundhog Day serves as one of an interesting group of comic coming-of-age plots which reiterate the idea that maturity dawns not with losing one’s virginity but in acquiring a sense of compassion and responsibility towards others. Only when the protagonist learns to care for others (in some scenarios somewhat late in life) is he offered any real grounds for a successful relationship, or consequent happiness.

An interesting counterpart, Shallow Hal (Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 2001), also presents a man in dire need of maturity. Seemingly aping Grimm titles such as ‘Dumb Hans’ and ‘Clever Gretchen’, the plot hinges on shallow and chauvinistic Hal (Jack Black) supernaturally acquiring the ability to see everyone for the person they are inside, leading him to fall in love with a larger woman he would never usually be seen with. Eventually, his ‘real’ vision returns, yet his feelings for Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow) remain. Realising his distorted sense of perception he finally declares his feelings to her in front of a crowd, admitting ‘I’m immature, I’m unthoughtful, I’m an idiot!’ The last point is affirmed in thinking ‘unthoughtful’ is an actual word, yet when he signs up to the Peace Corps to be with her we are inclined to believe his heart is in the right place. As for the odious best friend who appraises all women superficially, he confirms Hal’s suspicions that his poor attitude stems from fear, having been born with a physical deformity

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 59

that has prevented him from getting close to women, a hideous wagging tail. The film was a surprise to those used to the Farrelly brothers’ brand of bad taste comedies yet cleverly plays it both ways, making fat jokes throughout while claiming to have good intentions. It ends with the happy couple driving off together, and while the gesture is a little undermined by the car’s suspension dramatically depressed on her side, we nonetheless applaud the fact that Hal is a changed man.12 What Women Want (Nancy Meyers, 2000) offers another comic fantasy where a fantastical transformation results. In a part that seems increasingly apt for the actor, Mel Gibson plays an incorrigible sexist in dire need of a makeover. Offensive to women and unable to relate to his daughter, he acquires a magical ability to ‘hear’ women’s thoughts and although he initially seeks to take advantage of the gift, he eventually learns to use it wisely. Bruce Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2003) follows a similar idea, reprising Jim Carey’s role in Liar Liar in terms of comic maturation, with a child’s wish substituted in this case with the will of God (Morgan Freeman). Convinced that life is against him after being passed over for a promotion at work, Bruce complains to God and is given the top job in response. Finding himself able to perform miracles, he misuses his power in various ways, including giving his girlfriend Grace (Jennifer Anniston) a secret boob job, yet becomes a changed man when he sees how much his behaviour upsets her. Fatally hit by a car, he asks God to ensure that she finds herself a good man and is miraculously revived. Having acquired greater humility and maturity he finally learns to put his relationship first and proposes to his erstwhile girlfriend, who is clearly itching for a family, and we are given to understand that he has finally got his priorities right. David Butler interestingly considers the film to be a rare modern example of the film blanc genre, a term used by Peter Valenti (1978) to describe a cycle of fantasy films released in the 1940s that might be seen as an antidote to the pessimism of film noir, sharing traits such as a benevolent agent from another world, a strong romance plot and a redemptive theme.

As Butler argues, Bruce Almighty corresponds to Valenti’s criteria and proves that related features are evident in contemporary cinema, particularly during an equally uncertain period of global unrest, affirming ‘we may live in fearful times, but Bruce Almighty suggests that, whether one describes it as a film blanc or supernatural comedy/romance, this genre does not simply disappear when the going gets tough’ (2009: 48).

We might ask, with all this uncertainty over its categorisation, if Bruce Almighty is best understood as a fairy tale film. After all, granting a flawed human divine powers (and seeing how they misuse them) is an

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 60

Fairy Tale and Film

age-old trope that long preceded Valenti’s examples, as well as cinema itself, while the romantic redemptive theme is a key fairy tale motif.

Evan Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2007) reworks the same premise, with the man that stole Bruce’s job, Evan Baxter (Steve Carrell), given a job

by God that forces a reassessment of his priorities. Also following a similar conceit to Shadyac’s earlier film, Liar Liar, a young boy’s wish comes true and a work-obsessed father transforms as a result. Having become disillusioned with his news anchor job, and turning to politics, Evan is a family man who never has time for his family, devoting himself entirely to his new career as a congressman, yet all this changes when his youngest son prays for the family to spend more time together, coinciding with Evan’s wish to change the world, and God responds by asking him to build an ark. Laughs come with the absurdity of the premise, particularly magical phenomena such as a beard that cannot be shaved off, biblical robes that must be worn at all times, and attendant incongruity when Evan seeks to be taken seriously as a lobbyist while followed everywhere by beasts of the land, air and sea. The usual family values are asserted when his wife and sons walk out, believing he has lost his mind, only to return to help him in his task, his wife stating that, even if he is mad, he is at least with them. An overt environmental message is apparent, with God using Evan to make his unhappiness clear about unbridled urban development, and a flood provides an epic ending, enabling Evan to expose the truth in marvellous Mr Smith Goes to Washington style. Politicians are shown to be corrupt, ruthless business interests dominate, yet a man can make a difference in this case – with God on his side!

If Evan Almighty warns how easily a man can lose his family, 17 Again (Burr Steers, 2009) reiterates the same message, while interestingly reworking the traditional body-switch scenario. Big in reverse, the premise follows an unhappy man on the brink of divorce, estranged from his wife and children, who returns to his high school – 18 years after graduating – to gaze wistfully at a photo of himself. A mysterious janitor tempts him with the question ‘I bet you wish you had it to do all over again’ and before the night is out Mike O’Donnell (Zac Efron) is back to his old self. A former baseball star at high school, who missed out on a college scholarship when he got his girlfriend pregnant, he has spent the last two decades regretting the path his life has taken and now has the opportunity to take the chance he missed. His nerdy best friend, Ned Gold (Thomas Lennon), identifies the scenario as ‘basic spirit guide transformation magic’, yet the pair disagree over the path he’s intended to take. Admitting that his desire to return to high school is selfish, yet

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 61

retorting, ‘I have not done anything for me since 1989,’ Mike eventually realises his true purpose is to be a good father, ‘it’s not about basketball, it’s about helping Alex and Maggie’. This means enduring the horrors of high school to help his son make it onto the basketball team, and endeavouring to give his daughter some self-esteem. He also realises how unfair he has been to his wife all these years, blaming her for his failures, and resolves to make it up to her. Finding himself at the very same turning point as he was two decades earlier, with a college scout watching him play and a potential scholarship again in the offing, the mysterious janitor returns him to middle-aged form the moment he walks out on the game – once again opting to prioritise his wife. As he tells her, ‘I thought I wanted a second chance at life, but now I know I wanted a second chance with you.’ This being a wish-fulfilment fantasy, the pair are happily reunited, our hero having learned to cherish what matters most.

What is especially endearing about Mike is that he is sold as the perfect partner, a sensitive, caring man whose protestations, during a safe-sex lesson, about the virtues of abstinence and waiting until you’re in love, earn him a flurry of female admirers. An interesting attempt is made to instil some feminist ideas as he tells a trio of besotted girls to have some self-respect, resulting in their eagerly seeking to convince him that respect is not a priority: ‘Don’t respect me!’, ‘No, don’t respect me!’, ‘You don’t even have to remember my name!’ He shakes his head at these dire declarations, exclaiming to himself this is their fathers’ concern, and focuses on improving his daughter’s self-image, telling her what kind of treatment she deserves in a speech we might compare to Sam’s father in A Cinderella Story (as well as the father’s favoured bed-time reading in Enchanted), each aiming to empower their girls. A world away from the distant or downright negligent fathers of another era, these are men who have grown up under feminism’s influence and are keen to encourage their daughters’ emancipation using the same terms.13 Experiencing a necessary attitude adjustment, Mike ends the film no longer bitter but grateful for what he has. Realising that life is about what he has achieved – and being there for his wife and kids – he manages to save his marriage and gets a new job as the school’s sports coach, a role that will satisfy his youthful ambition and further test his nurturing skills. Refreshingly, the message about maturing (and its alliance with facing the responsibilities of fatherhood) is countered by his best friend Ned, who has no interest in growing up, behaves like an overgrown child (surrounding himself with expensive toys) yet also finds himself a love interest who does not ask him to change (the school

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 62

Fairy Tale and Film

headmistress proving to be a fellow Lord of the Rings fan). The fact that Ned is financially more successful, working for himself, and also more affectionate than Mike (unabashedly sending him off with a ‘love you’ each time they part while his friend relies on a letter ruse to tell his wife how he feels) offers an interesting test case for such coming-of-age parables. The protagonist of The 40 Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow, 2005) may seemingly mature through his willingness to sell his nerdy Star Wars toys, affirming the need to put away childish things to get the woman (and adult relationship) he desires, yet Ned simply has to find the right woman – and is more than comfortable about telling her how he feels! These comedies signal a notable change in what is considered appropriate or desirable ‘masculine’ behaviour. Declaring feelings is favoured over holding them back, responding to female partners who are unhappy with emotionally unavailable partners, and finding contentment in relationships (with or without children) is promoted as the most fulfilling aspiration. Coming-of-age, growing up, is thus implicitly aligned with fostering relationships, acquiring a sense of maturity, and being able to relate to partners and their needs. An inability to do so leaves figures unhappy and incomplete.

As innovative as these narratives undoubtedly are, we might note that Pinocchio, a classic male coming-of-age tale written over a century ago, similarly involves wish-fulfilment, maturation and eventual transformation.14 A puppet’s wish to be a real boy is secured through acquiring greater responsibility, guided by the spirit of a dead cricket and a blue-haired fairy, who seek to imbue him with a conscience. Maturity is aligned with learning to be wary of false promises and putting others first, particularly his father/creator, Gepetto. Some of the trials he undergoes are cruel indeed, such as the fake gravestone left by the fairy that falsely blames him for her death, as well as enduring traumas such as being turned into a donkey, beaten and almost drowned, yet such measures are seemingly deemed necessary in making him realise the error of his ways. From the dishonesty and self-interest that first characterise him, he develops a sense of compassion, helping various unfortunate creatures over the course of his adventures, and is helped in return. Eventually reunited with Gepetto, he returns home, works hard, provides for his father and becomes ‘real’.

The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam, 1991) significantly places a Pinocchio puppet in the hands of its protagonist, Jack (Jeff Bridges), at the start of the narrative and we realise it is intended to parallel his own narrative situation. Formerly an ego-driven shock jock who inspired a nightclub massacre, he spends his days drunk, dissolute and unable to care for

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 63

anyone. Gepetto, in this case, is the vulnerable Parry (Robin Williams), whose wife was a victim of the massacre and who has lost his mind as a result, living as a vagrant on the streets of New York. Their paths cross on the night Jack finds the puppet. Intervening when a group of thugs attack Parry, the symbolic intention of his find becomes clear. Like Pinocchio, Jack undergoes a redemptive journey that entails helping the man whose life he almost destroyed. Gilliam has often expressed admiration for Collodi’s tale and it is likely that he added the motif, having appended an abundance of fairy tale allusions to Richard LeGrevenese’s script, to give the film ‘resonance’ (see Gilliam, 1999: 195). Jack seeks to make amends by helping Parry woo a young woman he has admired from afar and enables him to fulfil a mythic quest, putting this vulnerable figure first and thereby resolving the guilt that has consumed him. One of the most interesting aspects of the film is that it eschews conventional notions of masculinity and success. Although Jack reestablishes his career as a DJ, he soon quits when he realises its negative effect on him, having quickly reverted to a vain, egotistical and self-interested man who negates the marginalised figures he formerly considered friends. Happiness and fulfilment, he learns, are about being with those he cares about and, like Pinocchio, he becomes ‘real’ when he acquires sufficient maturity to put his loved ones first, finally committing to the woman who has stood by him for years. Just as Parry wakes from his mysterious coma at the end of the film, joining other patients in song, Jack is transformed into a more contented and fulfilled person once he has helped to restore this man’s life, and reconsidered his own. In this respect the film has some kinship with other narratives that reject material success in favour of more principled and personal ambitions. The male protagonists in Groundhog Day, 17 Again, Bruce Almighty and its sequel Evan Almighty are all similarly forced to rethink what it is they want from life, learning to put their egos aside and consider others instead. Just as Pinocchio acknowledges the consequences of his actions and learns to prioritise those who need him, Jack makes amends by helping the less fortunate, and ultimately helping himself.

As children’s tales go, Pinocchio involves its fair share of disturbing and sometimes macabre events. The morality of the tale is fairly overt, with Pinocchio turned into a donkey when he prioritises play over study and threatened with death on numerous occasions, making the fact that he learns to become a well-behaved and caring person almost more extraordinary than his transformation from a puppet into a boy!

The world is shown to be filled with cruelty and danger, inhabited by many nasty individuals who seek to trick or use him, yet despite this

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 64

Fairy Tale and Film

he endeavours to be good and considerate, trying to help an injured classmate, saving a dog and helping to release a captured tuna fish.

The blue-haired fairy bears witness to these deeds and eventually rewards him by forgiving his misbehaviour and granting his heart’s desire, although an irony of the tale is that he becomes a better person than many ‘real’ examples seen. In this sense the story’s referencing in AI: Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001) acquires additional significance as this relates a similar tale about an artificial boy who longs to be ‘real’, preserving an idealised view of humanity that is in marked contrast to those encountered. While the source text, Brian Aldiss’ short story ‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long’, hinges on the idea of an artificial boy who longs to attain his mother’s love, overt Pinocchio allusions are added to the film. It is because he hears Collodi’s story, and takes it to heart, that David (Haley Joel Osment) tries to find the blue fairy. His creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt), tells him this belief (ultimately, in a fairy tale) is where his humanity lies. A happy ending, notably devoid from Aldiss’ poignant tale, grants David a perfect day with a loving facsimile of his mother. Advanced clone technology resurrects her image in patently idealised fashion, providing David with an infinitely more loving mother than he ever experienced in reality.

Unlike Pinocchio, David has no real faults he must overcome; his loving nature is imprinted onto his personality from the outset. He learns that the world is perilous, and that humans are largely cruel, yet nothing can deter his seemingly unshakable faith in mankind, or his desire to become human, whether it be the cruelty inflicted on ‘Mechas’ at the Flesh Fair, or learning he is mass-produced. His programming overrides any of his experiences, and as the sole memory of an obsolete human race it is with due irony that an artificial boy offers an equally artificial reflection of his makers. Unlike the genuine love that binds Pinocchio and Gepetto, David’s love for his mother is manufactured and undeserved, their reunion a wish-come-true that fails to reflect reality.

Ironically, David’s innocence is preserved until the end. He will never be ‘real’ (that is, mortal) and never succumb to the flaws or frailties flesh is air to. In this sense he resembles another boy hero of children’s literature, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.15 In marked contrast to Pinocchio’s coming-of-age tale, Peter Pan tells the story of the ‘boy who never grew up’. An elemental figure dressed in green with elfin features, he still has all his milk teeth and lives without the strictures of grown-ups in fantastic Never Land. Peter has no parents, and considers mothers to be ‘very silly things’, yet is keen to entice Wendy to his domain, largely to mother the Lost Boys who live

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 65

with him on the island. Forgetful and selfish, often failing to discern the difference between reality and make-believe, he reveals himself to be an irresponsible leader whose charm has its sinister side. When he eventually conquers his enemy, Captain Hook, Peter instructs Wendy to make him an outfit from Hook’s costume and starts impersonating his nemesis, hinting that he seeks to emulate him. It is shortly after this that Wendy decides to leave, taking the Lost Boys and her brothers with her. Peter’s emotional reticence denies her the relationship she seeks, and the extreme sexism of his attitude – taking her daughter to Never Land each year to spring-clean his house – affirms not only a boy who refuses to grow up but a hopelessly unreconstructed male. Seemingly attracted to Wendy, yet unable to show her the affection she craves, it is suggested he will never mature because of his reluctance to express emotions and failure to consider others. A figure who enjoys enviable freedom in children’s eyes thus acquires a very different reading from an adult perspective, as it is Peter who is truly, and perhaps tragically, lost.16 Cinema has given us a number of figures who are similarly beyond any kind of romantic redemption, and often excluded from this world. The hero of Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990) is just such a figure. Left unfinished by his inventor father, his subsequent ‘deformity’ – having scissors for hands – estranges him from the suburban community where he is initially a source of fascination yet ultimately fear. Unable to stay with his adopted family, or have any kind of relationship with the object of his desire, he never quite becomes ‘human’ – although within the context of the film this is regarded as a relative mercy. Too innocent for this world, he is forced by resentment, jealousy and malice to return to the castle he came from, an incongruous residence that also serves as a sanctuary for a misfit with no place in the candy-coloured suburbia where the genuine monsters lurk. The film presents an inverted ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in many ways, in which the heroine’s mother (rather than father) enters a strange castle and brings its occupant home, taking pity on what is clearly a lost boy. When daughter Kim (Winona Ryder) warms to their strange guest, an altercation with her possessive boyfriend, Jim (Anthony Michael Hall), leads to his death, forcing Edward’s flight. The result is a thwarted transformation for this ‘Beast’, who starts and ends the film in isolation. His innocence serves as a form of protection initially, as Edward is also a youth who does not know how to ‘shudder’. As Brian Ray asserts, ‘he remains docile and compliant throughout the first half of the film, largely because the multiple insults he receives simply do not register’ (2010: 204). Although humanised by love, this fails to bring about his salvation, partly because he cannot be

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 66

Fairy Tale and Film

fully human and is suggested to be better off as a robotic man-child. As Ray argues, the usual narrative expectations accompanying the humanisation process are consequently subverted: ‘that Edward never obtains human hands violates the standard cultural script and rejects the idea that a Beast needs to change’, particularly if doing so means colluding with ‘shallow aspirations toward wealth and conformity’ (2010: 205).

Written by Caroline Thompson, in collaboration with Burton,17 the film presents ‘civilisation’ as hypocritical and cruel and also questions what successful and approved masculinity entails. Like Disney’s Beast/Gaston parallel, the film rejects Jim – brazen and bullying – as a manifestly more threatening figure, yet Edward can never be successfully ‘rehabilitated’, despite winning Kim’s love, and missing hands are by no means the only problem.18 Edward may be man-made, yet is unable to find a footing in this world. Like Frankenstein’s monster, he is at the mercy of an ignorant society, and similarly forced to flee a mob, able to survive only by retreating to his castle. Even if some form of surgery could replace what is ostensibly ‘wrong’ with him, the monstrosity of humans is the genuine problem. Warner contends that we are invited to regard Edward’s marginalised state with approval, adding that ‘any return to full human shape might have degraded rather than redeemed the hero, limited his nobility rather than restored it’ (1995: 313). Whether noble, or tragically misunderstood, the fact that assimilation is out of the question forces us to rethink how desirable such a ‘civilisation’ is, as well as refuting the idea that redemption necessarily comes through romance.

The film may go out of its way to show what a hit he is with the ladies, despite his odd appearance, yet a relationship is not an option for Edward, and isolation his only means of protection.

Lawn Dogs (John Duigan, 1997) presents another outsider unfairly treated by a hostile community. Trent (Sam Rockwell) lives in a trailer in the woods, earning his keep by mowing the lawns of the wealthy citizens of nearby Camelot Gardens, an affluent gated community.

His loneliness is eased when he is befriended by one of its residents, a young girl called Devon (Mischa Barton), who comes across him when she detours from her cookie-selling route. Intensely alienated from her infinitely shallow parents, Devon is a fellow misfit and the two strike up a touching friendship, although others soon become suspicious of his motives. (A grim irony in the film is that Devon is genuinely molested by a neighbour, an arrogant jock having an affair with her mother, who tries to put his hand up the young girl’s dress. When she tells her parents, the reaction is disbelief, followed by a nasty comment from her father that her heart-surgery scar would shock any boy trying to

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 67

cop a feel.) Small wonder, given such loathsome parents, that Devon prefers to spend time with a young man who accepts her for who she is and wants nothing in return. The innocence of their friendship is underscored by his naïveté. Trent is a childlike young man, much like Edward, yet when Devon asks why he is so badly treated he responds with a neat class distinction: ‘the way I see it, there are two types of people in this world: those who have lawns and those who mow them – and they ain’t never the same people’. Although he poses no threat, his neighbours distrust him and the local security guard is keen to move him on once his work is done. When petty vandalism arises in the neighbourhood (caused by a spoilt little kid with nothing to do), Trent is unfairly targeted, his lawnmower ruined. Although initially distrustful of Devon, he bonds with her over a mutual disdain towards those around them and a shared desire to do as they please. A dreamer, obsessed with the witch Baba Yaga, Devon tells him fragments of the story during sleepovers and gets him to open up, yet their friendship is inevitably curtailed when a misunderstanding ensues. The pair fall out over a dog Trent accidentally runs down, and a shocked Devon responds by unwittingly feeding everyone’s fears about him. Devon’s father and the security guard viciously beat Trent, believing he has abused her, yet she intervenes, using her father’s gun to hold them at bay, and gives Trent her dad’s cash to enable his getaway. Advising him to take a comb and a towel, talismans from her favourite story, the film acquires an overtly fantastical finale when these objects transform into a forest and a lake, allowing him to escape his pursuers. Just who functions as Baba Yaga in this tale is interesting, with Trent occupying the role in some ways, living an isolated existence in the woods and in the fear and contempt he evokes; the threatening aspects of the witch represented by virtually all the inhabitants of Camelot Gardens; and Baba Yaga’s more nurturing role played by Devon, who ultimately helps him escape his enemies and (hopefully) start a new life.19 While foolish perhaps, in overlooking what others might think of him spending time with such a young girl, we recognise that he is similarly childlike, and although unfairly punished for their friendship, his faith in her is also rewarded by the everyday items she imbues with magic. Whether or not we interpret Trent’s getaway as real or imagined, the denouement allows us to see the world through Devon’s eyes and thus gain a renewed sense of wonder, as her imagination – inspired by a favourite fairy tale – both transcends and transforms reality.

If Lawn Dogs plays on a particular strand of Southern Gothic popularised by the likes of Carson McCullers – featuring isolated hillbilly heroes,

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 68

Fairy Tale and Film

tragically misunderstood by those around them, with any friendships proving lamentably short-lived – Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton, 1996) ups the ante on a similar motif. Originating as a 25-minute short entitled Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade (1993), the film presents a backward drifter, Karl Childers (played by writer and director Billy Bob Thornton), who is akin to Steinbeck’s Lenny in Of Mice and Men (1937) – a man-child who might be characterised as an accident waiting to happen (or, in this case, to happen again). Convicted for killing his mother and her lover with the titular sling blade, he has spent the past 25 of his 37 years locked up in a ‘nervous hospital’. We join him shortly after his release, returning to his hometown in Arkansas, yet his liberty seems doomed from the outset, with trouble easily finding Karl. His friendship with a young boy, Frank (Lucas Black), and his mother soon turns to tragedy when he tries to protect them from her intimidating boyfriend. Using his favoured weapon in a pre-emptive strike, he finally returns to the hospital – where his isolation is suggested, like Edward’s castle, to be a sanctuary of sorts.

Unlike the fools that prosper in many fairy tales due to a good heart, this is a kind-hearted simpleton without any reward or redemption. As Richard Corliss wrote in his Time review of the film, ‘Sling Blade is about the difficulty good folks have living with rotten ones ... Karl is a memorable affecting creature – so gentle he daren’t sleep on an offered bed for fear of spoiling the room’s perfect primness, so righteous he will consider killing to protect his adoptive family’ (qtd in Merritt, 2000: 407). Unable to function in a cruel world, Karl’s eventual return to an institution is suggested to be a form of protection rather than punishment. His surname – Childers – denotes his mental state and returns us to Peter Pan allusions. Edward, Trent and Karl are not quite men, and in some ways all the better for it. Guileless innocents, estranged and isolated from the adult world, and befriended largely by children, the conventional route to maturity is denied to them. Seemingly unable to find a place in this world they are displaced instead. Unjustly persecuted, they are forced to leave ‘normal’ society, consequently skewing our understanding of what normality truly means. Unlike the protagonists discussed in male coming-of-age comedies – figures who grow up in some way and ultimately benefit from their relationship with women and children to achieve happiness – these childlike men are unable to form such ties and thus remain in a figurative Never Land, unable to mature in a conventionally accepted manner. Ironically, in terms of the character tests discussed, all three display overt humility, as well as kindness, yet fail to be narratively rewarded for such traits. Like The Fisher King’s Parry, who undergoes a radical shift in persona and social status following his wife’s murder

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Transformations and Male Maturation 69

and ensuing mental breakdown (and remains childlike even after he is romantically redeemed), these men stake a vulnerable existence on the edges of society, without any position or permanence, affirming that true love and fatherhood are not necessarily all that is needed to make one’s way in the world as a man.

If the comedies discussed affirm the need for men to change, to become more caring and kind-hearted in order to win themselves a loving partner and find contentment with a family, these last three films attest to a world that needs transforming instead. Naïve men, unable to find a place in the world, economically marginalised and socially isolated, find themselves unfairly targeted by meaner examples of masculinity, and forced to flee. These narratives prove that ‘maleness’ is multifaceted and no guarantee of privilege. They also attest to the difficulties of male rivalry (a common feature in fairy tales, with tales of three sons often featuring murderous antagonism displayed by older arrogant siblings towards the youngest brother) just as these films pit aggressive macho figures against more sensitive counterparts. Violent conflict is not presented as a test of manhood in these films, but a lamentable feature of life as a man.

Increasingly, contemporary narratives evince a similar aim to forfeit conventional notions of masculinity. In contrast to the materialism exhibited by male heroes of the fairy tale, which is generally equated with romantic reward, many of the films assessed here suggest that ambition, material success and privilege are likely to create egotistical and unloving men who need to relinquish everything they have taken for granted to become better people. Phil’s celebrity status as a TV weatherman does nothing for his ego and he needs to put his cynicism aside, and realise the value of life, before he can become lovable. Bruce’s unfettered career ambitions may get a divine boost yet this is intended to kick him back to base, eventually acquiring sufficient hubris to put his girlfriend first. Jack needs to face the tragic outcome of his egomania and help a tortured soul to get any measure of peace himself (forfeiting his former career as a measure of his integrity), and Mike needs to focus on his family, and stop blaming them for his frustrations (mainly workrelated), if he’s ever going to grow up. These protagonists may lose their former jobs but gain a new sense of perspective, reassessing what they want from life and what successful masculinity really means.

This chapter began by asking what transformations male characters are required to undergo in fantasy-inflected coming-of-age comedies, and what changes are evident when it comes to gender roles. In contrast to female-led rom-coms, careers are made secondary, or forfeited

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 70

Fairy Tale and Film

altogether, prioritising the role of being a supportive partner and parent, and any emotional reticence or self-interest reproved, affirming nurturing and kindness as favoured masculine traits. We might align this with an understanding of reconstructed masculinity, often associated with the ‘new man’ promoted in popular culture in the last few decades, and developed in response to a sense of dissatisfaction with restrictive gender roles placed on both men and women. As Zipes asserts, ‘feminist fairy tales ... have emerged from the struggles of the women’s movement and are being used to elaborate social choices and alternatives for both females and males. As indicators of social, psychological and political change, they are also agents of a new socialisation’ (1984: xii).

Feminist influences are equally apparent in certain films, including those assessed here, and the fact that mainstream cinema has been keen to provide new models of manhood is an interesting and important development. As to whether the transformed males evaluated in this chapter reflect female aspirations and desires (as much as those held by men), it seems fair to conclude that they are a mutual response to a commonly experienced sense of dissatisfaction with ‘traditional’ gender roles, emerging from a recognition that ‘masculinity’ is every bit as variable as ‘femininity’, equally as prone to conflict and dissension, and equally capable of the nurturing capacities so often considered a female trait. Far from serving as meaningless comic diversions, these films have something serious to impart, acknowledging that difficulties and disadvantages cut across gender, presenting male characters whom both men and women can identify with, and thus conceding the potential for progressive affiliations.

Wish-fulfilment fantasies do not simply pertain to romance of course, and while male and female maturation rites in fairy tales tend to culminate in marriage, this is often accompanied by ascending to the throne and securing all the attendant privileges this entails. Does the impulse, noted here, of protagonists eschewing materialist goals reflect a wider sense of dissatisfaction with capitalist dreams of avarice and advancement? The next chapter assesses tales of rapid social ascent achieved without a royal courtship – often through illicit if not downright illegal means – evaluating the ambivalent reaction both films and fairy tales have shown towards securing wealth without work and the contrasting narrative consequences that result when characters resort to crime.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

3 Wealth through Stealth: Evening the Odds, or Flirting with Disaster?

Narrative success, in fairy tales, often takes the form of romantic reward, yet vast riches are an added incentive for those who ‘marry up’.

Impoverished heroines can say goodbye to work when they attract a royal spouse, just as knaves, numbskulls and ne’er-do-wells may beat off rivals, and defy expectation, to wed a princess. Another means of getting ahead entails a certain degree of moral latitude, spotting an opportunity to swindle or steal, and taking full advantage of it. The rapid social ascents made possible by such tactics suggest that unfavourable origins are as inconsequential as a class system in terms of impeding progress. Individuals can ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’, as Zipes has put it, and make good on what they have in an interesting affirmation of entrepreneurship. Indeed, while he claims that such tales ‘gave vent to the frustration of the common people and embodied their interests and wishes’ (2002a: 6), affluence remains a primary objective. Whether it is achieved through securing a royal marriage, or stealing treasure hoarded by villainous witches and ogres, money is understood as a means to evade poverty and live happily ever after – in most cases at least.1 While the last chapter looked at cinematic narratives that bring a measure of maturity to male characters, noting a tendency to repudiate material concerns as secondary to family and friendship, we look at a direct contrast here: tales with the specific aim of seeing protagonists make a fortune, appraising differing treatments of this apparent dream-come-true. A chief aim is to question the often quite illicit means by which heroes seek to rise above their station, assessing how criminality has been represented in both fairy tales and film. When are seemingly questionable acts of deceit and robbery, even murder, permitted as a form of social advancement, and when are they censured? Is any line drawn between approved and prohibited 71

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 72

Fairy Tale and Film

behaviour? And to what extent do such tales serve to corroborate venal interests, or condemn them?

In many fairy tales a simple matter of impoverishment propels the narrative action, motivating protagonists to take somewhat underhanded means to improve their lot. The morality accompanying such stories is often curiously ambivalent, with theft and murder frequently sanctioned as necessary for survival; an idea that extols the harshest of life lessons: kill or be killed – and take what you can. A number of perceived heroes engage in less than virtuous activities which they are allowed to profit from nonetheless, causing us to question where the demarcation between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ lies. In general, where characters are placed in dire straits, the ends are seen to justify the means. Stealth, and a degree of ruthlessness, are shown to be necessary survival traits, and audiences are afforded a vicarious pleasure in seeing characters transgress the rules and prosper as a result. However, fairy tales do not simply present figures acting through sheer desperation, and the response made to greed and ambition is also highly variable. The tale type known as ‘Air Castles’ (ATU 1430), for example (including Grimm tales such as ‘Lazy Heinz’ and ‘Lean Lisa’), concerns itself with daydreams of wealth and fame which we are invited to scorn. Much like the related tale types ‘Foolish Wishes’ (ATU 750A) and ‘Greed’ (ATU 68A) – in which characters are punished for excessive demands and continual dissatisfaction (frequently ending up, like ‘The Fisherman and his Wife’ (ATU 555), back where they began – or worse) – such tales suggest we should be happy with our lot and not squander our time on vacuous dreams. In some cases the problem lies in wanting something for nothing and not being prepared to labour for a reward. As Maria Tatar notes, in her comparison of various ‘reward-and-punishment’ tales, lazy and selfish figures are often negatively contrasted with hardworking counterparts. However, as she points out, the riches offered in such tales directly contradict the lesson that material interests are inherently dubious, asserting that ‘with their notoriously frank drive towards gold, jewels, and wealth, fairy tale plots begin to resemble blueprints for enterprising young capitalists rather than self-sacrificing do-gooders.

Yet the tales repeatedly emphasize and enshrine the importance of indifference to wealth and worldly goods’ (1992: 59). Evidently, there is a marked discrepancy between the wish-fulfilment fantasies inscribed in tales and the attempt to invest them with moralising lessons.

Notably, in the most popular stories, heroes prosper without lifting a finger, often using fabulous devices such as stolen tinderboxes, magic beanstalks and genie-filled lamps to get themselves a fortune – even

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 73

helping themselves to someone else’s if the opportunity presents itself.

Far from censuring such actions, they are often championed instead, with no hint of reprisals or reprimands. Ruth Bottigheimer accounts for this apparent inconsistency by affirming that a ‘wheel of fortune’ philosophy characterised medieval thinking, in which good or bad luck was seen to be dispensed indiscriminately, regardless of conduct, an idea that explains sudden changes of fortune without accompanying moralising (1987: 127). As Tatar correspondingly asserts, it was only centuries later that an overt pedagogical intent was grafted onto tales as they were pressed into service as children’s literature – albeit with various inconsistent features resulting, as her point about rewarding humility with treasure attests.2 That is not to say that tales simply fostered a sense of fatalism or acceptance. As Bottigheimer points out, ‘whereas medieval tales of reversal stress the uncertain tenure of earthly goods and success, the Grimms’ Tales grow out of the straightforward wish for improving one’s own situation’ (1987: 127). Tales often side with an underdog who is low down the economic ladder and often exploited in some way. Soldiers are dispensed with after years of service, masters cheat apprentices and servants of their just wages, and even kings fail to behave fairly, setting a wager (generally with their daughter and kingdom at stake) and then trying to welch on the deal when a lowly figure manages to win.3 These scenarios typify the Grimm collection: creating sympathetic figures, unfairly taken advantage of, who understandably seek to better their situation – and legitimating a corresponding degree of craftiness on their part.

Tempting as it may be to ascribe socialist sympathies to such tales, protagonists don’t have to experience any injustice, necessarily, to be acquisitive, and can often behave ruthlessly towards members of the same class. Although Zipes perceives progressive examples in the Grimm Tales, particularly where a coalition of outcasts are formed in such tales as ‘The Bremen Town Musicians’ and ‘How Six Made their Way in the World’,4 for the most part, as he acknowledges, a ‘might makes right’ dictum is adhered to, in which ‘he who has power can exercise his will, right wrongs, become ennobled, amass money and land, with women as prizes – and it is generally a man who accumulates the most power and wealth’ (2002a: 35). Good conduct may be rewarded in certain tales, especially ‘youngest son’ narratives where kindness helps the hero attain a princess and a fortune, yet in a number of contrasting examples such virtues fail to feature, with cunning and callous selfinterest advanced as the route to success. In ‘The Knapsack, the Hat and the Horn’ the youngest son eschews material gain yet is nonetheless

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 74

Fairy Tale and Film

an opportunistic swindler. Rejecting the mountains of silver and gold claimed by his brothers, he tricks honest men of magical objects and seizes the power at his disposal to summon a vast army and claim a kingdom. Far from finding ensuing happiness with his princess, he kills her for betraying the source of his powers and finally reigns alone and unopposed. In similar fashion, in ‘The Little Peasant’, the hero’s ruthlessness is matched only by the gullibility of those he takes advantage of, resulting in a shockingly mercenary message in which the triumph of the underdog is aligned with wholesale massacre. If there is a cautionary note to such tales it simply warns against meeting equal treachery in others. In ‘The Golden Bird’ the youngest son prospers through following a fox’s advice, outwitting various kings to gain riches and a beautiful maiden. Proving avarice can easily break family bonds, his brothers try to kill their sibling, yet are discovered and put to death.

It seems cunning is easily a match for a kind heart in these tales of unlikely heroes prospering – affirming a necessary degree of stealth to triumph in an unfair world.

Far from siding with the downtrodden, we are invited to admire the most determined and duplicitous individuals, even if their actions seem heartless in the extreme, creating a distinct ambivalence in distinguishing between right and wrong. Why labour honestly if cunning and luck can provide a quick-fix solution to problems? And why bother to treat others with consideration when apparent ‘heroes’ are shown to capitalise on perceived weaknesses such as a trusting nature? The appeal of such tales lies partly in the fact that characters can defy prescribed rules of behaviour and get away with it. After all, these stories were principally designed to entertain rather than instruct – even if this led to their disapproval. An interesting discrepancy may consequently result in how a character is presented and how we come to regard them. The hero of ‘Aladdin’ (ATU 561), for example, is harshly described by Andrew Lang as ‘a careless idle boy who would do nothing but play all day long in the streets with little idle boys like himself. This so grieved the father that he died, yet in spite of his mother’s tears and prayers he would not mend his ways’ (Lang, 1993: 295). Far from pitying Aladdin’s lack of a father, he is directly blamed for the loss! Alongside other Arabian Nights heroes he is a flawed character, but one who prospers all the same.

Aladdin immediately capitalises on his good fortune when he comes across a magic lamp, the genie within enabling him to attain anything he wishes for, and his desires swiftly ascend from securing food and a place to live to seeking the hand of the Sultan’s daughter. In such patent tales of wish-fulfilment modesty be damned! Aladdin may not

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 75

seem particularly deserving of such good fortune yet we are invited to sympathise with his humble origins, approve his ambitious nature and applaud his ultimate success (the fact that he looks after his widowed mother considerably recommending him also). Although Tatar regards Aladdin as ‘the prototype of the undeserving hero’ (2003: 88), seemingly because he simply happens upon his magic lamp, we might argue that he creates his own fortune in the use he makes of the genie, and is made to value his good luck when his wicked ‘uncle’ tries to deceive him.5 Nonetheless, while a story about an everyday object with magical powers has an obvious allure, as does an ordinary man chancing upon such a find, it is easy to understand why such tales might meet with official disapproval. Marina Warner has pointed out that its popularity in the West stands in direct contrast to the continued condemnation of the Arabian Nights collection in the East – particularly on spiritual grounds – with good fortune so often attributed to luck rather than the moral character of recipients (2012: 21).

A similar amorality (or, at the very least, ambivalence) is notable in many of the stories collected by the Grimms. In an odd moral code, considering their Puritan beliefs, Zipes notes that property rights are negligible in many of their collected tales, ‘thievery is an art form’, and rarely punished, unless the murder of innocent mortals is involved (2002b: 102). The tales also tend to repudiate the idea that prosperity comes through toil. Bottigheimer claims that ‘work generally bears no measurable or logical relationship to the success that follows’ (1987: 126), with magical beings serving as more likely benefactors of material rewards, and cunning superseding hard work. In Tatar’s view a degree of dishonesty is promoted as a vital life skill: ‘deceit, chicanery and slyness are paraded before the reader as the highest virtues; without them survival, let alone prosperity, would simply be out of reach’ (2003: 122). Neither is this tendency exclusive to the Grimm Tales, asserting that ‘readers of almost any major collection of tales will discover that these stories also praise thievery, endorse gluttony, value cunning, and commend cheating. Lying and stealing are perfectly legitimate means for achieving social advancement’ (2003: 164). Those who manage to outwit adversaries – or simply find a way to get ahead in difficult circumstances – are largely treated as canny heroes rather than villains, and it is tempting to identify some political concerns at work in such tales and the pleasures they bring. Informed by the intense poverty, hunger, harsh living conditions and genuine peril that characterised ordinary existence a few centuries ago, it is small wonder that a number of stories emerged that reward humble protagonists not

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 76

Fairy Tale and Film

only with the means of survival, but often vast riches as well. In some cases acts of kindness (such as sharing food with a beggar or helping an unfortunate creature) are redeemed by unexpected good fortune when the benefactor repays the good deed: a message evidently aimed to encourage empathy and altruism, even in times of intense need. Yet what are we to make of stories that, far from approving acts of virtue and compassion, involve cases of outright criminality, including theft and murder carried out by presumed heroes simply to advance their circumstances? The fact that many ostensible heroes make good by using their wits, yet also through being prepared to deceive others, affirms their kinship with later cinematic crime narratives, and the degree to which they are allowed to get away with their crimes also provides an interesting point of comparison. As we shall see, greed and self-interest may sometimes serve as an impetus to get ahead, yet these traits also mark a character’s downfall, not only in tales that are centuries-old but those currently reiterated on screen, tempering a lust for lucre with a cautionary message about its potential cost. Arguably, we cannot attribute this simply to religious prohibitions or censorial factors; it seems to emanate from a fundamental awareness that the pursuit of wealth at all cost, and to the exclusion of others, is inimical to social cohesion and personal contentment. Although fairy tale flirtations with criminality tend to be couched in pragmatic terms – ‘get what you can get away with’ and ‘do unto others what you suspect they would do to you’ – there is always an accompanying concern voiced about the ultimate price of ruthless individualism. In tales from both East and West prosperity leads to envy, enmity, and the loss of family and friends.6 Ruthless Grimm heroes who kill everyone in their midst are not exactly triumphant figures, from this perspective, and a similar point is made in the Arabian Nights tale ‘The Blind Baba-Abdalla’, in which a wealthy merchant is literally blinded by greed, only gaining a sense of integrity – and a proper perspective about what truly matters – once he has lost everything. If this message seems inconsistent with the easy fortunes made by other characters, it is offered as an important counterpoint, and one that cinema has taken to heart. (The main protagonist in A Simple Plan relates his story with a similarly salutary message about losing sight of what’s important; in Shallow Grave the point is repeated by a corpse.)

To what extent is criminal conduct legitimated in fairy tales, and when is it questioned? In general, survival, whether by fair means or foul, is the chief imperative of such tales, and self-interest openly

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 77

endorsed. For a number of characters social advancement does not hinge on the bestowal of wishes, the intervention of fairy godmothers or securing a prosperous marriage, but is fostered instead by a willingness to break the law, if necessary, to obtain desired riches. Sympathy is rarely extended to those they exploit or harm (who tend to be viewed simply as antagonists), placing us in the corner of characters who may be flawed yet are also presented as fighters, and chiefly deemed worthy of admiration, it seems, in refusing to be victims. For the most part, the fairy tale hero commits acts of dishonesty, even violence, because they are forced to. Some situations demand attention to the historical circumstances faced by such figures. For example, the fact that former soldiers often turn to crime in the fairy tale is perhaps a reflection (and indictment) of the way such men were often casually discarded, without recompense, once their services were no longer required.7 Far from simply being down on their luck, such figures are often characterised as desperate. In Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Tinderbox’ a decommissioned soldier manages to outwit a witch and attains her riches in a tale that recasts theft as rightful revenue. Similarly, the hero in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ (ATU 328) may resort to theft and murder, but his crimes are seemingly vindicated by the fact that his victim is a nasty giant (a serial killer and cannibal to boot), and as Jack uses his pilfered wealth to help his widowed mother his circumstances, like those in ‘Aladdin’, aim to elicit our sympathy. While there is a hint that Jack oversteps the mark by continually returning to the scene of the crime to take more – perhaps succumbing to the same greed that enabled the giant’s hoard – this builds suspense and affirms his character as a risktaker. Curiously, the stolen harp protests, ratting Jack out during his getaway (causing the slumbering giant to stir and follow in hot pursuit).

Even so, Jack proves his quick wittedness by cutting the magic beanstalk down, thus causing the giant to fall to his death. He may not earn his fortune through labour, but as Jack and his mother are shown to be in a desperate situation, on the brink of starvation, they are presented as the more deserving recipients of the giant’s treasure. The story might thus be considered an interesting legitimation of redistributing wealth.

Although it has the charm of any rags-to-riches tale, vindicating Jack’s seemingly foolish decision to exchange the family cow for a handful of beans, rewarding his faith in magic by enabling him to provide for his family for the rest of their days, there is arguably more at work in this tale than a coming-of-age parable. Given its origins in feudal England it is tempting to perceive the giant and his family (literally living off

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 78

Fairy Tale and Film

others) as symbolising the landowning aristocracy and accordingly read class affiliations in the story’s table-turning appeal. Lucy Armitt makes the same connection: Evolving from the source text ‘Jack and the Giants’, this is a narrative that acquires its popularity because of its ability to function on a socio-political level. The fitting hero of a tale originally read by poor common folk with a poor to moderate level of literacy, Jack is the fictional embodiment of the peasant farmer who has to sell his produce for the equivalent of a handful of beans, hoping against hope that his ‘seed’ will produce plenty of food in return. The giant, of course, is the wealthy landowner whose physical size is simply a metaphor for his financial and social superiority. Jack’s only hope, having usurped his place on the hierarchy by climbing up the social ladder and gaining entry to the castle and its wealth by unsanctioned means, is to outwit this ogre, for cunning and desperation are his only weapons. No wonder we take pleasure in the giant’s overthrowing ... Lining both his coffers and his stomach with the blood, sweat and tears of his tenants, these people form the bones which the giant grinds to make his bread. In addition, as it is not only Jack but all Jacks everywhere who will suffer if attempted revolution is detected, it is vitally important that ‘magic’ is on the side of the ordinary people in order to aid them to evade their oppressors. (1996: 66) When crimes are committed by poverty-stricken, outcast or downtrodden figures, it is generally through need, rather than greed, and often a hint of satire is apparent, reflecting the ruthless values at work in what is seen to be a profoundly unjust system. Few would mourn the loss of a cannibalistic giant, or reprove Jack for helping himself to his treasure, particularly if we consider the possibility that he is simply taking back what is rightfully his. Some have even sought to justify Jack’s behaviour on more personal grounds. Maria Tatar references an interesting version by Benjamin Tabart, titled The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk (1807), in which Jack’s actions are explained as reclaiming possessions originally stolen from his murdered father. As she argues, the hero thus undergoes a character change from an ‘indolent careless and extravagant’ boy into a ‘dutiful and obedient’ son (a transition that recalls Pinocchio) intruding upon and ransacking the giant’s castle, and eventually killing its owner, in order to reclaim property originally taken from his late father (1992: 197–8). Marina Warner adds an intriguing detail to this backstory, claiming that it was devised by William

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 79

Godwin to give Jack ‘an honourable motive for killing the giant. At the end social wrongs are righted, fortunes justly redistributed in a realignment of power along more egalitarian lines’ (2000: 321).8 Stealing from a more powerful foe thus acquires a sense of both political and personal justification, and resorting to crime is presented as evening the odds, the implication being that there is no other route to secure justice.

Given these alluring political allusions it is intensely frustrating that the most recent film version, Jack the Giant Slayer (Bryan Singer, 2013), is such a shallow enterprise. While Jack employs a degree of stealth to triumph, stealing a magic crown to bring a group of giants under his command, and eventually becomes the king of England, the film fails to give this fascinating folk hero the level of interest he deserves. Indeed, its sole point of significance is alluding to Jack’s questionable character.

This has already been noted here, in questioning why he repeatedly returns to the castle (a hen that can lay golden eggs, after all, would presumably be sufficient to keep Jack and his mother in comfort for the rest of their lives, while the singing harp is essentially a bourgeois novelty).

If this is not understood as reclaiming his ‘inheritance’ (in line with the Godwin/Tabart backstory), it suggests insatiable greed, falling victim to the same covetousness as the giant. Appealing as it is to perceive the story as a quintessential ‘David and Goliath’ tale of the meek overcoming the powerful, feudal workers defeating their landlords or the proletariat gaining precedence, there is no guarantee that a ‘common’ hero will keep his virtue – any more than we might assume that any of the lowly heroes in the Grimm Tales who make it to the throne will necessarily care any more about their subjects – for if power is inevitably corrupting, as the saying goes, so is avarice and greed.

As a rule, fortune tends to favour those who don’t expressly seek riches, yet seem more deserving of them than their counterparts.

The fact that the poor brother prospers in ‘Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves’ (aka ‘Open Sesame!’ ATU 676) while his rich sibling ends up dead, seems attributable to more than luck when we consider their fates in relation to their wealth. Ali happens to see where thieves hide their booty – and overhears the magic password used to access the cave. He generously shares his secret with his wealthy brother, Kassim, who dies similarly attempting to plunder the cave – having forgotten the password and becoming captured by the thieves. We might be invited to conclude that Kassim loses his life because he was simply forgetful, yet the fact that he excludes his brother from the trip suggests greed is his downfall.

Once again, far from promoting an intrinsic sense of right or wrong, the morality is fairly opaque. Ali Baba achieves prosperity by proving to be

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 80

Fairy Tale and Film

as shrewd, cunning and ruthless as the thieves. Neither is it simply male social advancement that is proffered, for despite Ali Baba being name-checked in the title it is ultimately a slave girl, Morgiana, who is the unsung heroine of the tale. She sees and kills the thieves hiding in oil jars outside the house and subsequently despatches their leader with an enticing dance and a dagger to his heart. Having saved her master’s fortune, and protected the entire household, she is given her freedom, ultimately marrying into the family she has served so well. Ali Baba may have shown a level of cunning in spying the thieves’ hideaway, but it is a lowly servant girl who is the most intrepid and heroic figure in the tale, alert to the danger posed to her master after his haul, and prepared to kill to protect him. Like the lead character in ‘Puss in Boots’ (ATU 545B) who enables his master to rise above his lowly status through shrewdness and quick wits, Morgiana overshadows Ali Baba in the pivotal role she takes, and although her name was unfairly omitted from the title, her legacy can be found in a number of female characters in film who prove to be equally fascinating tricksters.9 Deceit is shown to be a crucial means of survival, rather than a vice, and involvement with a criminal underworld proves both perilous and profitable.

Kassim’s greed (and forgetfulness) may cost him his life and endanger his family, yet, thanks to Morgiana’s intervention, Ali Baba can claim the rest of the cave’s plunder without fearing reprisals. Sharing his accumulated gains with his widowed sister-in-law, and newly liberated servant, he proves himself to be a genuinely just figure who recognises his responsibilities and those he is indebted to (and we can only wonder if Kassim would have reciprocated the gesture). The tale affirms that rich rewards can be reaped if you’re prepared to do what it takes, and that an extraordinary individual can stack up against mighty odds to prove their worth, with Morgiana’s courage effectively making her a part of the family.

A similar apprenticeship is served in a number of fairy tale families, in which children commit crimes to pay their way. ‘Thumbling’s Travels’ presents a diminutive hero who demonstrates his ability to look after both himself and his family. Joining a gang of robbers to steal from a king, he gives a coin to his father when he eventually gets home. In ‘Hop o’ My Thumb’ (ATU 327B), the youngest of seven brothers, left in the woods by their impoverished parents, proves to have the most wits – and courage. Stealing seven-league boots from a slumbering giant, he persuades the giant’s housekeeper to hand over his fortune and duly returns home to help his parents out of poverty. ‘Hansel and Gretel’ (ATU 327A) offers a similar denouement when two abandoned siblings

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 81

outwit a witch and steal her riches. The horror of having been left for dead in the woods is effectively sidelined – blamed on their wicked stepmother (who dies in curious tandem with the witch) rather than on an easily convinced father – and, in a similar vein to ‘Hop o’ my Thumb’, there is no need for recriminations when they return home. Children formerly considered a drain on resources thus turn out to be a worthwhile asset, and thanks to the witch’s riches life looks set to improve.

If a lack of money threatened to sever family ties in the most brutal of ways, obtaining a new supply works like magic to restore familial links.

However, while money is often presented as a vital means of surviving impoverishment, and securing a better life, it does not necessarily promise happiness, as a number of tales remind us. Envy, selfishness and bitter rivalries may be forged through the acquisition of wealth, turning siblings and friends against one another as characters lose sight of more important aspirations.

This ambivalent attitude to criminality has continued in cinematic variations, with a number of films reprising recognisable themes, including the pleasure of seeing unlikely heroes triumph. The ‘heist-gone-wrong’ trope is one such example in which the unlikeliest of would-be thieves often succeeds in some way, even if it is simply by surviving. In Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) it is the least macho of the thieves, Mr Pink (Steve Buscemi), who gets away unscathed from the hideout that becomes a bloodbath, and in The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995) a similarly unprepossessing figure emerges as the sole survivor of an epic massacre, eventually revealing himself to be demonically duplicitous.

Like the diminutive hero in ‘Hop o’ my Thumb’ we are invited not to judge a book by its cover. The Cooler (Wayne Kramer, 2003) provides an interesting variation on the theme as an underdog (renowned for his bad luck) braves the mob to get his girl. Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000) also puts romance first, and rewards virtuous intentions. Its ex-crook ‘Gal’ Dove (Ray Winston) – coerced into doing another job by vicious thug Don (Ben Kingsley) – may forfeit any money from the robbery yet outlives his nemesis and manages to return to his haven in Spain with his beloved Deedee (Amanda Redman), even getting away with giving her diamond earrings taken during the bungled caper. The moral compass in such narratives oscillates fairly wildly at times. The two hit-men in In Bruges (Martin McDonagh, 2008) may murder for money – rather than ‘anything stupid like revenge’, as Ray (Colin Farrell) puts it – yet are far from villainous, particularly when compared to their mob boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes). A family man with a psychotic attitude, he oddly allies sentiment with a sense of murderous honour. Convinced that Ray

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 82

Fairy Tale and Film

should be punished for accidentally killing a child during a hit, Harry seeks to compensate for his death by ordering his shooting in Bruges – continually referred to as a fairy tale city. The fact that its beauty is totally lost on the young man is but one irony at work in the film, another being that Ray outlives both his boss and the man contracted to kill him, the latter giving his life in the hope that Ray will do something more worthwhile with his. Criminals thus attain a level of sympathy in these films, particularly where they are motivated by less venal interests and there is an opportunity to choose another path, assert greater control over their lives, and forge an existence away from crime.

In other examples, however, especially where characters act simply out of avarice, this often proves to be their undoing. In examples such as The Grifters (Stephen Frears, 1990), Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994), A Simple Plan (Sam Raimi, 1999) and Fargo (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1996), friendships and families are torn apart by greed, leaving us with a bitter morality on the folly of putting money first. This is an interesting variation on the general cinematic insistence that crime cannot pay, an edict which has accompanied crime films from the gangster classics of the 1930s on. The Hays Code was established in 1934 to offset the dangerous charisma of criminal characters featured in the likes of Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932) and Public Enemy (William D. Wellman, 1931) – particularly given a context in the Depression when popular appeal was understandable, and resulting censorship would insist on an unhappy end for protagonists (already a feature of both films, notably). Even after such official restrictions have been lifted, it is interesting to note a continued aversion to glorifying gangsters and criminals. The distinction drawn in contemporary crime and caper movies between protagonists who are allowed to profit from their crimes, and those treated more punitively, is often quite tenuous, although a great deal hinges – much like the tales they revise – on the extent to which they deserve to get away with it. Even so, the entrepreneurial spirit that underlines ‘wealth through stealth’ narratives is far from simply sanctioned, with a sting often found in the tale. Interestingly, while heroes such as Aladdin and Ali Baba have attracted criticism for endorsing immorality, profiting through good fortune rather than hard graft or spiritual worship, the appeal of such narratives outweighs disapproval, and is easily discerned in the chutzpah displayed by these protagonists, who may take risks when they steal from villains, yet also achieve vast rewards. The same risks are set up in a number of films assessed here, yet the odds prove far less favourable. In Shallow Grave, A Simple Plan and No Country for Old Men the temptation to steal from criminals is framed as ill-judged

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 83

opportunism, ending in tragedy. Taking money that does not rightfully belong to the protagonists turns out to be the worst decision of their lives, and this has little to do with legal or religious sanctions ultimately, but the detrimental impact on their identity and conduct. Even in a relatively secular era when censorship restrictions have lessened, antiheroes are easy to identify with, and ideals of equality and justice seem somewhat hollow, there remains a tendency to question criminality and ask if the sacrifices made by protagonists are worthwhile.

The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) is an interesting case in point. Adapted from the novel by Mario Puzo, it reworks the familiar motif of three sons who are tested by their father to see who most deserves to inherit his kingdom. True to tradition, the oldest two sons have fatal flaws, with Sonny’s hot temper and Fredo’s weakness proving to be their undoing, yet while the youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino), is affirmed as the most worthy heir to the Corleone dynasty, this is not without cost. Although wary of entering the family business, he shows remarkable loyalty to his father, and eventually takes his place as the head of the family, yet happiness eludes him. Over the course of the eventual trilogy we see him lose both his brothers (taking personal responsibility for Fredo’s death) as well as his two wives – the first in a bomb meant for himself and the second in divorce as he becomes an increasingly alienated and suspicious figure who is ultimately very much alone. The trilogy does not simply affirm a treatise on the folly of crime, but reminds us of the narrow distinction between organised crime and a world that is rife with corruption. From bent cops to a crooked judiciary, the ‘establishment’ is no different to the Corleone family, and in some ways far less endearing. Such satirical tendencies were not overlooked by critics, and are still more pronounced in Brian De Palma’s remake of Scarface (1983), its acerbic pastiche of the American Dream represented by a Cuban hood, with an unnatural attachment to his sister, who spends his ill-gotten gains on pet tigers, a mountain of cocaine and a frosty wife. Ruthless self-interest and unfettered ambition propel him to achieve extraordinary success in a cut-throat business, yet Tony Montana (Pacino again) ultimately resembles the eponymous ‘King of the Gold Mountain’, fighting all comers to maintain his rule while left with nothing of worth. A maxim reprised from the original Scarface – ‘the world is yours’ – is taken to heart by Montana, evidently believing that success is assured for a man like himself in the land of opportunity.

Like his forebear, he pays for his transgressions in a hail of bullets.

Other cinematic excursions in crime allow their protagonists much happier endings, and notably give females a bigger part to play. It is

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 84

Fairy Tale and Film

Deedee, former pornstar-turned-moll, in Sexy Beast who shoots the tyrannical Don intruding on their retirement. Bound (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1996) plays with gangster tropes in delightful fashion when a seemingly incidental character – a lesbian plumber no less – takes the money stashed by her mob employer, along with his moll, in a bravura twist on ‘Ali Baba’, as well as ‘The Robber Bridegroom’: examples that extend Morgiana’s legacy in allowing an apparently marginal female character to turn the tables. The Last Seduction (John Dahl, 1994) similarly bends established rules. Its central protagonist is a revamped femme fatale who triumphs over men through sexual manipulation and an ice-cold demeanour. She may not be admirable, or even likeable, but is a born survivor who proves more than able to stand up to her criminal husband. Significantly, her former role as the ball-breaking bitch in a telephone insurance company reveals her as a monstrous product of the corporate world in which she has trained.10 In contemporary narratives the corporation is often set up as the equivalent of the fairy tale’s giant, a mighty oppressive force that exploits, consumes and negatively alters people. Confronting an unfair boss updates the wish-fulfilment fantasy of usurping power, evening the odds and perhaps initiating a fairer system, although cinematic variations tend to suggest that tyrannical kings and despotic ogres will invariably be replaced by similar types. In Swimming with Sharks (George Huang, 1992) – a scornful satire of the film business – the ‘ogre’ is a merciless producer (pithily played by Kevin Spacey) who may get a scare when his assistant, Guy (Frank Whaley), confronts him, yet triumphs by making him a carbon copy of his own ruthless and malevolent self.

Cruelly humiliated by his boss, Guy seeks to get the upper hand by kidnapping and abusing him, yet finally opts to sacrifice his own girlfriend to climb the corporate ladder. His protest at his employer may secure a few minor privileges (and newfound respect) but he finally becomes his protégé, similarly motivated by unfettered self-interest. Although amorality seemingly reigns in the modern age, such narratives affirm a continued interest in discerning flaws, not only in human nature, but in a ‘system’ that functions to bring out the worst in people. Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992) offers another scathing indictment of capitalism, upping the ante on Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman with its roomful of desperate real-estate salesmen harangued by a vicious boss to either close their deals or lose their jobs, eliciting our sympathy for men prepared to sell anything to get a result, including any sense of integrity.

In all such narratives the same coda as fairy tales of old is underwritten: life is unfair and the best way to get ahead is to keep your

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 85

wits about you and get what you can. Sometimes, however, such attempts end very badly indeed. In The Grifters everyone is out to get each other. A mother, her son and his girlfriend make up a nasty trio of con-merchants bound by mutual avarice. Duplicity and depravity culminate in murder, estrangement and no one’s eventual gain. Shallow Grave offers a similar condemnation of venality. A yuppie neo-noir in which three young professionals take in a new lodger, only to find him dead the next day, with a suitcase full of cash, the film charts the consequences when they opt to say nothing to the authorities and keep the money, subsequently descending into a mess of mutual suspicion and enmity. Interestingly, the female of the group, Juliet (Kerry Fox) – a doctor by profession – also proves to be the most callous, killing one accomplice outright, leaving the other impaled on the kitchen floor (having driven the knife in hard) and heading for the airport, only to find herself double-crossed, leaving her with nothing. A repeat downward shot of the stairs at their apartment provides us with a neat visual metaphor of their declining friendship. If the trio began the film filled with arrogant conceit (believing no one is good enough to join their household) they get their comeuppance in the end, their folly not in how deep they buried the body, nor in how honest they are with the authorities, but in how they subsequently treat each other. Waking Ned (Kirk Jones, 1998) provides a heartwarming variant on this scenario.

A remote Irish community opt to conceal the body of an elderly resident who dies from a heart attack when he wins the lottery. The crucial difference lies in the fact that they agree to share the winnings – and manage to avoid homicide! As we know from countless other examples, however, for the most part human nature is not so altruistic, and the promise of instant riches comes at a terrible cost.

A Simple Plan serves as a moving morality tale. Based on the bestselling novel by Scott B. Smith, who also wrote the screenplay, the result is a thriller whose power lies in the sheer simplicity of its narrative and the believability of its performances. The film opens with a voiceover from the main character, Hank (Bill Paxton), remembering advice his father once gave him about happiness: stating that a loving wife, and good friends and family, are all that a man needs. As our narrator recalls, he once had these, and we know the tale he’s about to tell will be a bitter one. Set in wintry woods – replete with fairy tale resonance – two brothers and a friend find a downed plane, with a dead pilot and 4 million dollars on board. ‘It’s the American Dream in a gym bag!’ one declares. Hank admonishes him, ‘you work for the American Dream, you don’t steal it’, and says they should declare their discovery to the

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 86

Fairy Tale and Film

authorities. However, he is soon won over when reminded that his wife is due to give birth to their first child – and urged to consider how the money could help. Vowing to share the riches, yet agreeing to wait until spring, Hank elects to keep the bag at his house. Therein lies what seems to be a simple plan yet one that serves as the catalyst for a spiralling descent in their relations. Hank’s simple-minded brother, Jacob (Billy Bob Thornton), expresses bitterness about the relative good fortune Hank has had in life, including a college education that was denied to him, and his blue-collar buddy Lou (Brent Briscoe) is equally resentful, accusing Hank of having airs and graces. These class divisions affirm an interesting point. Like the wealthy brother in ‘Ali Baba’, Hank is dissatisfied with what he has, despite his relative affluence, and loyalty to his brother proves all too tenuous. The money brings their petty differences to breaking point, unmasking a degree of ruthlessness and suspicion in each.

Perhaps the most shocking transformation is Hank’s pregnant wife Sarah (Bridget Fonda), who initially seems to be the most virtuous character yet proves to be highly calculating. Upon first hearing about the money she states that they have everything they need and that keeping it would be theft, yet is delighted when she sees it and soon gets crafty, manipulating her husband into increasingly mercenary behaviour. Her initial advice is to go back to the plane and return some of the money, thinking this will fool any authorities that find it. Hank complies, but ignores her advice to say nothing to his brother, taking Jacob as a lookout. So begins a tragic turn of events. An old man, Dwight Stevenson, tracking a fox in the vicinity, is killed by the panicking Jacob. The crime is successfully covered up as a skidoo accident, yet Jacob tells Lou about Stevenson’s death, exposing a dangerous rift between the trio. Hereafter, the saintly seeming Sarah proves to be an arch schemer. Discovering the $4 million is a kidnapped heiress’s ransom money, she argues that it is now rightfully theirs and plots to frame Lou for Stevenson’s death.

Transformed beyond recognition, she coldly advises her husband about their next step as she breastfeeds their newborn in hospital. The money now means everything to her and she asks Hank if he really wants to scrape a living for their family and see her bored to death with her job at the library. As ever, he complies, yet Sarah’s suggestion goes horribly wrong when Lou realises he is being set up and both he and his wife are killed by the brothers. The local policeman, a good friend to Hank, believes the story he tells of a drunken tragedy between the couple and again we think they have got away with murder. However, lest we assume that their blood bond will at least strengthen their ties, further

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 87

tragedy awaits. One of the kidnappers appears, posing as an FBI agent asking about the downed plane, and the brothers meet him and the local policeman in the woods. The policeman and kidnapper are killed at the scene, and Jacob, having had enough of so much bloodshed, turns his back to his brother and urges him to pull the trigger. That Hank does so is his most reprehensible act. Even as his brother is evidently suffering, his dream of buying back their father’s farm and making a new life for himself nothing more than a vain fantasy, Hank acts more from self-interest than pity, knowing that his brother’s death will eliminate an evident risk. The final irony comes in learning that some of the ransom money is marked and therefore traceable, causing Hank to burn it all – against Sarah’s protests. The money proves worthless in the end, resulting in the loss of his friends and family, and a final shot of his cold-eyed wife stacking library shelves affirms that they are not simply back where they started (like ‘The Fisherman and his Wife’) but far worse off, having to live with what they have done, with nothing to show for it.11 As the film’s tag line reads, ‘sometimes good people do evil things’, and the futility of their experience drives the message home. Far from bringing any anticipated happiness, the money tarnishes everything Hank had.

The insistence that crime cannot pay is an ongoing and persistent theme. The likes of Ali Baba may get away with stolen loot (although, like Hank, he also loses a brother), yet contemporary counterparts in film don’t tend to be as fortunate. When a man arranges his wife’s kidnapping to make some money in Fargo the scheme goes badly wrong (another example – like A Simple Plan – where a snow-bound setting seems symbolic of an icy amorality at work and a heavily pregnant woman again confronts expectations). Detective Inspector Marge Gunderson (Frances Mcdermott) admonishes the murderous result with bafflement, ‘And for what? A little bit of money.’ The very idea is incongruous to her, yet she patently comes from a different world. The Coen brothers have made something of a career on the theme of avarice and its consequences. The Big Lebowski (1998) reworks Fargo’s botched kidnapping plot with postmodern laughs aplenty, yet in No Country for Old Men (2007) we are treated with no such humour. A cold-blooded killer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), ruthlessly tracks a man who has stolen drug money, annihilating virtually everyone in his way. As the tag line reads, ‘there are no clean getaways’, and the moral of the story recalls an age-old maxim: don’t let greed get the better of you. Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is the hapless figure who finds $2 million at a murder scene and thinks he can get away with taking it, telling his wary wife

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 88

Fairy Tale and Film

that this is a way for them to escape their bleak trailer-home existence.

However, despite considerable wiliness on his part, Moss is ultimately killed, as is his wife, and all we are left with is a sense of despair.

The most troubling aspect of such films is that human life is utterly negated by murderous maniacs, who are given an odd comic charisma.

Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers are especially guilty of this tendency, presenting hit-men who kill without qualms, complain when blood ruins a car’s upholstery or fastidiously seek to keep their shoes clean during acts of carnage, sadistically toying with the people they torment and kill. (Chigurh’s coin-toss game, used to decide whether a person lives or dies, coldly emulates the medieval notion of fate as a ‘wheel of fortune’ motif, rendering ideas of innocence, guilt or any entreaties aiming to elicit sympathy equally immaterial.) Such monstrous humans replace cannibalistic giants and witches, and are especially disconcerting because their villainy goes unchallenged. No one can stop the implacable Chigurh – and the fact that the film concludes with young boys willing to sell him the shirt off their backs suggests his livelihood is assured. In this bleak ‘country’ it seems greed will always exist and fate favours the villainous; a psychopath easily outmanoeuvres an ageing sheriff when it comes to getting his man, and no matter how deserving people like Moss and his wife may seem, this is no fairy story where poverty or stealth or even kindness merits any reward. When Carla Jean Moss (Kelly Macdonald) encounters Chigurh in her trailer home near the end of the film she informs him that she has just returned from burying her mother and has a mountain of debt.

He responds that her troubles will soon be over. Nihilistic to the end, only the promise of death, rather than money, offers a way out of life’s difficulties. Chigurh is most chilling at this point, we realise, because he is so devoid of humanity. Evidently without sympathy for a newly bereaved widow, he reveals Moss’ fatal flaw: the fact that when he was offered the chance to save his wife, by returning the money, he refused.

If Hank, the husband in A Simple Plan, listens too much to his wife, Llewellyn doesn’t pay his enough heed, and his greed condemns them both. In both cases tainted money is shown to be traceable, and its unwitting finders are assured only of trouble.12 Although many contemporary crime dramas leave a bitter taste in the mouth, refuting the idea that there is any such thing as easy money, we might conclude this chapter with a reminder of tales that seek to provide audiences with the vicarious pleasure of seeing unlikely heroes take risks, and profit accordingly, while also providing an ideological feel-good factor. The triumph of the underdog has been given more explicitly political

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 89

affiliations in US thrillers based abroad, set in starkly divided societies where money offers a means to escape dire circumstances. Interestingly, those initially seeking wealth ultimately forfeit it to those more in need.

Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick, 2006) is an ‘Ali Baba’ rewrite in some ways, rewarding the man who happens to come across an incredible treasure, rather than the one actively searching for it. Set during the civil war in Sierra Leone, we are shown how diamonds are used to fund murderous conflict, yet far from admonishing the quest for wealth, the film affirms its life-changing potential. The narrative follows a rags-to-riches premise, charting the extraordinary good fortune of its hero, Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), who finds a rare diamond when forced to mine by rebels, successfully hides it before his imprisonment, and subsequently manages to relocate it with the help of white diamond smuggler, Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio). Although Archer’s motives are self-serving until he is fatally shot, he atones for his involvement in the diamond trade by providing information aiming to expose international complicity in the war and helps Vandy’s desperate family get out of the country (relinquishing the dream he had for himself).

A similar sense of conscience mitigates the treasure hunt in Three Kings (David O. Russell, 1999). The story is set in Iraq, 1991, at the end of the first Gulf War. Three American soldiers discover a map detailing the location of ‘Saddam’s Gold’ – bullion he originally stole from Kuwait – and set about finding it. Although they plan to keep this loot for themselves, the Iraqis they encounter during this heist elicit an important degree of sympathy, and they decide to forfeit the treasure.

Realising they have no legitimate claim on it, they pay off fellow soldiers to allow Shi’ite rebels to flee across the Iranian border, and return the remainder of the haul to Kuwait. It is interesting to note that the original script by John Ridley did not have these altruistic intentions in mind. James Mottram reveals that its main theme was greed and betrayal, based on John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierre Madre (1948), in which the lust for money ends in murder (Mottram, 2006: 268).

As Marina Warner affirms, Huston’s film was itself inspired by an Arabian Nights tale in which three men have their deaths prophesied under a tree and end up killing each other at this spot seeking to gain sole custody to the treasure beneath (2012: 11): a plot encapsulated by the tale type ‘Treasure Finders Murder One Another’ (ATU 763). A film originally intended to be a warning tale, following a similar narrative message to Shallow Grave and A Simple Plan, thus became neatly inverted

by David O. Russell’s script, giving the soldiers of fortune a redemptive about-turn that not only saves them, but potentially redeems our

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 90

Fairy Tale and Film

impression of the US military. While Mottram suggests that this final gesture was potentially created to appease Warner Brothers, the result is, as he terms it, ‘a heist thriller with a political conscience’ that makes its criticisms of the war clear (2006: 268). The unlikeliest of heroes, these soldiers may dream of becoming kings, yet are finally rewarded only by the fact that they have done the right thing, both in aiding the people they have officially been sent to help and in returning the gold to its rightful owners.13 Such tales revise suggested elements of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ in affirming an interesting redistribution of wealth.

Treasure is liberated from corrupt organisations, returned to those who genuinely deserve it, and the idea of war profiteering is thus given a new slant in narratives that aim to entertain yet also make us think.14 While the narratives assessed differ quite extensively in their conclusions, there is an increasing tendency to warn against criminality as the path to progress and to insist that money, if not the root of all evil, is at the very least a questionable aim. The idea that money can’t buy happiness is a cliché, commonly attributed to those who already have enough of it, yet in their attitude to wealth many films repeat a curiously puritan sense of caution. Thieving may be something of an art form for Grimm heroes, but taking money belonging to others, as occurs in A Simple Plan and No Country for Old Men (even if the true owners are not necessarily very deserving), is firmly repudiated, almost as if a moral test is underway, even in relatively secular times. The appeal of seeing underdogs triumph in adverse, often dangerous, conditions is likely to fuel many films to come, yet the appeal of easy money and its life-changing potential has also been counterbalanced by cautionary narratives that reiterate certain tales of old in suggesting material desire is a tainted dream, vainly trying to assuage us that we are better off without money (evading mercenary interest) and should value the things that really matter. A familiar moral coda is thus underlined, reiterating a need to be cautious about our aspirations and not lose sight of what’s truly important. Affluence is often equated with extreme arrogance in the fairy tale, divesting figures of humane qualities, and characters that steal from hoarding witches and ogres run the risk of simply emulating their enemies, leading us to ask where the fault-line between vice and virtue lies. Given the extreme ambivalence of the narratives discussed, there are no easy answers, yet while fairy tale fantasies about vast fortunes have an understandable (perhaps perennial) appeal, it is notable that many modern variations on the theme can’t bring themselves to applaud such dreams without reservation. It is not so much that ill-gotten gains tempt bad luck (simply because they haven’t been

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Wealth through Stealth 91

‘legitimately’ earned) but that money seems to bring out the worst in people – in most cases at least.

Inequality, a marked imbalance of power, opportunism and sheer desperation all serve as motivations for the criminal acts discussed, yet, as we have seen, those with power and privilege are equally prone to commit crimes, and are often far more reprehensible, capitalising on their greater ability to cover their tracks. As to the figures who set about evening the odds, lured by the promise of prosperity, a continued gender discrepancy remains. Females seeking to get rich quick often fail, despite some notable exceptions, with ambition and ruthlessness often more negatively perceived than with male peers. Ruth Bottigheimer observed this tendency in the Grimm Tales, a collection published two centuries ago, claiming ‘tales of female rascality are notable principally for their absence’ (1987: 20), and it is sobering to consider how much this remains the case. Far from seeking to swindle their way to a fortune, or securing a kingdom for themselves, stealthy fairy tale heroines confine themselves to relatively modest forms of misbehaviour, whether it be sneaking a free meal from their boss or deceiving prospective husbands about their skills.15 For the most part, women who steal or cheat are often reproved, and murder is only justified in very specific conditions.

In some interesting cases, however, intrepid females confront expectation, particularly when placed in a situation that requires all their ingenuity to survive. In pointed contrast to tales in which courage and craftiness are deployed to secure a spouse, women must use these same traits to evade a dangerous liaison. The next chapter focuses more fully on these women, and the monstrous men who pose a threat to them, reprising the motif of unlikely heroes by charting the rise of the female victim-turned-vigilante.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

4 Dangerous Liaisons: Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

The flipside to fairy tale romances, and the fantasy of living happily ever after with a stranger, are encounters with beasts who cannot be romantically redeemed and who offer death, rather than deliverance, to the women they become involved with. Murderous suitors have become popularised in various tales, presented as duplicitous figures who have killed former partners and have no qualms about doing so again. ‘Bluebeard’ (ATU 312) is a familiar text in this regard; its serialkilling husband is exposed by a wife who narrowly avoids becoming his next victim and manages to put an end to his crimes. This chapter examines contrasting versions of the tale and the way various female protagonists face the same perilous situation, evaluating the attributes that enable their survival. The attraction of such tales is the sense of dread evoked, the mystery that unfolds and the plot turns involved – all conspicuous elements of the thriller. We are invited to identify with characters who are often marked by a degree of naïveté, and experience the thrill of witnessing their ordeal, as well as applauding their eventual triumph. The fact that extreme danger is located at the hands of suitors and spouses is particularly notable, provoking imperilled females to utilise considerable resources when they realise the true nature of the men in their lives and work to expose and undermine them. Such tales draw upon an often obscured lineage of cautionary tales that explicitly confront the romantic inclinations of many fairy tales, a theme cinema has continued. From damsels in distress to the female detectives (both official and unofficial) who confront killers and put an end to their crimes, films have not only exposed deceitful and dangerous men, but increasingly championed the women that defy them. How has the relationship between the murderous Count Bluebeard and his wife been critically understood and creatively reimagined? To what extent 92

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

93

is female curiosity and inquisitiveness rewarded or punished in related tales in which women are forced to confront murderous men? Do such narratives form an antidote to romantic ideals? And what are we to make of the abiding interest popular culture has shown in this theme?

Fairy tales rarely explore examples of domestic disharmony. In our most popular tales marriage is presented as the resolution of a heroine’s problems, not the start, and the idea that husbands might pose a threat to their wives, potentially using lethal violence against them, creates a discomfiting image, at odds with the romantic ideals often invested in the fairy tale. Far from upholding a belief in true love and abiding happiness, the potential risk of making the wrong match, and finding oneself subject to a controlling or cruel man, is an unappealing prospect – the opposite to a wish-fulfilment fantasy – yet all the more important because of this. The idea of betrothal to a stranger, taking up residence in a new home, and becoming subjected to ill-treatment, is the frightening scenario that informs ‘Bluebeard’, yet the theme was by no means instigated by Charles Perrault, even if his version is the one we know best. Stories in which a serial-killing fiend is encountered by a hapless woman date back to antiquity, often including stirring examples of female retaliation.1 Perrault’s ‘Le Barbe Bleue’ (1697) is one of the most controversial versions, due largely to questions of blame on the wife’s part in disobeying her husband’s command, and the fact that she fails to save herself, relying instead on male protectors.

A young woman marries a wealthy man of uncertain reputation, who tests her by taking his leave soon after their marriage, giving her a set of keys to all the rooms in his household, yet barring her from entering a ‘forbidden chamber’. Her curiosity overcomes her and she discovers several female corpses within, dropping the key in horror at the sight.

The bloodstain refuses to come off, however, a feature generally read as signalling her loss of virtue, and her husband, realising her disobedience, demands her death as penalty. She stalls by asking to say her prayers first, and her sister Anne (who happens to be staying with the newlyweds) urgently signals to their brothers, who arrive just in time to cut Bluebeard down. In a curious after-note, we are informed that his riches were used to advance the family’s fortunes and that his widow managed to put the ordeal behind her and marry again (a finale we might read as a tacked-on happy ending designed to sustain the virtues of marriage, while also attributing somewhat sinister motives to the original wedding). Given the two moralités Perrault appends to the story – the first condemning female curiosity, and the second assuring readers that such men no longer exist – it is easy to misinterpret his intentions.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 94

Fairy Tale and Film

Is he making light of a grisly crime? And how seriously are we supposed to take his accusation of the wife? Marina Warner points out that ‘Bluebeard’ was published alongside ‘Griselda’ and ‘Donkeyskin’, two other tales which dramatise the abuse of male privilege (1995: 244), and affirms Perrault’s affiliation with female fairy tale writers of the period, asserting that ‘however frivolous his tone, he took the part of daughters against the arranged marriages of the day ... [and] issued an open argument, by means of his tales, for the rights of women to administer their own wealth’ (266). This is precisely what Bluebeard’s wife manages to achieve, yet the horror she has to endure, and the suggestion of culpability on her part, have led many critics to accuse Perrault of misogyny.

The tale bears some kinship with a number of related folk tales, including two collected by the brothers Grimm, ‘The Robber Bridegroom’ (ATU 955) – in which a young woman discovers her betrothed’s murderous nature and denounces him on their wedding day – and ‘Fitcher’s Bird’ (aka ‘Fowler’s Fowl’) – in which the youngest of three sisters takes up residence with a wizard and discovers her siblings’ remains, yet succeeds in magically reviving and sending them home, ultimately disguising herself as a bird to enable her own escape. These tales provide fantastical assistance to their heroines (a talking bird warns the fiancée in ‘The Robber Bridegroom’ while the younger sister in ‘Fitcher’s Bird’ mysteriously contrives to return the dead to life).2 In ‘Bluebeard’ the wife simply relies on her wits and a level of good fortune – her brothers being due to visit on the very day her husband decides to kill her. Just why he is a murderous fiend is never explained, prompting considerable debate about his motives, yet the narrative bears more than a passing resemblance to the frame tale of the Arabian Nights, in which we are told that King Sharihyar adopts a homicidal policy towards his wives (murdering each one the morning after their wedding) due to his first wife’s infidelity and his refusal to be betrayed again.3 The same impulses are suggested in Perrault’s ‘Bluebeard’. Offering his new wife the key to a room that he then forbids access to is clearly a test of her trustworthiness – a test her predecessors have seemingly failed – and many have inferred that the bloodstained key symbolically suggests sexual betrayal, although this reading contorts our notion of blame in unnerving ways. Whether or not she is explicitly accused of infidelity, Perrault seems to place greater culpability on the bride’s inquisitive nature than the serial killer she has just married – that is, if we take his denunciation of female curiosity seriously. Ultimately, he ensures that Bluebeard is punished for his crimes and grants the wife liberty and wealth, an ending that seems to affirm where his sympathies truly lie. Given the extreme gruesomeness of the

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

95

story, the legacy enjoyed by ‘Bluebeard’ is remarkable, to say the least, adopting various forms as operettas, novels and films over the years, and the wife’s role has been interestingly expanded also.

Maria Tatar’s Secrets beyond the Door (2006) examines the way ‘Bluebeard’ has altered in successive variations. As she notes, the story significantly confronts the fairy tale’s usual depiction of matrimony, for while marriage offers a means of escape from familial difficulty in the likes of ‘Cinderella’ or ‘Snow White’, the opposite is true in ‘Bluebeard’.

Far from perceiving the wife as guilty of transgression or infidelity, Tatar challenges this version of events, reminding us that it is precisely through disobeying her husband that she discovers his true nature and consequently saves herself – with her family’s help. She also notes that in various related tales such as ‘Mr Fox’, ‘How the Devil Married Three Sisters’ (ATU 311) and ‘The Hen is Tripping in the Mountain’ the heroine proves to be even more intrepid in extricating herself from harm, using wiliness and cunning to delay and sometimes despatch her would-be killer, thereby joining ranks with other female characters that do not rely on others for salvation but acquire narrative agency for themselves.

Far from censuring Bluebeard’s wife and her folkloric sisters, Tatar asserts that they have become championed in contemporary popular culture as figures to admire. As she puts it: Some wives of Bluebeard are treacherous deceivers, guilty of moral and sexual betrayal; others are resourceful investigators who use their wits to get to the bottom of the dark secrets haunting their marriages.

While earlier ages denounced Bluebeard’s wife for her ‘reckless curiosity’ and her ‘uncontrolled appetite,’ our own culture has turned her into something of a heroine, a woman whose problem-solving skills and psychological finesse make her a shrewd detective, capable of rescuing herself and often her marriage into the bargain. (2006: 3–4) Oddly, this last point suggests that – far from serving as a means of exposing and confronting domestic abuse – ‘Bluebeard’ and its variants might serve as a means of overcoming marital difficulties. This is pointedly not the case with Bluebeard’s wife, who is under no illusions about her husband once she sees evidence of his crimes – a roomful of corpses marking her own likely fate. Far from seeking to understand him, or save their marriage, she helps put an end to his terror and finds herself a replacement. However, some of the tale’s successors have sought to redeem the husband as misunderstood, rather than murderous, particularly Gothic romances which recast their Bluebeards as troubled Byronesque figures,

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 96

Fairy Tale and Film

haunted by past misfortune (that is, their former wives), redeemed by second marriages to markedly less threatening females, who manage to overcome their fears and live with their respective beasts. Observing the way in which ‘Bluebeard’ tropes inflect Gothic literature and their cinematic adaptations such as Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) and Jane Eyre (Robert Stevenson, 1943), Tatar argues that a number of other thrillers might be considered ‘Bluebeard films’ – a sub-genre distinguished by marital disharmony and the threat of violence. Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944), Secret beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1948) and Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946) are selected as key examples, yet very different stories are told in each film. Gaslight centres on a duplicitous husband intent on deranging his wife in order to claim her wealth. Although insanity is the primary threat faced, the fact that he has murdered the previous occupant of the house to steal jewels makes him capable of killing her also. As with Perrault’s tale, the marriage definitively ends with the heroine’s realisation of her husband’s criminality. Secret beyond the Door differs greatly due to its heroine’s continued devotion to her husband, and stands out as one of Tatar’s few examples where a marriage is saved – albeit a somewhat unhealthy one. Openly playing on ‘Bluebeard’ in terms of a hasty marriage between strangers, a groom with a grisly interest in murder, and a locked room his wife is forbidden to enter, the story presents a clearly unhinged spouse admitting his desire to kill his new bride, yet also works to preserve their union.

The fact that his first wife mysteriously died is but the tip of the iceberg. Mark (Michael Redgrave) is revealed to have six rooms in his house designed to emulate actual murder scenes (in which mothers and wives were the victims) while a seventh is kept locked. Celia ( Joan Bennett) learns the basis of his emotional problems when she asks what this room contains. He denies her wish, stating, ‘Ever since I was a child I’ve been hemmed in by women wanting to live my life for me: Caroline, Eleanor, and now you. No thanks!’ Despite unfairly conflating his meek bride with his ‘domineering’ sister and first wife, claiming she is similarly interfering in his life, Celia becomes convinced that the room will help her to understand him. Secretly gaining entry, she realises with shock that it is a copy of her own bedroom – signalling Mark’s scarcely subconscious desire to kill her. It is at this point that Celia dramatically differentiates herself from Bluebeard’s wife, overcoming her impulse to escape and opting to confront and ‘cure’ her husband instead. Evincing the most disturbing of masochistic impulses she exclaims: ‘I’d rather be dead than be without you. That would be a slow death!’ Psychoanalysing Mark as he agitatedly fingers a scarf – intent

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

97

on strangling her – the film takes a still more bizarre turn in its final act. Apparently succeeding in unlocking his repressed rage towards his mother (signalled by eventually dropping the scarf), a fire started by a jealous female employee adds a dash of Jane Eyre to the mix, forcing Mark to prove his love by facing the flames and saving Celia’s life. We are ultimately led to believe that she has made their marriage work by helping to release his demons, with Mark recollecting the night of the fire and stating ‘that night you killed the root of the evil in me, but I still have a long way to go’. Freudian connotations in his relations with his mother may be suggested as the ‘root’, yet another cause is hinted at in the film, with his sister stating that problems in his first marriage began after he returned from the war. Tatar notes the coincidence of such narratives with the psychological consequences of the Second World War: It is not surprising that the cinematic culture of Hollywood in the 1940s would be invested in staging dramas that enacted both the anxiety and excitement of marriage to a stranger. This was, after all, a time of crisis, when women in great numbers were marrying men who were real strangers ... It was also a time when women were realizing that the men to whom they had been married were becoming strangers. (2006: 89) Post-traumatic stress disorder is thus offered as the cause of Mark’s problems, yet the women in his life are also tacitly blamed. Unable to communicate with his first wife, we are told that she died of loneliness – although their son, David, is convinced his father murdered her. Tension between father and son is all too apparent, with Mark displaying petulant jealousy when Celia defends the boy, revealing a profoundly controlling nature and pronounced immaturity. The extent of his problems are flagged up in a scene in which he admits wanting to kill Celia from the moment they met, apparently seeing death and love as synonymous. That she is prepared to sacrifice everything for him, including her potential life at his hands, offers a disturbing idea of good wifely conduct and there is even a hint that fairy tales have distorted Celia’s perceptions. She refers to Mark as her ‘beast’ soon after their wedding – asking ‘when is my beast expected to arrive home?’ – and is, in turn, referred to as a ‘twentieth-century sleeping beauty’ by her groom, condescendingly stating that she has been ‘wrapped in cotton and wool’ and is in desperate need to be woken. Portrayed as somewhat pampered, her late brother having taken care of her finances, and a string of broken engagements suggesting little in the way of worldly experience or

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 98

Fairy Tale and Film

romantic attachment, the fact that she has no financial incentive to wed makes her agreement to marry a stranger somewhat inexplicable.

Yet by far the strangest aspect of this film is the fact that, three centuries after Perrault’s tale, it endorses such a reactionary view of female virtue. Although Bluebeard’s wife dispenses with any hope of romantic redemption, once she realises her husband’s murderous nature, Celia resigns herself to death rather than contemplate living without a man she scarcely knows – and who has done little other than reject her since their marriage. Far from representing a ‘sleeping beauty’ who wakes with her first ‘kiss’, she forfeits any identity of her own, serving instead as her husband’s loyal wife, financer – and analyst! Tatar argues that ‘Bluebeard films are propelled into action by a crisis of interpretation, by the need to get to the bottom of a life history’, and seems to explicitly reference Secret beyond the Door in adding ‘that vibrant investigative energy is always also tainted by and sometimes dominated or nearly defeated by the heroine’s submission to masochistic desires and by her dark passion for psychological disturbances’ (2006: 96). Celia defers to her disturbed husband, risking her life to help him, and our apparent explanation is that this is considered her wifely duty – particularly just after the war.

Tatar’s third example of a ‘Bluebeard film’, Notorious, also provides a deferential heroine who is similarly explained as serving the war effort.

The daughter of a Nazi spy, Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) is coerced into making amends by working for the US government. She marries a friend of her father to obtain useful information, and reveals a consignment of uranium in the wine cellar, yet is discovered and almost killed by her husband, requiring US agent (and furtive love interest) Devlin (Cary Grant) to save her. Despite the courage and cunning required in her role, she loses narrative agency, and Tatar notes that she ‘lapses into a completely passive role, transformed from a confident, resourceful Bluebeard’s wife into a sleeping beauty carried off in the arms of a fellow agent’ (2006: 98). By contrast, Celia, referred to as a ‘sleeping beauty’ in Secret beyond the Door, wrapped in ‘cotton and wool’, is claimed by Tatar to attain greater agency, asserting that ‘It is Mark who will gradually remove these protective layers, exposing Celia to perils but also inciting her to awaken from delicate passivity to discover the pleasures of intellectual and emotional engagement’ (2006: 100). Celia’s relationship with Mark is thus problematically perceived as positive, despite seeming to be profoundly masochistic. Tatar’s main criticism is that Although Bluebeard films present women as active bearers of the gaze and as detectives, analysts, and interpreters, they simultaneously

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

99

ensure that those investigative powers, analytical skills, and interpretive talents are confined to the site of domesticity, restricted to problem solving within the context of a marriage. (2006: 107) However, the marriages in Gaslight and Notorious are sham unions which their heroines escape, while Secret beyond the Door seems highly regressive in not only maintaining Celia’s subjection to her husband but additionally blaming women for warping Mark (the same idea that Rebecca and Jane Eyre fall prey to).4 Although Tatar’s idea of ‘Bluebeard films’ is an interesting one, we need to be aware of the differing forms such films have taken since the war and note the increased part women have played in discovering and denouncing murderous men. In Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) a young woman uncovers a wife killer in her fiancé’s neighbouring apartment and puts herself at considerable risk by entering his home to retrieve the evidence. Equivalent daring is demonstrated by Lila (Vera Miles) – the younger sister in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) – described by Carol Clover as a ‘spunky inquirer’ who dares to enter the ‘terrible place’ (1992: 39), confronts a male monster and lives to tell the tale – thus paving the way for what she terms as ‘the Final Girl’ in slasher films, a figure chiefly distinguished by her ability to face a monstrous killer and survive. Although forced to undergo a traumatic experience akin to the wife in ‘Bluebeard’ – encountering various forbidden chambers and witnessing the horrific sight of corpses within – these intrepid females are also allowed to triumph, and ‘beauty bests the beast’, as Clover puts it. Aspects of ‘The Robber Bridegroom’ are also touched upon in these films, with gruesome motifs such as a severed hand with a ring (which lands in our heroine’s lap in the tale and is used to condemn her betrothed) anticipating the gore that would come to define the genre.

Unlike ‘Fitcher’s Bird’, there are no magical resurrections for female victims, yet we are granted a heroine to be proud of in the Final Girl, who is set apart from her peers in interesting ways, not least in refusing to be a victim.5 Unfortunately, later films allow male murderers to carry on killing unchallenged while ostensible Final Girls are killed off: a development some have discerned as a feminist backlash yet which could equally be prompted by a desire to shock by breaking established ‘rules’. The heroine of Wes Craven’s Scream films (1996–2011), Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), is one of the last conspicuous examples of the Final Girl, confronting every killer hiding behind the Ghostface mask – whether it be her first boyfriend or a member of her own family (in the last instalment a female cousin, aiming to achieve fame through victimhood, is behind a new spree of killings). The lack of gender specificity among the franchise’s

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 100

Fairy Tale and Film

villains may up the suspense factor, affirming that serial killers can be male and female, yet for the most part horror cinema continues to depict monstrous males threatening female victims.6 Although detractors may criticise this aspect, one could argue that it reflects a genuine tendency, with brutal acts of male violence against women regularly reported in the news, reminding us of the disconcerting reality that hovers around ‘Bluebeard’ and the legacy it has enjoyed. While Tatar excludes horror films from her discussion, preferring the Gothic thriller as an immediate parallel, arguably any film concerning a male killer and a woman in peril is equally pertinent, particularly where desire and danger are conflated within the narrative.

The Piano ( Jane Campion, 1993) provides an interesting variation on a classic theme. A period piece, albeit with a very modern perspective on female sexuality, the film gives us a revised version of the ‘Bluebeard’ tale, told from the wife’s perspective.7 An arranged marriage takes place at the turn of the eighteenth century and a mail-order bride leaves her native Scotland with her young daughter to live with a stranger in New Zealand. A play version of ‘Bluebeard’, watched by the family near the start of the film, foreshadows the bride’s impending betrayal. Ada (Holly Hunter) is marked by her defiance (not least in having a child out of wedlock and her refusal to speak), and although she has no say in this marriage her unwillingness to subject herself to her husband’s authority soon becomes evident. Her piano accompanies her journey and is clearly of great importance to her, yet her husband, Alasdair Stewart (Sam Neill), dismisses its worth and sells it to a neighbour, Baines (Harvey Kietel). Ada’s attempt to reclaim it, piece by piece, initiates a series of lessons with Baines that becomes a secret love affair. The illicit union formed between an unconventional woman unwilling to accept constraint and a Western man with Maori tattoos suggests a meeting of kindred spirits, yet this is not achieved without cost and it is notably the wife who must pay. As Tatar notes, while her husband is cold and controlling, ‘the woman who marries him is also not a model of heroic behaviour’, particularly in placing her own desires before her family (2006: 126). Stewart may be cast as the villain of the piece – a quintessential colonialist with axe permanently in hand (vainly attempting to control the sinewy New Zealand landscape and eventually used to mutilate his wife, cutting off a finger after discovering her infidelity) – yet Ada invites trouble by putting her feelings for Baines before anything else, including her daughter, Flora (Anna Paquin), who serves as the bloodstained key in this scenario, informing Stewart of her mother’s infidelity. Although admirable in many ways, in pursuing a passionate

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

101

affair with Baines, and ignoring the strictures of her time, Ada alienates her daughter as a result, allowing their close bond to be abruptly severed when a man comes between them. However, while the film punishes her transgression in some ways it also allows Ada’s survival and enables her rebirth, finally relenting to speak – as her closing voice-over tells us – rather than relying on her piano to express herself. Passionate and proud, refusing to subject herself to any sense of wifely duty, we may not be given a ‘model of heroic behaviour’, but her uncompromising conduct is itself an act of considerable courage.8 Jane Campion would return to similar tropes in her modern-day thriller In the Cut (2003) – which adapts Susanna Moore’s novel and again highlights the influence of the ‘Bluebeard’ tale. Reworking elements of Looking for Mr Goodbar (Richard Brooks, 1977), a teacher embarks on a dangerous voyage of sexual discovery, becoming involved with a policeman who appears to be responsible for the deaths of several women in the area. Like Bluebeard’s wife, Frannie (Meg Ryan) gets into trouble by looking: voyeuristically gazing at a sordid sexual exchange in a bar stairwell that makes her a potential witness to a murder. The woman she watches becomes a serial killer’s first victim (with body parts found in Frannie’s garden later that night), and his signature – an engagement ring left on the deceased’s finger – adds to the Bluebeard motif of a man with intimacy issues. A number of likely suspects emerge in terms of Frannie’s unstable ex and a student obsessed with a serial killer, and her ensuing relationship with the man assigned to investigate the murders, Detective Malloy (Mark Ruffalo), confirms a masochistic impulse as she compliantly places herself in his hands, seeming to lose narrative agency as the film (and their affair) progresses. Poems on the underground signal her plight in fairy tale references to leaving ‘the path’ and entering a ‘dark place’, yet she ignores these warnings, evidently entranced by an element of danger with her new man. In the Cut attracted notable criticism because it provides an educated woman succumbing to an erotic fantasy world with a questionable man, negating her safety in a number of ways throughout the film, and suggesting herself to be a likely victim of violence.9 The film punishes its free-spirited female through the death of her half-sister (who becomes victim no. 3) and she becomes convinced that she has allowed a killer into her bed, yet even as she appears to gain the upper hand, handcuffing the detective to a radiator pipe and making her escape, the final twist comes in being captured by his partner, Rodriguez (Nick Damici), and realising that he is the real killer. Frannie misjudges her lover because a number of ‘clues’ are misinterpreted, such as thinking the

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 102

Fairy Tale and Film

spade tattoo on Malloy’s wrist identifies him as the killer, that a charm was taken from her bracelet as a trophy of some kind and that his possession of her sister’s apartment key further signals his guilt, all of which prove to be false clues. Yet Frannie ultimately survives because she takes a trophy of her own. Having retained Malloy’s jacket, she uses his gun to defend herself (a weapon he taught her how to handle), and the final scene at daybreak shows her emerging triumphant from what looks like a fatal encounter with the killer. After walking home in a blood-soaked dress (looking, for all the world, like a slasher victim), she curls up on the floor next to her still cuffed lover.

The fact that a policeman is shown to be the murderer is hardly new, with thrillers often depicting lawmen who are prone to corruption and murder. What makes In the Cut such an interesting departure is that it enables an ostensible victim to defend herself – despite detective skills that are as dubious as her taste in men. Malloy’s friendship with a murderer, and fondness for playing power games with Frannie, render him somewhat suspicious, even by the end of the film. Although caring in other respects, Campion situates him within a disturbing culture of male hostility against women in which this softer side is often obscured, and the fact that his partner manages to evade official detection makes the implication all the more sinister. As with all such narratives there is the unsettling feeling that those supposedly working to uphold the law are also best equipped to commit heinous crimes and evade capture. We might recall that ‘Bluebeard’ is often aligned with a decadent aristocracy, the abnormal hue of his beard symbolically suggesting ‘blue blood’, and was said to have been inspired by real figures from the upper class who considered themselves beyond the reach of justice or conventional morality.10 Whether it is ignoble noblemen of centuries past or modern-day policeman who think they are above the law, domestic violence and female murder extend to a host of examples (in both fact and fiction) often with no deeper motivations for such crimes other than simple misogyny. The original fairy tale is a discomfiting narrative not only due to the gruesomeness of the crimes committed by its demonic husband, but because his rationale is left perplexingly open.

Tatar has noted that the sexual jealousy motive suggested by some (an early variant on the ‘nag or shag’ defence for domestic homicide still cited in courts today) holds no water, failing to explain what wife no. 1 saw in the forbidden room. Was she simply guilty of disobedience by opening the forbidden door, and thus likely to deceive her husband in other ways? Bluebeard is ultimately a monstrous male figure who abuses his privileged position by killing women he is unable to control.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

103

Whether he is motivated by avarice, anger, insecurity, impotence or simply a psychotic desire to shed blood, the tale remains discomfiting because identifying a likely bluebeard seems impossible. In the Cut presents two detectives with more in common than their matching ‘3 of spades’ tattoos: they are both divorcees who seem bitter about their exes and are happy to exchange demeaning comments about women. What makes one man into a killer takes us all the way back to ‘Bluebeard’ in suggesting a combination of impotence, anger and arrogance. Having had his gun taken from him by the police force when he threatened his adulterous wife, Rodriguez widens his target and choice of weapons, dismembering the bodies of his chosen ‘brides’ and scattering them around Manhattan in a maniacal rage until Frannie confounds his expectations (as well as our own) by using her acquired gun to put a stop to his crimes.11 Like the heroine in ‘Bluebeard’, she is tested yet also transformed by her experience, forced to jettison romantic fantasies to defend herself, avenge her sister and prove any doubters wrong.

Speculating on the likely origins of Perrault’s tale, Zipes has contended that he created a misogynist male as a swipe against fellow critic Nicolas Boileau, additionally suggesting that impotence may serve as a trigger for his enmity (2006: 159–62),12 yet he also cites Philip Lewis in arguing that the character’s murderousness stems simply from aiming to assert masculine superiority at all cost. In answer to the question of what wife no. 1 could possibly have seen to anger her husband so much, Zipes agrees with Lewis that it is precisely because there is ‘nothing in the room’ that triggers his rage: ‘Bluebeard kills her because she realizes there is nothing to justify male domination’ (2011: 159).13 Nonetheless, Zipes evidently regards Bluebeard’s last wife somewhat negatively, seeing her as a schemer who married for money, and who ensures her family profit handsomely from Bluebeard’s death. As he argues, ‘both Bluebeard and his wife are calculating individuals. Neither marries for love but for social or financial advancement ... There is no magic in this tale, and Bluebeard becomes the victim of his own miscalculations’ (2011: 157).

The contended absence of magic ignores the key that remains indelibly stained, alerting Bluebeard to his wife’s alleged transgression, yet we also need to question the use of the term ‘victim’ here. Even if the wife’s motives are financial, her husband remains a serial killer and regarding him as a victim thus seems odd indeed. Equally contentiously, some have argued that Bluebeard’s wife, by dint of her virtue, lacks the same narrative interest of her husband. As Tatar comments, ‘while the wife may appear to occupy the “moral center” of Bluebeard tales, she is in some ways the story’s protagonist only by default’. Citing Lydia Millet’s claim

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 104

Fairy Tale and Film

(1998: 243) that ‘any interest we have in the story lies with its villain’ (2006: 48), Tatar further contends that what arouses our curiosity, ultimately, is ‘both the character who has something to hide and the secret he is harbouring’: The villain and his bloodthirsty deeds, in other words, have a narrative verve that exceeds that of the prospective victim and her act of defiance. Folktales never let us see inside the minds of their protagonists, but given the choice to read the mind of either Bluebeard or his wife, most readers would elect to enter the taboo regions of Bluebeard’s thoughts. (2006: 50) Although his presence looms largest in the tale, wanting to enter Bluebeard’s damaged psyche is a questionable ambition. His character shocks, rather than fascinates, because of the horrors he has committed, and although his motives are never truly explained I’m not sure if this matters. Bluebeard’s forbidden chamber – filled with trophy wives and a pool of blood – is an alluring trope because it is so horrific, yet his last wife remains all the more alluring because she manages to overcome him. Her most integral characteristic – curiosity – is met with comparable courage (how many others might have fainted at the sight?), and the tale’s resilience, several centuries on, is particularly interesting in foregrounding these same qualities in cinematic antecedents.

Where horror films often veer towards excess – presenting an array of corpses and the shocked reaction – the thriller takes a more subtle tack, interrogating the murderous potential of apparently normal men. What Lies Beneath (Robert Zemeckis, 2000) has obvious shades of ‘Bluebeard’ in terms of its homicidal husband, yet the fact that his wife has known him for years adds an interesting touch, clearly having denied the truth about her partner, rather than looking too closely at her marriage. Tatar suggests that a key point to understanding the symbolism of ‘Bluebeard’ lies in how much knowledge a wife can – or should – seek to acquire about her husband. In Secret beyond the Door the husband betrays conflicting desires in his relations with women. Deeming his mother to be too controlling, and his sister and first wife too intrusive, he seeks to keep his second wife at a distance yet ultimately benefits from revealing all to her. Celia’s forgiveness and understanding are only possible because Mark’s murderous fantasies have not been realised – and talking about them is suggested as the first step to mastering his murderous impulses. By contrast, the husband in What Lies Beneath is keen to conceal the fact that he truly has killed. Having murdered a young woman,

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

105

to prevent her revealing their affair, he tries to stop his wife from discovering the truth, seeking to preserve his image as an accomplished, successful and happily married man. His wife, Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer), has been complicit in preserving this image, utterly sublimating herself for the sake of his career and a happy marriage, yet she is forced to confront the truth about her husband when her former rival supernaturally warns her from beyond the grave (or, rather, the lake where her body has been dumped). A necklace guides Claire to uncover the truth about its owner, and in seeking an explanation for the girl’s disappearance she realises her husband’s crime extends beyond his infidelity (a truth she has managed to suppress). Unable to maintain such evasion any longer, Claire is forced to protect both herself and her daughter, with whom the husband is hinted at having an unnatural interest. This talisman from a dead girl might be compared to the grisly punch-line of ‘The Robber Bridegroom’, in which a decapitated female hand – complete with ring – reveals the truth about the groom’s real nature. In this case, however, rather than preventing a dangerous marriage, the film works to end one. Far from necessarily relating a murder investigation, What Lies Beneath probes beneath the surface of a seemingly happy marriage, forcing its heroine to face uncomfortable facts. As with many Gothic melodramas, Claire’s sanity is questioned. In a Hitchcockian MacGuffin near the start of the film, she suspects the worst after a neighbour’s wife goes missing, evidently transferring her own subconscious fears.

Finding out about her husband’s former lover forces her not only to come to terms with her own less than perfect marriage, but also to take stock of her life, with the murdered lover looking so much like herself when she married, putting her musical dreams behind her to support her husband, that a clear link is drawn between both figures. Gifting her with the wisdom and courage needed to end her marriage, her dead double reveals what her husband is capable of, and when Claire’s investigations get too close to the truth his murderous anger reveals how much she has deceived herself. Furious at having been found out, the last scene shows him to be far from the devoted husband he pretended to be, forcing Claire’s car off a bridge, only for his former lover to come to her rescue, drowning him in the same way that he killed her. Claire may start the film uncertain what to do with her life (telling her psychiatrist she suspects she is experiencing an ‘empty nest syndrome’ now that her daughter has left home), yet she ultimately takes control of her destiny, ironically aided by a woman who initially served as a rival.

A film released the same year, with very similar concerns, is The Gift (Sam Raimi, 2000), which also exposes romantic delusions when a

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 106

Fairy Tale and Film

lonely widow realises that a seemingly mild-mannered teacher is not all that he appears to be. If Bluebeard’s defining feature is that of a maniacal control freak, willing to kill to preserve his outward image, Wayne Collins (Greg Kinnear) is no different. Once Annie (Cate Blanchett) starts to follow a lead that implicates him as a killer (aided by the ghost of the woman he killed), he shows his true colours, and although a jealousy motive is offered in reference to his murdered fiancée’s loose ways, the fact that he proves willing to kill again shows the provocation alibi to be false. Like the husband of What Lies Beneath we must look beyond the outward demeanour or respectable profession of each man (as well as their excuses), for these tales dispense with conspicuous features like a blue beard and suggest that any man might conceal a murderous nature. In both films caution and curiosity are advanced as necessary survival traits for female protagonists, making them not only a modernday Bluebeard’s wife, but a mature equivalent of Clover’s Final Girl.

Discovering a capacity for self-reliance they scarcely knew they had, they are able to protect not only themselves from danger, but other women also. The fact that former rivals assist them from beyond their watery graves further adds to their folkloric resonances. If neither figure thought she could survive without a man, the experience they undergo makes them realise this is not so. The police cannot help in these situations and dead women serve in their place to warn and instruct.

Interesting variants in the thriller genre have disentangled the romantic aspects of the ‘Bluebeard’ tale, providing us with intrepid heroines who actively seek out murderous males in their work as professional investigators. Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) features Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) as one such figure, setting out to find the serial killer who has left a trail of female corpses in his wake.

A kidnapped woman is ultimately saved through Starling’s intuitive observational skills and her discussions with best friend Ardelia (Kasi Lemmons), as much as the cryptic hints offered by the psychiatristturned-psychopath Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins).14 We witness a number of forbidden chambers in this film, from the hired lock-up in which Starling finds a severed head in a jar to the underground basement where Buffalo Bill (Jeremy Sands) keeps his next intended victim.

Some have suggested links with the Minotaur legend, particularly given the labyrinthine nature of this basement, which our heroine is forced to explore in darkness, and she notably takes the heroic lead, saving the girl and despatching the monster.15 While imitations would follow, including The Bone Collector (Philip Noyce, 1999), in which a paralysed Denzel Washington instructs a novice cop (played by Angelina Jolie)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

107

in finding a serial killer, female detectives on screen have tended to lack the same qualities as Clarice Starling. Interesting exceptions include the female investigative duo in Copycat (Jon Amiel, 1995) which unites a traumatised serial killer specialist, Dr Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver), with feisty female detective M.J. Monahan (Holly Hunter), to get their murderous man. Other official investigators of interest include Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank), the rookie cop in Insomnia (Christopher Nolan, 2002), who helps catch a killer when a higher ranking officer proves to be corrupt, as well as the female detective Marge Gunderson (Francis Mcdermott), leading the murder investigation in Fargo ( Joel and Ethan Coen, 1996). These scenarios abound with neo-noir ambiguity, cops aren’t as good as they seem, husbands betray their wives for money, and female figures are notably charged with upholding law and order. Continuing the legacy set by the likes of ‘Bluebeard’, ‘The Robber Bridegroom’ and ‘Fitcher’s Bird’, these heroines observe and unearth the truth about monstrous males and use their capacity as officers of the law to wield violence in order to despatch them.

In other cases, where women operate outside the law, the use of violence often poses problems, although some examples present an interesting case of vigilante justice. Jagged Edge (Richard Marquand, 1985) shows how easily a woman can be deceived when lawyer Teddy Barnes (Glenn Close) becomes overly intimate with her defendant, Jack Forrester ( Jeff Bridges): a seemingly charming figure on trial for killing his wife. His innocence, she realises, is a sham, having witnessed his murderous side after securing his acquittal, yet the wife-killer is shot dead as he attacks her, dispensing summary justice, outside the court system, with a gun.16 Like the denouement of In the Cut, imperilled females are thus allowed to kill men who endanger them, although this is clearly presented as self-defence (and the narrative doesn’t trouble itself with questions about what happens when the bodies are found).

The Gift and What Lies Beneath evade the issue of culpability altogether by making a supernatural entity responsible for despatching male killers, and again we are invited to think that justice has been served, with former victims avenging themselves, and protecting other women.

More troubling territory is explored in examples where females aim to confront male violence, with evident difficulties avoiding charges of monstrosity. Dirty Weekend (Michael Winner, 1993), adapted from the novel by Helen Zahavi, transforms a feminist revenge fantasy about a victim-turned-crusader into a vigilante movie where our heroine seemingly takes things too far. Butterfly Kiss (Michael Winterbottom, 1995) presents a distasteful black comedy in which a female serial killer

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 108

Fairy Tale and Film

attacks men whilst travelling around the north of England. Claiming provocation, she is quickly revealed as a psychotic who welcomes her eventual death. By contrast, the biopic of real-life serial killer Aileen Wournos, Monster (Patty Jenkins, 2003), situates a woman’s killing spree against a horrendous life of abuse, inviting us to question the accuracy of the film’s title.

Stieg Larsson’s heroine, Lisbeth Salander, the star of his three Millennium novels – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked a Hornet’s Nest – and their cinematic adaptations, is an interesting fantasy counterpart to Wournos. A woman with a troubled past, who investigates and explicitly targets male abusers and killers of women, Salander is a fascinating figure, a waiflike female avenger who is both intriguing and intimidating. Larsson was partially inspired by Swedish children’s character the nine-year-old Pippi Longstocking, created by Astrid Lindgren (who was herself influenced

by Hans Christian Andersen and Elsa Beskow), and Salander is presented as similarly ‘wayward’, yet attains heroic standing through her defiant attitude. Having witnessed her mother’s continued abuse at the hands of her vile misogynistic father, Salander torches him and is subsequently institutionalised, yet despite being labelled a retarded psychotic by the authorities she earns a formidable reputation for investigative skills that enable her to not only eliminate her father, but trace (and kill) various other male abusers. Larsson has thus created a complex modern heroine who confronts male violence (often with equal violence), representing a formidable variant of Bluebeard’s wife in not only refusing to be a victim but in taking a stand against men who hate women.17 Tatar deems Salander among an emerging group of female ‘tricksters’, a group distinguished by the fact that ‘they are not just cleverly resourceful and determined to survive. They’re also committed to social causes and political change’ (Tatar, 2012). Interestingly, although she links such characters to Scheherazade, Tatar fails to make the connection with her kindred figure, Bluebeard’s wife, despite their overt kinship as women who thwart murderous men. In fact, Bluebeard’s wife may be the ultimate trickster in not only failing to conform to expectations, by not perishing at her husband’s hands, but escaping her perilous marriage with his wealth intact (money used to improve her family’s prospects). Salander may partly be driven by ‘social causes’ in her feminist sympathies, but we might note that she also uses her wits to make a good deal of money for herself, all too aware that survival entails self-reliance.

While we might be tempted to think that such figures as Clarice Starling and Lisbeth Salander challenge the contention that it is Bluebeard,

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

109

rather than his wife, who is the main source of fascination today, new variations on the mysterious male killer curtail the claim. In fact, a number of cult thrillers have emerged that cast male murderers in a new light, designed to evoke our sympathy. Some films have even begun to question the distinction between virtue and villainy via characters that are scarcely aware of their own misdeeds. The wife killers in Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000) and Inception (2010) provide a novel take on ‘Bluebeard’, with murderers no longer presented as monstrous fiends but as pitiable figures. Far from dismissing their dead wives, their loss is keenly felt, too much to even admit to, in each case, with the motif of the ‘forbidden room’ transformed into a recess of their repressed subconscious (an idea that reworks the motif used in Secret beyond the Door).

While American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000) attempts satire in its sadistic yuppie serial killer, utterly lacking any moral restraint,18 Nolan’s protagonists provide much more engaging characters who lose the women in their lives for reasons that are shown to be beyond their control. We might ask if this is a twenty-first-century reboot of the Gothic romance, with sympathetic killers, cursed with tragic pasts, doomed to mourn the women that have been taken from them. The neo-noir men situated in Nolan’s films are not controlling ogres, but the hapless victims of fate, who cannot bear to think of the part they played in their wives’ deaths, and whose punishment is to remain locked inside a permanent state of self-delusion and loss. Have these sympathetic Bluebeard figures elided the wife’s role as either victim or investigative avenger, becoming the chief character we identify with?

Significantly, while the governing characteristic of heroines in ‘Bluebeard’, ‘The Robber Bridegroom’ and ‘Fitcher’s Bird’ is a display of intuition, intrepidness and ingenuity that gets them out of a potentially fatal union, these scenarios do not necessarily condemn all men.

‘Bluebeard’, after all, ends with another marriage for his widow, and even Angela Carter’s version of the tale, ‘The Bloody Chamber’ (1979), has a replacement spouse lined up in the form of a blind piano tuner.

Marriage is thus preserved as a desirable, even inevitable, conclusion, the murderous husband a presumed exception to the norm – just as Perrault sought to argue three centuries ago – although the array of examples that have continued his legacy suggest otherwise. Yet maybe it is not simply the bad fortune of meeting a fiend that hovers around these tales. If we consider the historical conditions in which such stories emerged, ‘Bluebeard’ can be seen to symbolise more than a dangerous man per se. Indeed, it might be understood to warn women that all sexual unions were potentially fatal in some way. Marina Warner has

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 110

Fairy Tale and Film

made the interesting suggestion that the grisly contents of the bloody chamber represent the realities for any potential bride in terms of the risks involved in pregnancy, particularly at a time when childbirth was the major cause of mortality for women (1995: 263). It is a contention that is particularly significant because it invites us to look at the tale from a female perspective and reminds us of the frightening realities that accompanied relationships at their most basic level: sex, and the chance of procreation, could well be fatal, and any man a figurative Bluebeard.

The alliance between women in ‘Bluebeard’, ‘The Robber Bridegroom’ and ‘Fitcher’s Bird’ is additionally notable. Whether it is Anne’s loyalty in electing to reside with her married sister, the female cook who warns the robber’s intended bride (and opts to leave with her), or the youngest sister’s risky dalliance with a wizard in order to retrieve her lost sisters, these are interesting tales of female camaraderie, particularly when contrasted against the bitter female rivalries that typify the best-known fairy tales. The heroine in ‘Fitcher’s Bird’ is especially interesting, saving her sisters by emulating the wizard’s magical powers, as well as saving herself by paralleling his deceitfulness, donning a costume (disguising herself as a bird) for similar reasons as the heroines in ‘Alleriauh’ (Coat of Furs) and ‘Donkeyskin’ – a reversal of Cinderella’s enticing gowns in seeking to escape a man, rather than attract him. It seems likely that ‘Bluebeard’ tales are especially interesting to women because they speak of a range of concerns their female protagonists are faced with, not least of which is an indictment against the abuse of patriarchal power. Cinematic variants often take the side of abused wives who undergo notable transformations, finding greater assertiveness the more their lives are placed at risk – with some even killing their husbands when push comes to shove.

Laura ( Julia Roberts) in Sleeping with the Enemy (Joseph Rubin, 1991) may go to the length of faking her own death to escape an abusive husband, yet turns the tables when he finds and threatens to kill her, phoning the police to tell them she’s shot an intruder before calmly shooting him three times. The title character in Dolores Claiborne (Taylor Hackford, 1995) puts up with humiliating abuse to maintain the semblance of a harmonious family, yet is forced to take action against her husband when she realises that her daughter is being molested. Overseeing his fatal fall in their backyard, she is notably prompted by her ‘bitch’ of a boss, Vera (Judy Parfitt), who alludes to having despatched her own philandering husband (in an interesting reversal of the ‘Bluebeard’ tale), advising her ‘sometimes, Dolores, accidents happen’. Other, more realistic scenarios tend towards bleaker narratives. A hideously abused wife in Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011), subjected to years of horrific

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

111

assaults, eventually slits her husband’s throat yet goes to jail for this patent act of self-defence. In the Valley of Elah (Paul Haggis, 2007) is bleaker still. A brief yet chilling scene reveals a desperate fearful wife who is ignored by military police prior to being killed by her battle-fatigued husband. The tragedy may prompt an investigation by Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), yet this is ultimately carried out for a murdered soldier, rather than the wife they have so badly let down. We may recall Tatar’s observations about traumatised veterans creating ‘Bluebeard’ scenarios, yet the ignored wife in this film also reminds us that not all women get the help they need, even when they have good reason to be scared. Other cinematic examples enable women to take the law into their own hands to thwart violent men, albeit in fairly outlandish ways. The Bride in Kill Bill is a ‘Sleeping Beauty’ who refuses subjugation and ends up killing the man who sought to murder her (and presumably gets away with it). The protagonists in Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005) and Freeway (Matthew Bright, 1996) are apparent damsels in distress who also defiantly rewrite expectations, reminding us, to quote James Thurber’s punch-line, ‘it is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be’.19 Identifying just who the predator is in these scenarios reveals familiar stories bent out of shape. Violence begets violence, some might argue, yet while such variations show the degree to which contemporary protagonists have dispensed with Perrault’s ‘brothers to the rescue’ finale, they also reveal the seemingly ubiquitous threat women are faced with – as well as continued failings of a social system that seems unable to defend them.

Given the shocking degree of violence at its heart, just why ‘Bluebeard’ has interested so many female writers and film-makers remains curious.

An interest in presenting a precarious relationship may not simply be masochism at work, but a desire to examine domestic dangers, perhaps even to pass on the same kind of warning that was told centuries ago, variations of which occur in every culture around the world.20 Some may simply be motivated by the tale’s salacious qualities – corroborating Lieberman’s claim that the husband’s cruelty towards his wife is an act we collude with, rather than condemn, arguing that ‘her function is to provide us with a couple of thrills of a more or less sadistic tincture’ (1984: 199). This is not the case, however, with rewrites that seek to give the heroine greater agency and understanding, as Campion’s examples attest, although her films also affirm that a female perspective is not without controversy or complexity. A recent version of ‘Bluebeard’, made by feminist film-maker Catherine Breillart in 2009, reiterates the point. An interesting framing device is used, set in the 1950s, in which

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 112

Fairy Tale and Film

a young girl, Catherine, relates Perrault’s story to her squeamish older sister, Marie-Anne, in a loft-room. Her version reiterates the idea of the wife marrying for money, and makes her a ‘virgin princess’, while evincing a bloodthirsty imagination. Dispensing with the brothers, Catherine allows the wife to decapitate her murderous husband herself, yet although this suggests a bold revisionism at work, Breillart adds a disturbing end to the tale-within-a-tale. Marie-Anne fearfully backs away from her sister at hearing the final scene. Begging her sister to stop, she loses her footing and falls to her death. As Zipes notes, ‘their mother arrives and seems strangely unaware of her older daughter’s death, even though she stands directly above the girl’s body’ (2011: 168), suggesting that this death may not truly have happened. Perhaps Marie-Anne’s fall symbolises the fate of females who allow fear to get the better of them, or maybe it is indicative of the degree to which Catherine has imaginatively allowed herself to be carried away with her fantasy. There is also another, more disturbing reading: the idea that one sister has truly killed her sibling, perhaps even deliberately. The possibility that such a tragedy could really occur, and the mother’s apparent heedlessness, is reminiscent of the disconcerting way that fairy tales often present familial ruptures and tragedies as the norm. Just as ‘Bluebeard’ de-romanticises the prospect of marriage to a stranger, many fairy tales undermine familial ideals, including the idea that parents will serve as protectors, or that children are necessarily all that innocent. It is this theme of the home as a place of danger, rather than safety, and the suggestion that blood ties may simply put individuals at odds, rather than bind them closer together, that is the next chapter’s central concern.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

5 Houses of Horror: Domestic Dangers and Man-made Monsters

The scary side of fairy tales is often obscured, yet far from being conceived as cosy bedtime reading for children, they originally aimed to entertain listeners of all ages, and a number of gory and gruesome features remain. Monsters may take various forms, but are perhaps most frightening when presumed care-givers are shown to deviate from their role. Child abuse, cannibalism, murder and incest are but some of the crimes that feature in these tales: terrors conspicuously located in the family home – making them veritable houses of horror for imperilled protagonists. The frequent appearance of familial foes has prompted folklorists and psychoanalysts to offer various explanations. Why make mothers and fathers into threatening figures, and turn a place usually associated with security into a dangerous realm protagonists must escape? Do such narratives exaggerate common childhood fears as a means of voicing repressed anxieties, perhaps hoping to incite a level of maturity via characters who are forced to leave their homes and fend for themselves? Or do they voice other (often unspoken) ideas via their manifestly unhappy families? As Angela Carter notes in her introduction to The Virago Book of Fairy Tales: Fairy-tale families are, in the main, dysfunctional units in which parents and step-parents are neglectful to the point of murder and sibling rivalry to the point of murder is the norm. A profile of the typical European fairy tale family reads like that of a ‘family at risk’ in a present-day inner city social worker’s casebook, and the African and Asian families represented here offer evidence that even widely different types of family structures still create unforgivable crimes between human beings too close together. (1990: xix) 113

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 114

Fairy Tale and Film

What does she imply with this notion of being ‘too close together’? The answer can be found in plots featuring new wives violently seeking to oust their predecessor’s offspring from the nest, fathers with an incestuous interest in their daughters, and siblings that see each other only as rivals (all of which challenges the idea that ‘family values’ is a synonym for the best of human behaviour). Psychoanalysts may argue that such storylines reflect primal desires and fears, yet researchers have asserted greater significance in the socio-historic circumstances in which such stories developed, pointing to factors such as multiple marriages and a relative disdain for social prohibitions that led to dysfunctional family relations. Whether we regard fairy tales as an expression of sublimated anxieties, or a reflection of actual experiences, the family is invariably perceived to be ‘damaged’ or deviant in some way, causing us to question if the ability to forge and maintain good relationships within the family unit is just another form of wishful thinking.

Horror cinema reprises a number of familial motifs, including destructive devouring mothers, ‘unnatural’ incestuous fathers, and children who are far from innocent. Given its intended audience, the genre is relatively free to explore taboo subjects, updating seemingly age-old concerns, while also inviting the opportunity to question perceived norms.

In some ways, given its supernatural and surreal qualities, horror cinema has become an ideal forum for rearticulating fairy tale tropes, particularly unhappy families. In detailing abusive parents and aberrant upbringings, the genre offers a relatively unique opportunity to say the unspeakable, articulating flaws and failings that are not simply attributable to psychoanalytic accounts, inviting us to reassess assumptions surrounding parental virtue, villainy and blame. Although capable of corroborating questionable beliefs, as well as challenging them, the horror film has a tendency to subvert expectation, causing us to realign our allegiances and revise our beliefs. A key consideration here is whether these attributes, together with recent attempts to supernaturally reconstruct the family, offer a means of escaping psychoanalytic accounts, perhaps even challenging Carter’s contention that all family structures are inherently problematic.

Despite their reputation as wish-fulfilment fantasies, fairy tales often seek to induce a sense of fear. Indeed, facing what frightens us is the point to many tales, forcing us to realise that there are dangers both abroad and at home, and thereby accommodating audiences to some unpleasant realities – including the idea that parents may be predatory figures rather than protectors. Interestingly, while fairy tales are often criticised for nurturing unrealistic expectations with regard to romance,

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 115

they have been applauded in other quarters for broaching uncomfortable subjects such as a death in the family, or recognition that relatives may be abusers. The fairy tale’s proclivity at unveiling familial problems, whilst also showing children able to survive their experiences, consequently functions as a powerful therapeutic device, according to some psychotherapists.1 Far from simply addressing sublimated anxieties or suppressed desires, such tales thus potentially reflect real difficulties, including those rarely admitted elsewhere. This is an important consideration, suggesting that, rather than seeking to evade reality (as detractors often claim), fantastical conceits may provide the ideal means to discuss ideas we prefer not to think about. Folklorists have debated along similar lines to horror critics in attempting to explain common thematic concerns, with psychoanalytic interpretations often used to assess narratives as a reflection of our unconscious. Fairy tales explicitly invite such a reading, given their abstract nature and the abundance of symbolism used. However, this approach is not without its problems, including a tendency to make questionable assumptions that potentially distort our understanding of fairy tales in the compulsion to ascribe Freud to every scenario (a problem amply demonstrated

by Alan Dundes’ claim that incestuous fathers reflect an Electra complex rather than actual experience).2 According to psychoanalysts, abusive fathers are a figment of girls’ imaginations, wicked stepmothers are likewise imaginary (deriving from a need to protect the maternal ideal), and fairy tales chiefly fulfil the function of helping us negotiate adolescence and adulthood. An evident pitfall, in seeking to apply a pre-established framework of interpretation, is that nothing new is ever admitted or opened to examination, with a reluctance to see beyond these templates and question the familial relationships presented in tales: failing to assess the conflicts and dangers encountered by protagonists as more than necessarily symbolic or imaginary, or adequately considering the social forces that inform these relations. It is in seeking to extend our understanding, rather than entrench given beliefs, that narratives and their readings arguably achieve greater pertinence.

Robin Wood productively conflates psychoanalysis and social critique in perceiving horror cinema’s monsters as a ‘return of the repressed’, reinvigorating psychoanalytic concerns through reference to negated social subjects, rather than drives. The term was originally used by Freud in his paper ‘The Uncanny’ (1919), arguing that repressing illicit fears and desires (an act we all engage in to comply with the demands of civilisation) is never wholly successful, resulting in their manifestation in what he termed as ‘the uncanny’ – fictional representations

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 116

Fairy Tale and Film

that typically feature in our dreams, as well as fantastic fiction. The uncanny – or unheimlich – is a means of unwittingly remembering what has been repressed, and a genre like horror cinema, Wood argues, gives the subconscious shape in the form of various monstrous figures returning from the grave, as it were, to make their presence known.

Equating the ‘repressed’ with marginalised figures in society, Wood claims that ‘one might say that the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses or oppresses’, distinguishing between ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ films through ‘the way in which the monster is presented and defined’, and ultimately how much sympathy they are given (1984: 171, 172).

Horror’s ability to question convention and make us rethink social norms and expectations is epitomised in its depiction of the family: an institution which, far from being presented as healthy or harmonious, is increasingly aligned with monstrosity, a tendency Wood aligns with interesting socio-political potential.3 Critics such as Tony Williams (1996) have extended his ideas, arguing that ‘family horror’ is a distinct subtext in the genre, replete with dysfunctional families and their monstrous progeny, while Chika Kinoshita affirms that ‘single parents, abused, abandoned and/or murdered children constitute most J-horror narratives’ (2009: 107).4 Lest we regard these as recent concerns, fairy tales skewered the idea of happy families centuries ago, suggesting a dysfunctional upbringing was the norm rather than an exception, and thus popularising a motif later espoused in psychoanalysis. Curiously, Freud appears to have overlooked this narrative feature, excluding fairy tales from his examples of the uncanny, arguing that the defamiliarising experience elicited through fantasy does not occur in a genre in which fantastical occurrences are commonplace. Zipes rightly objects to this exclusion, contending that, while all manner of out-of-theordinary experiences occur, fairy tales can still disturb or unsettle us.

In fact, he goes so far as to argue that ‘the very act of reading, hearing and viewing a fairy tale is an uncanny experience in that it separates the reader from the restrictions of reality from the onset and makes the repressed unfamiliar familiar again’ (2011: 2). Fairy tales frequently utilise fantasy to subvert ‘normality’, resulting in unease and sometimes outright horror. Most pertinently, in turning presumed carers into cannibals and killers, the very idea of the unheimlich (literally what is unhomely) is made manifest. By extension, what is homely – and attendant assumptions about who to trust and where we can be safe – are turned on their head in fairy tales, as well as the cinematic narratives that draw from them.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 117

A mainstay of horror is what critics dub ‘the terrible place’ – homes where evil has entered. According to Suzie Mackenzie: Horror is about consciousness, it’s about being awake to whatever it is that threatens us ... It wouldn’t work if we didn’t all, in some way, share the same terror ... be it the Gothic castle of Hammer Horror, the empty ruin in The Blair Witch Project, the suburban home of Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street et al. This place, which we’d thought of as sanctuary, is where the final terror will be enacted. (1999: 9) The terrible place is sanctuary subverted, a house of horror where monstrous figures are encountered. Just as ‘Hansel and Gretel’ (ATU 327A) and ‘Goldilocks’ (ATU 171) warn against entering unknown places, films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974), The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977) and Wrong Turn (Rob Schmidt, 2003) offer the same advice. Characters stray into nightmarish territory when they enter unfamiliar homes and come face to face with the deviant families in residence, often engaged in atrocities such as murder and cannibalism.

Sometimes, these figures are given a backstory, their aberrance explained by existing on the fringes of society and therefore beyond its laws.

There is a hint of this in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), with the Bates Motel losing business due to a motorway diversion, cutting the family off from customers and away from prying eyes. The Sawyer family in Chainsaw is also marginalised by modernity. Former labourers in the meat industry, seemingly dehumanised by their work yet unwilling to separate themselves from it, they turn their isolated home into a slaughterhouse for straying humans such as Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) – the family dinner scene a horrific variation on Alice’s tea with the Mad Hatter and his friends. The family in The Hills Have Eyes are equally aberrant and abhorrent. The suggested result of nuclear radiation testing, they are similarly conceived as man-made monsters, lacking any sense of kinship with a world that has excluded them.

Wrong Turn ups the ante on the inbred hillbilly motif popularised in earlier horrors, their grotesque physical malformation a visible sign of their moral degradation.5 The protagonists who survive these films all undergo an extreme rite of passage, leaving their homes, facing monstrous antagonists, yet living to tell their tale; thereby fulfilling Joseph Campbell’s template of the hero’s journey.6 However, freakish families do not exist simply on the margins of society, and horror can reside even in apparently normal homes, forcing us to rethink the usual equation of home and safety.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 118

Fairy Tale and Film

The adolescent heroine in Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987) is set against a wicked stepmother who fatally betrays her father and turns the family home into a charnel house, propelling Kirsty towards independence when forced to rely on her wits.7 A similar theme is evident in Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978), A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984) and the Scream franchise (Wes Craven, 1996–2011), all of which situate killers in ordinary suburbs where parents fail to protect their adolescent offspring. Indeed, the slasher’s popularity with the teen market is partly explained by confirming their suspicions about an uncomprehending and untrustworthy adult world.8 Parents are unable to keep their children from harm, or understand the hazards they face, and selfsufficiency comes through realising this is the case. Fairy tales similarly insist on a necessary separation from parents. Death generally takes at least one parent before the child reaches adulthood, inviting ongoing problems for bereaved children. When a mother dies – as is usually the case – their daughters are either faced with ‘unnatural’ fathers who regard them as a replacement, or experience murderous jealousy from stepmothers. Abusive parents abound, with abandonment, infanticide and incest featuring among the perils child figures have to contend with as adults shockingly repudiate their presumed role as carers, forcing the protagonist to leave the family home. In most cases, however, a form of compensation is provided. A supernatural figure may be assigned to watch over bereaved children and help them prosper, while villainous parents generally get their comeuppance (admittedly mothers much more frequently than fathers). Moreover, although families are often positioned as sites of difficulty, successful adulthood is ultimately equated with marriage and having a family of one’s own, recuperating the familial ideal, even as this flies in the face of unhappy experience.

It is partly due to this ambivalence that Laura Hubner contends that: The fairy tale, as elastic, fantastical vehicle for imaginary worlds and taboo subject matter, can act as a strong voice for societal fears.

But its powers to subvert and challenge existing codes and practices only partly account for its functioning in respect of fear, since fairy tales also use fear to purify and refine, to revert as much as to subvert, often embracing long-established boundaries and pathways.

(Hubner, 2007)9 Accordingly, while the fairy tale uses dread and disorder to voice specific anxieties, it also re-establishes order and normalcy. Witches, ogres and abusive parents are generally exposed and overcome, and the virtuous

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 119

are rewarded, leaving us with a happy ending. However, the horror film is not bound by the same tendencies and often refuses to mollycoddle viewers in this way. Similarly situated as a ‘fantastical vehicle’ – yet enjoying greater freedom in terms of addressing an adult audience (and choosing its subject matter accordingly) – the genre serves as one of the few repositories our culture permits for revealing the more unpleasant aspects of human nature and asking some potent questions about our conception of normality – as well as its aberrations. Who tends to be assigned greater responsibility for raising children, for example, and who assumes the greater burden of blame in any accusations of parental misconduct are just some of the issues recent horror has involved itself with – often reprising, as well as occasionally repudiating, familiar fairy tale tropes.

Maternal malevolence is one such theme, established as archetypal and therefore presumed to be ever-present, yet, as Warner eloquently attests, ‘an archetype is a hollow thing, but a dangerous one, a figure or image which through usage has been uncoupled from the circumstances which brought it into being and goes on spreading false consciousness’ (1995: 239). The fairy tale’s tendency to foreground maternal villainy can be accounted for in various ways: from editorial policies that saw flawed fathers effaced from collections to arguments that, as the primary care-giver, mothers make a more apt target for hostility.10 ‘Hansel and Gretel’ (ATU 327A) illustrates the gender discrepancy at work, blaming the mother for conceiving the plan to abandon their children in the woods, when starvation looms, whilst making the father a reluctant accessory. No grudges are held towards him when the children return, and the mutual elimination of witch and mother clearly nominates the preferred parent. Even when fathers are presented at their worst, seeking to sexually abuse their own daughters in tales such as ‘Donkeyskin’ (ATU 510B), fairy tales often find a way to blame mothers for such crimes, with dying queens inadvertently condemning their daughters by urging their husbands to remarry only someone in their likeness.11 Fathers thus tend to eschew parental responsibility, through either evasion or absence, proving so ineffectual in tales like ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Snow White’ that they may as well not exist. ‘The Juniper Tree’ (ATU 720) pushes paternal innocence to its limit when a resentful stepmother murders her stepson and serves his remains to his unwitting father. Despite these efforts to obscure her villainy, the boy gains revenge from beyond the grave. With the help of his stepsister, Marleen, who buries his bones under a tree, alongside his mother’s remains, he is magically reborn as a bird and secures various gifts for his family: a

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 120

Fairy Tale and Film

handkerchief for the sister who resurrected him and a gold chain for his father (who devoured him with gusto!), and drops a millstone onto his killer. Order is thus restored; the bird resumes human form and the family (minus the stepmother) sit down to eat together. Paternal neglect is happily forgiven, a virtuous female redeems her mother’s crime, and supernatural means ensure that justice is served. Horror has provided some fascinating new takes on this theme (neatly encapsulated by the tale type ‘A Child Returns from the Dead’ (ATU 769)), often challenging the tendency to let male parents off the hook.

The mistreated child, returning from the dead, appears in a number of Japanese horror films. In Ringu (Nakata Hideo, 1998) a girl is deemed unnatural by her father, accused of bringing bad luck, and thrown into a well by her mother and left to die. In Ju-on (Shimizu Takashi, 2000) a young boy is killed at home with his mother when his father discovers her crush on a teacher and goes berserk. These wrongful deaths each result in a curse that unleashes an invincible evil in the world. Although the female investigators who unearth these crimes seek to lay unhappy souls to rest (in similar vein to Marleen), this attempt at appeasement fails to work (a funeral for Ringu’s Sadako making as little difference as burning the family home down in Ju-on), with the quest for vengeance never abated.12 Wood’s notion of the ‘return of the repressed’ is thus updated. The ‘monsters’ presented are revealed as victims of atrocious acts by family members (motivated by ignorance, anger and jealousy) yet achieve no peace once their story is told, seeking only to perpetuate the misery they have suffered. In other examples formerly abused children may not necessarily assume supernatural powers, but similarly horrify in the extremes of violence they prove capable of.

Audition (Takashi Miike, 2000) offers the unlikeliest of monsters in the slight yet deranged young woman at its centre, Asami (Shiina Eihi).

Abused as a girl, her profound mistrust of men is further provoked by a widowed TV producer who fabricates a reality show to find himself a new partner. Of course, the real Asami is not revealed in her résumé, or their first date together (in which she attests ‘my family is very harmonious, very ordinary’). Instead, she is shown to be the product of a very warped background and his dream of finding the ideal woman terrifyingly backfires.13 Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) wrongly uses his position to attract Asami, and becomes involved with her, yet pays a heavy price when she discovers his deception and is almost killed in his home before his son finally despatches her. Significantly, however, Asami’s monstrosity reflects what others have done to her: her sadism emulating the dance teacher who abused her as a child, just as her

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 121

deceptiveness mirrors her duplicitous lover (with both parties lying in the audition). Takashi’s apparent intent is to warn against an industry that legitimates male power, exploits vulnerable figures and dangerously obscures reality. In line with the father in Ringu, who experiments on his young daughter, or Ju-on’s murderous patriarch, these films challenge the reprieve that flawed fathers tend to be given in the fairy tale, suggesting any ‘monstrosity’ is symptomatic of a greater villain at large, namely patriarchy.

Orphan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009) similarly concerns itself with the deceptiveness of appearances, not only in terms of the apparent child taken in by a family, but the ease with which maternal blame is used to deflect her villainy. A grieving couple, motivated by the loss of their stillborn daughter, adopt an unusual girl from an orphanage. However, while the mother, Kate (Vera Farmiga), becomes convinced she is malevolent, the father is somewhat sinister in his relationship with Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman). Attracted by her creativity, and flattered by her devotion to him, he ignores his wife’s suspicions – dismissively alluding to the drink problem she has battled with since losing their baby – and is easily taken in by Esther, even as their own children become endangered by her. We eventually learn that what appears to be a young girl is really a physically stunted woman masquerading as a child. Her damaged backstory explains her reasons. Sexually abused by her father from a young age, she has since sought to replicate this relationship, killing various foster fathers when they reject her advances. Sadly, this background is not intended to induce sympathy, but to explain her deviancy, revealed as it is after countless acts of violence affirm her psychotic nature. The mother is effectively alienated from her husband through Esther’s manipulations, and treated with disapproval and distrust by her mother-in-law and psychiatrist, while the impostor seeks to take her place in the home by seducing her husband. Rejection results in his murder, and Kate is finally forced to despatch her rival with lethal force. Unlike female figures in films like Ringu – who offer maternal love to the ghosts of abused children, no matter how violent – we are presented with a warped grown-up here, who, the film asserts, is too damaged to be redeemed and simply needs to be eliminated. On the verge of drowning her (emulating a near-tragedy for their surviving daughter, due to Kate’s drinking), Esther appeals to her maternal spirit, pleading ‘please don’t hurt me, mommy’, yet the response is a fatal blow, accompanied by the words: ‘I’m not your fucking mummy!’

Although heavily criticised, Orphan is an effective shocker, interestingly updating the changeling myth in the fake child who threatens the

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 122

Fairy Tale and Film

unfortunate family. Diane Purkiss (2000) has elaborated on the history of this motif, arguing that sickly or unwanted children would be accused of having been replaced by fairies. Infant deaths would also be blamed on these creatures, while fears that dead children might return to harm their siblings reflected a lingering concern for grieving mothers, aware how easily a child could be taken from them.14 Orphan reworks many of these ideas. The mother’s vulnerability, having lost her baby at birth, is exacerbated by an uneasy relationship with her husband, pronounced guilt over her past drinking, and accusations of neglect. Appallingly isolated and mistrusted, she finally proves her maternal virtue in successfully defending her children, while her husband pays a fatal price for his egotism. It is only a shame that the redemption of one woman necessitates the vilification of another. Despite admirably challenging the ‘neurotic mother’ trope, the film’s portrayal of Esther is utterly reprehensible, dehumanising an incest survivor by presenting her as evil.15 A cautionary tale, Orphan is reminiscent of folk tales that warn against ‘excessive’ grieving, instructing its mother not to attempt replacing her lost child, and forcing her to focus on her remaining children instead.16 The Daisy Chain (Aisling Walsh, 2007) provides another changeling tale in which a mother’s grief is similarly shown to make her vulnerable, although in this case the lesson sadly comes too late. A pregnant woman, Martha Conroy (Samantha Morton), relocates with her husband to his hometown in rural Ireland. We learn that they lost a baby girl through cot-death and regard the move as a means of putting this tragedy behind them, yet strange events occur shortly after their arrival.17 Their neighbours’ youngest child drowns and the parents burn to death soon afterwards, prompting the couple to take in their orphaned daughter, Daisy (Mhairi Anderson). Martha realises that the girl suffers from autism and reaches out to her where others recoil in fear.18 The apparent victim of local superstition, Daisy is suspected of being a changeling, an accusation Martha responds to with incredulity, reminding her husband that the myth was created to get rid of poorly children. The locals maintain that the girl poses a danger, preventing her admission to school, and while Martha refuses to give in to such prejudice, or her husband’s desire to have the girl looked after by the state, dressing her in fairy clothes and encouraging her interest in fairies also seems a little odd under the circumstances. She apparently pays the price for her trusting nature when her adoptive daughter touches her pregnant stomach as she is about to bathe, seemingly prompting bleeding, and ignores her cries to get help.

The husband arrives to see his dead wife on the floor and anxiously searches the house, only to see Daisy has his newborn son tucked in a

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 123

shoebox. She asks what they will call him, and he responds by taking the child and looking at her in fear.

Intent on preserving a sense of mystique, the film evades a simple ‘evil child’ scenario, with Daisy appearing to be the victim of superstition in many ways. Although ostensibly unaffected by the horrific deaths of her family, as well as Martha’s plight, it is unclear how much her autism is responsible for limiting her emotional response, and her danger is never explicitly confirmed, even if it is intimated in the fatalities that surround her. She is somewhat vindicated by saving the baby, demonstrating a remarkable ability to deliver it safely, and seemingly nurturing it, yet the ending also leaves plenty of room for doubt. How could such a young child know what to do in this situation? Is she intended to be a ‘good’ fairy? And what should we make of the fact that, although she takes care to keep the covers away from the baby’s face (as Martha has instructed her), she covers her doll’s face after the baby is taken, and says enigmatically ‘can’t breathe now’ (which some have read as cursing the newborn to suffer a similar cot-death as its sibling)? Although the film prompts sympathy with Daisy, highlighting the ease with which people in a seemingly advanced society collaborate to ostracise and condemn her, this is undermined by Martha’s death.

If Orphan’s father endangers his family by trusting Esther too much, Martha similarly focuses too much on Daisy, intent on seeing only the best in her, yet tragically pays with her life.

A still more disturbing take on the idea of a changeling child occurs in The Dark (John Fawcett, 2005). Set in rural Wales, James (Sean Bean) is visited by his estranged American wife, Adele (Maria Bello), and their daughter Sarah (Sophie Stuckey). A girl emerges from the water soon after this reunion, intent on taking the place of the daughter, whom she bears an uncanny resemblance to. Mining elements from Ringu, the backstory provided for Ebrill (Abigail Stone) is one of extreme paternal abuse. Her mother died when she was young, leaving her in the care of a monstrous father. As an elderly local informs us, Ebrill was a sickly child whose body was given to the ocean, yet her father – the local pastor – persuaded his congregation to kill themselves at the cliff-side, hoping this would enable her return. A marker is situated at the site of this mass suicide, inscribed with the word ‘Annwyn’ – the term for the afterlife in Welsh mythology. Although Ebrill did return, ‘something came back with her’, and her father became convinced that she was evil. After performing primitive brain surgery he tries to drown her yet falls into the same waters as his doomed flock. Ebrill obviously does not wish to remain beneath the waves and is intent on making James

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 124

Fairy Tale and Film

her new father. Her lack of interest in a mother is seemingly explained by the fact that a father is all she knows, yet Adele is also shown to be flawed, admitting to lashing out at her daughter when alone with her in America, creating an evident rift between them. Her remorse is clear, yet any chance of atonement is harshly repudiated. Despite sacrificing herself at the cliff, thinking this will save her daughter, Adele is captured by the evil father and daughter in their watery domain. Begging for a second chance at life with Sarah, Adele is allowed to return, yet the bleak ending reveals that this is only as a spirit, leaving her unable to prevent Ebrill taking possession of her daughter. The last scene is of this fake child smiling happily at home with her new daddy while Adele’s ghost can only watch, vainly tapping the window in anguish.

Any sense of injustice at this finale is supposedly mitigated by the fact that Adele has shown herself to be a ‘bad’ mother, having hit her daughter. Although this is shown to be an isolated incident, which she deeply regrets, nothing can apparently redeem it. The resentment Sarah bears towards her mother seems to provide the way in for the evil entity, eliminating both mother and daughter to recreate Ebrill’s ideal family. Like The Daisy Chain, a remote location is used to interrogate the dangers of local myths and superstitions, only to leave a tragically restructured family. An abused female spirit successfully manipulates a caring mother in order to set up home with her husband, cruelly taking possession of their daughter. Once again, the suggestion made is that mistreated offspring will simply replicate what adults teach them. Ebrill even attempts to assist her father in trepanning Adele in the same horrific way that she was abused, unable to evince any sense of empathy (or understanding of appropriate behaviour) because this was denied to her. Adele’s judgement as a mother, and her ultimate punishment, is frustratingly cruel. If the burden of singlehandedly looking after her daughter caused her to momentarily snap, she has no opportunity to make amends. As with fairy tales of old, the father is absolved of responsibility for his child’s fate, an innocent to the end, while the mother is disproportionately blamed. Adele is cursed with knowing that she has failed to keep her daughter from harm and cannot undo the damage she has caused. As Tatar notes of ‘The Juniper Tree’, ‘in the end the motherless household becomes the happy household’ (1992: 224) – and Ebrill’s happiness in her new home is undeniable.

Horror has a tendency to judge mothers harshly, reflecting dominant cultural expectations that routinely question maternal failings, often criticising ‘over-involvement’ as well as neglect, although a reprieve is also offered at times. The Others (Alejandro Amenabar, 2001) and Carrie

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 125

(Brian de Palma, 1976) each provide ‘devouring’ mothers who take too close an interest in their children, smothering and repressing them, while also seeking to destroy them; yet their intense religious beliefs additionally explain their ‘monstrosity’.19 Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009), based on a novel by Neil Gaiman, offers a refreshingly candid take on the impossibility of the maternal ideal. ‘Other Mother’ (Teri Hatcher) may seem to fulfil the heroine’s desires – smiley, syrupy voiced, able to cook and taking a keen interest in her – yet this apparent dreamcome-true is revealed to be the nightmarish ‘Beldam’20 – who sucks the souls from children. Once the heroine realises her true nature, her real distracted mother proves infinitely preferable.

A supernatural entity is often used to test mothers, often forcing them to extreme lengths to demonstrate their maternal devotion, sometimes putting their children before their very lives. As fairy tales repeatedly infer: good mothers are invariably dead mothers, with self-sacrifice the true measure of maternal worth, a theme horror cinema has increasingly reprised. In the Dark Water films – both the original Japanese feature and its US remake – a troubled mother is trapped in an isolated apartment block by a spirit that demands she forfeit her life to protect her child. The source tale, significantly, enables her to avoid such tragedy. In the original story, ‘Floating Water’ (by Ring author Koji Suzuki), a single mother is haunted by a child, whose body lies in a water tank in the building she has just moved into. The author avoids disclosing whether this tragedy is real or imagined, yet the mother’s extreme repression, and cold demeanour towards her daughter, cause us to question both her state of mind and her maternal competence, something she becomes aware of after succumbing to a vision in the bathroom.

Acknowledging her terrified daughter’s reaction to her crumbling composure, she admits, ‘it would take enormous emotional strength to be a good mother to her’ (Suzuki, 2006: 49). The story ends with the pair relocating, apparently leaving the spirit behind as the mother resolves to make more effort to consider her daughter’s well-being. Ironically, although both films kill the mother off they also make her a much more sympathetic figure, with any ‘instability’ emanating from the strain her former husband puts on her in seeking custody of their daughter.

In the original cinematic adaptation, Dark Water (Hideo Nakata, 2002), Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki) is recently divorced (unlike her character in the story), which serves as a catalyst for the problems experienced.

Forced to relocate to a dilapidated apartment, its damp problems ignored by the caretaker, a critique is invited of the poor housing conditions those on a low income are forced to accept – as well as the lack of

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 126

Fairy Tale and Film

power for a woman on her own. Although Yoshimi strives to cope with inhospitable living conditions, the price for seeking independence from her husband, and custody of their daughter, Ikuko (Rio Kanno), proves costly. We learn that a girl of similar age, Mitsuko (Mirei Oguchi), died in the apartment above, the apparent victim of maternal neglect, and her presence in their home evokes understandable dread. Wanting the mother to herself, Mitsuko threatens Ikuko, forcing Yoshimi to make the ultimate sacrifice to appease the spirit. Trapped in an elevator, the doors reopen to reveal only a flood of dark water, and Ikuko tearfully realises that her mother is gone.

Is the dead child intended as an indictment of divorce, inferring fatherless children are endangered in some way? The original story reveals that the mother was descended from three generations where children were raised without a father, a fact seemingly used to comment on rising divorce rates in Japan and suggest accompanying problems.

However, Nakata’s film adopts much greater sympathy for Yoshimi and the difficulties she faces as the main provider (and carer) of a young child. The husband, as she states, had no interest in Ikuko until their divorce, and seems to resent even picking her up from school, making his demand for custody perplexing. A closing scene, titled ‘ten years later’, movingly shows an older Ikuko reunited with her mother in the haunted apartment, clearly continuing to grieve her loss, yet the spirit reappears in the corner of the room, dashing any hope of reconciliation.

The US version of Dark Water (Walter Salles, 2005) renders the plight of its heroine, Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly), equally affecting. The husband’s infidelity forces the family apart in this version and he stoops low in the custody battle over their daughter, Ceci (Ariel Gade), using Dahlia’s troubled childhood to question her sanity and suitability as a mother. Once again, the mother proves herself in a way no court would comprehend. When a ghostly girl takes up residence with them, Dahlia makes the ultimate gesture of maternal virtue, sacrificing herself to save Ceci. Interestingly, a favourite game involves Dahlia playing an ogress, pretending to devour Ceci, a subtle reference perhaps to the accusation made by her husband’s legal team (and wider society) – that a single mother like herself may damage her daughter, just as her own mother is deemed to have damaged her. The film partly supports the idea that Dahlia is a victim of her mother’s malign influence (experiencing flashbacks to an unhappy childhood), yet profound economic and gender inequalities are still more strongly critiqued (forced to downsize both her home and job because her former husband wishes to eliminate her from his new family set-up). The ending’s alignment with the husband’s

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 127

wishes is disconcerting, removing Dahlia from his life and granting him custody of their daughter. The sacrifices she makes range from taking a job for which she is vastly overqualified (attracted by the healthcare plan) to courageously seeking to put an unhappy soul to rest, yet like the original film’s heroine, Dahlia must ultimately forfeit the thing she most desires: her ability to live with her daughter. The ending may affirm that she lives on in some way, braiding Ceci’s hair in a touching affirmation of their mother–daughter bond, yet she is nonetheless prevented from raising her. The motif of a dead mother watching over her child from beyond the grave reprises the consolatory leanings of fairy tales like ‘The Juniper Tree’ and early versions of ‘Cinderella’, yet the insistence on such a tragic end remains unsettling, as is the suggestion that ‘troubled’ women find some kind of peace through death (where they get to mother unhappy spirits in lieu of their own offspring).

Laura (Belén Rueda) in The Orphanage (J.A. Bayona, 2007) is, like Dahlia, haunted by an unhappy childhood, and condemned to an equivalent fate. She returns to the orphanage she grew up in, hoping to transform it into a happy family home and give children like herself a better start.

However, this would-be home is a sinister place, filled with unhappy spirits, and tragedy results. Laura’s adopted son goes missing and is presumed dead. She eventually discovers his body in a basement and realises that she is to blame, having bricked up the doorway without realising that he was hiding inside. Consumed by guilt, she takes pills to end her torment, and begs the child spirits murdered at this site to allow her son to return to her. Mother and son are duly reunited in death, and with her former playmates gathered around, her desire to take care of needy children is bizarrely fulfilled.

‘A mother’s love is forever’ – so reads the tag line of another film produced by Guillermo del Toro – although the context makes the refrain as disturbing as it is comforting. Mama (Andrés Muschietti, 2013) is effectively a haunted house tale in which a young woman battles a possessive female spirit, acquiring maternal feelings for her two charges along the way. The vast Gothic home is provided by a psychiatric institution to house two traumatised children, recently discovered in a cabin in the woods where they apparently lived alone for four years. As we learn, they were not truly alone, with ‘Mama’ (a ghostly woman who once lived in the cabin) watching over them and following them to their new home. A custody battle ensues as Mama hospitalises their new guardian, Uncle Luke (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), forcing his girlfriend to take care of them. Annabel (Jessica Chastain), a musician in a rock band, who starts the film thanking god her pregnancy test is negative

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 128

Fairy Tale and Film

and repeatedly tells her boyfriend that looking after the girls is not her job, forfeits her former convictions, quitting the band when the girls are found, raising them alone when Luke is hospitalised, and battling the spectral presence that sees her as a rival. Mama, she discovers, is the unhappy spirit of a woman from the nineteenth century, who, when threatened with having her child taken from her, threw herself and her baby from a cliff. Her baby’s remains have been shelved all this time, denied a decent burial, and this separation of mother and child presumably prevents her spirit from resting. An effort is made to parallel this tragic past with a dysfunctional family in the present, the girls in the woods having been taken there by their deranged father, who killed his wife, abducted his young daughters and sought to kill them also before Mama stepped in. Ultimately, two women are engaged in a custody dispute, with Mama and Anabelle each staking a claim on the girls, culminating in a troubling compromise. Luke reappears, only to prove irrelevant once more as Mama knocks him out and takes the youngest girl, Lily, over the cliff to live with her in the afterlife.

Annabelle manages to keep hold of Victoria and declares her love, her rejection of motherhood firmly repudiated, and the film ends with two reconstructed families, one alive, and the other dead. Although a protective spirit in many ways, Mama’s monstrosity is ultimately affirmed by her selfishness, willing to commit infanticide, yet again, rather than relinquish the girls she has taken custody of. When Annabelle reunites Mama with her baby’s remains, hoping she will find peace and release the girls, she responds by embracing and then dashing the bones to the ground. Opting to take Lily instead – and taking her life in the process – she thus proves herself a devouring mother to the end. Even as the young girl giggles delightedly at being reunited with the only mother she has ever known, and a moth suggests she will keep visiting her sister in this guise, it remains the case that a young girl has been murdered, and two sisters tragically separated, in an end that is hard to cheer.

This feeling is in keeping with the finale of Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006). Although much comment has been devoted to the contrasting worlds depicted in the film, questioning whether the fairy tale aspects are simply a product of its heroine’s imagination, equally pertinent is the fact that her family conflicts can only be resolved through death. A distant mother and a stern resentful stepfather prompt Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) to engage in some familiar coping strategies, constructing a family romance in which she casts herself as a lost fairy princess, yet whether this fantasy family is preferable to her own is open to question. Has Ofelia truly forgotten her fairy identity, as the voice-over

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 129

states, or repressed unpleasant memories of her past? As the opening narration informs us, the fairy world is by no means idealised, with her former fairy ‘self’, Princess Moanna, longing to escape its darkness and evading her ‘keepers’ to do so, begging the question of why her father was so intent on keeping her captive. Hubner affirms that Ofelia’s greatest attribute is her refusal to obey commands (2007: 6), which includes refusing to hand her newborn brother to the faun (Doug Jones) when told his blood is needed to open the labyrinth and allow her to return ‘home’. Ultimately, her own blood enables this transition when she is killed by her stepfather, yet her sacrifice is troubling because of her extreme youth, as well as the uncertainty of any afterlife. Even a prepubescent girl, it seems, must prove herself through maternal martyrdom, placing the life of an ‘innocent’ before her own, just as her mother did.

Despite Ofelia’s disobedience, we might ask if she conforms to a patriarchal model of behaviour nonetheless, and question if she really goes to a better place in death, the faun providing ample cause to distrust his version of events. Although some have approved the film’s refusal to idealise its fairy tale motifs, the fact that every member of Ofelia’s family is dead by the end, bar her baby brother, provides a truly tragic finale, with the prodigal princess’s return suggested to be a dying girl’s delusion.

Duplicity and disavowal assume considerable significance in the Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Jee-woon, 2003), which reprises the likes of ‘Snow White’ in terms of a seemingly wicked stepmother, yet also advises us to rethink assumptions by revealing a combination of denial and transference at work.21 A Gothic horror, situated in a disturbed family home, the story is framed as the recollection of an adolescent girl, Su-mi (Im Soo-jung), relating events to a psychiatrist – a device that informs us that a very subjective (and perhaps suspect) narrative position is taken in the family portrait provided. The film’s mesmerising mise-en-scène is justifiably renowned, yet the strangeness of its central performances is especially notable. The stepmother appears to be the most ‘normal’ of all the characters, which is odd, given the enmity with which she is regarded by Su-mi. The father is absurdly disengaged throughout, yet shown to be the cause of their conflict and consequently the trauma haunting the house. In one of his few lines of dialogue he admits to having been a ‘bad father’, although his role as a husband is more in question, having been involved with his new wife when Su-mi’s mother was still alive. What happened to the mother is the mystery we assume to be at the heart of the story, yet A Tale of Two Sisters deceives us in a number of ways. This includes its marketing image: a family portrait in which two girls sit in bloodstained clothes

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 130

Fairy Tale and Film

behind their smiling stepmother, accompanied by the tag line ‘fairy tales were never this grimm’. In fact, the film pours cold water on the ‘wicked stepmother’ trope, with Su-mi’s trauma revealed as a repressed memory that has distorted her perceptions. Initially stemming from a relatively ordinary event, losing her mother and gaining a substitute, this deepens into a complex tragedy. We realise that her younger sister, Su-yeon (Moon Geun Young), is also dead (her presence fabricated by Su-mi) and the cause of her death is stranger still, with all the females of the family involved: the mother, who hanged herself in a closet (seemingly) and whose lifeless body fell on Su-yeon, fatally crushing her; the stepmother, who (apparently) saw this incident but failed to intervene; and Su-mi herself, who did not hear her sister’s cries and could not consequently save her. While the stepmother seems to be unfairly maligned up until this ‘revelation’, the suggestion that she dismissed Su-yeon’s plight makes us think again. Did the mother really commit suicide, or did the stepmother do away with her rival and subsequently allow her daughter to die? Given the fact that Su-mi was in the garden during this incident, we cannot be sure that her stepmother was there herself and realise our only certainty is that a beloved sister died and that a mixture of guilt and transference are used by the surviving sibling to deal with this loss. The stepdaughter is shown to be an unreliable witness, granting the ‘wicked’ stepmother a rare reprieve, in similar fashion to Snow White: A Tale of Terror (Michael Cohn, 1996), as we are invited to reassess our assumptions. The stepmother is beautiful, chic and obviously resented by Su-mi, who seeks to usurp her role, arranging her father’s underwear and stroking his face at night, lending a Freudian subtext to Su-mi’s underlying ‘issues’ and causing us to wonder if she was responsible for her mother’s death. Intriguingly enigmatic, the film interestingly questions the hoary trope of maternal monstrosity, granting the stepmother considerable sympathy not only in having to face Su-mi’s relentless hostility, but in the fact that she is also haunted by the house and its unhappy spirits, taking daily medication administered by her distant husband.

Aligning A Tale of Two Sisters with other Korean horror films, such as the Whispering Corridors series, Jinhee Choi claims that troubled female spirits represent an ‘adolescent female sensibility which has hitherto been neglected by many mainstream genres’ (2009: 56). Adam Knee makes a similar point about Asian horror’s wider interest in wronged girls, asserting that in ‘Ringu and many of the wave of films following it there is ... a vengeful desire for justice on the part of a girl or woman who has been wronged and it is here that the emotions of honour and

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 131

guilt in which these films are often immersed originate’ (2009: 73).

According to Knee, the motif of ‘unruly female ghosts insisting they be recognised’ reflects a ‘deeper preoccupation with the status of the feminine in a changing Asia’ (78), prompting us to consider how developments in education and the workplace have impacted on gender roles and family structures, as well as cinematic representations. Are unhappy spirits, and the unearthing of family secrets, a progressive attempt to return the repressed to their rightful place in the world and seek a more egalitarian future? Do these films ask us to take subordinated females more seriously, or do they reiterate the same old stories in either making female ‘monsters’ too malevolent to be sympathetic, or recouping femininity through the most passive of gestures, self-sacrifice? Most importantly, where is any sense of guilt and blame finally projected?

The dead mother and sister who haunt the family home in A Tale of Two Sisters fail to reveal what really happened, with the circumstances describing Su-Yeon’s death so outlandish as to seem improbable. The father’s evasion of culpability is equally unconvincing. His insistence on keeping his second wife sedated appears sinister and controlling – and what should we make of his confession to being a ‘bad father’?

Because the entire narrative is refracted through Su-mi’s viewpoint, we can only guess at the answers, placing us in the role of the investigating psychiatrist, listening to an account that fails to cohere. We are forced to reconsider fairy tale clichés not only about wicked stepmothers but about the innocent persecuted heroine also, acknowledging a transference of blame and guilt from daughter to stepmother, while also suggesting such reversals are just another evasion of what is really going on: a warped family portrait presented from the distorted perspective of a desiring daughter.

While A Tale of Two Sisters hints at the narrator’s incestuous interest in her father, its US version, The Uninvited (Tom and Charlie Guard, 2009), makes this suggestion explicit, with Su-mi’s counterpart, Anna (Emily Browning), killing both her mother and her stepmother, as well as her sister, to have her father to herself.22 Her apparent guilt in failing to save her sister is thus a cover story, used to conceal the fact that she secretly desires her father, rehashing Freud’s transference of incestuous desire from father to daughter. Like Orphan’s Esther, Su-mi and Anna are pathologised for their illicit feelings – albeit in a manner so excessive it may be read as a parody of the Electra complex. In a similar vein, Jacques Demy’s pantomime version of ‘Donkeyskin’, Peau d’ane (1970), has been perceived by some critics as a pastiche of the original tale and its Freudian interpretations, although the fact that the princess

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 132

Fairy Tale and Film

(Catherine Deneuve) has no objection to marrying her father (and is only dissuaded because her fairy godmother desires him for herself) undermines such arguments, as does the film’s very questionable tone.23 Father–daughter incest is a theme that has understandably proved to be unpopular for publishers and film-makers, in pointed contrast to monstrous mothers, with few cinematic examples daring to explore this taboo subject. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch, 1991) repeats some of the problems in Demy’s film in terms of its style and how seriously it is intended, updating the paternal incest theme of ‘The Maiden without Hands’ (ATU 706), alongside the ‘devil-made-me-do-it’ alibi.

The TV series, Twin Peaks (ABC 1990–91), already courted controversy in this respect, with commendations for discussing incest in a prime-time drama undermined by excusing the victim’s father with a supernatural explanation. (Revealed to have repeatedly raped and finally killed his own daughter, the father is said to be possessed by an evil spirit called ‘Bob’ and dies soon after he is caught.) As a prequel, Lynch’s film makes difficult viewing because it recounts Laura Palmer’s final days with macabre prurience, focusing on a crime that can never be adequately resolved. In the original tale, we might recall, the father’s crime is sublimated through the motif of mutilating his daughter, excused as having been coerced by the devil, and although she eventually marries a king, her mother-in-law further deflects paternal blame in maliciously seeking to divide the couple.24 Like other tales of male sexual abuse, rebirth is achieved through having a family of her own, and acquiring independence from parental figures. Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009), based on the novel Push by Sapphire, affirms the same message. This shocking account of paternal incest features a mercilessly downtrodden protagonist who bears two children by her father while still at school and finds no protection from her abusive controlling mother. A happy ending is provided not through meeting a man, but learning to value herself, disowning her horrifically negligent mother, and taking care of her children. Self-worth is ultimately achieved through leaving her family home and starting her life again.25 In Dolores Claiborne (Taylor Hackford, 1995) it is only when Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh) returns to her childhood home that she learns that the underlying cause of her depression and anxiety are repressed memories of paternal sexual abuse.

Her unwillingness to recall what her father did to her is paralleled with an equally distorted perception of her mother, the film’s title character.

As with the original novel by Stephen King, the intention is to question the apparently monstrous mother and unveil what prompted her to kill her husband. While tales like ‘Donkeyskin’ falsely incriminate

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 133

mothers for their husbands’ incestuous desires, and the only mother figure in ‘The Maiden without Hands’ is hateful rather than nurturing, Dolores Claiborne offers a rare example of a mother seeking to protect her daughter from abuse. The gesture is belatedly recognised by Selena, who is forced to dislodge repressed memories of her father, positively reassess her mother and get on with her life; while Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) learns, through caring maternal mentors (a social worker and teacher), to value herself, reject her mother and serve as a better example to her children. Both films treat difficult subject matter with commendable seriousness, exposing family traumas to scrutiny, articulating incest from the daughter’s perspective (firmly eschewing Freudian fantasies) and importantly affirming the victims’ ability to survive their experiences.

In detailing the darker side of family life, fairy tales reveal the most atrocious acts, particularly in preying upon children rather than protecting them. The witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ exaggerates the mother’s ruthless self-interest, fattening Hansel up in order to eat him, while the stepmother in ‘Snow White’ demands her stepdaughter’s lungs and liver not simply as proof of her demise but as ingredients for her pot. The apparent aim is to avail herself of her rival’s beauty, an idea that may reveal the extent of her vanity, yet also affirms a puzzling insecurity.

Given her status as queen, her beauty, and her power as a sorceress, why should she prioritise being the fairest of all – and what does this reveal about a stark imbalance of power in gender terms? Dumplings (Fruit Chan, 2004) reworks the cannibalism motif to ask some interesting questions about female vanity and its cause. A feature-length extension of a short film initially included in the compendium Three ... Extremes (2004), the result is a potent mix of shock and satire.

‘Aunt’ Mei (Bai Ling) makes dumplings from aborted foetuses which she claims to have rejuvenating properties (corroborated by the youthful appearance of the 64-year-old), yet she is not presented simply as monstrous. Instead, she offers a service based on demand, enhancing the qualities patriarchy deems most important to women. Middle-aged actress Ching Li (Miriam Yeung) goes to Mei when her husband loses interest. Aware of what her fabled dumplings contain, she overcomes her repulsion to please the man in her life (her career additionally affirming the importance of youth and beauty). Mei’s background is equally notable; a former gynaecologist who started conducting abortions in her native China due to the state’s ‘one child’ policy, she has since diversified her trade by selling the ‘profits’ to wealthy Hong Kong residents. The fact that Mei makes a business out of the unwanted

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 134

Fairy Tale and Film

unborn could be read as a satirical stab at China’s economic drive and its celebrated spirit of entrepreneurship. Presented as an ogress in terms of killing unborn children and cooking them, Mei might be accused of prospering from women’s plight, yet is by no means the most reprehensible character in the film. The point is driven home by another user of her services: a mother who brings her heavily pregnant young daughter, and explains that the girl’s own father is responsible.

Although Mei warns that it is dangerously late for the procedure, she is urged by the mother to spare her daughter’s shame. The girl does not survive the termination, yet although her grieving mother responds by informing the police about Mei, she also plunges a knife into her husband – undoubtedly the main villain in her daughter’s fate. The tragedy forces Mei to withdraw her services, setting up the film’s horrific denouement. Forced to become resourceful in maintaining her beauty regime, Mrs Li finds a way of additionally taking revenge against her husband when she learns his mistress is pregnant. Persuading the young woman to abort the child, she uses the ‘ingredients’ for her own recipe.

The short film version of Dumplings presents a still more horrifying finale. Mrs Li discovers an unexpected side effect of the dumplings is that she herself becomes pregnant. After some consideration she opts to consume her own child to reap the benefits. The willingness to sacrifice what might be her only chance at becoming a mother is as horrific as it is deeply subversive. Mrs Li puts herself before any other consideration, transforming from the submissive figure seen at the outset into a virtual double of the scheming Aunt Mei. There are numerous references to female ogres in folklore, whether it be the Russian Baba Yaga with her taste for human flesh, an ogress who almost feeds the hero to her children in a tale from the Arabian Nights or, most unnervingly of all, the Grimm tale ‘The Starving Children’, where a mother threatens to eat her own children (although she fails to do so). Interpretations vary, but the idea of subverting our usual equation of women as life-givers and nurturers seems key to the horror. Rejecting any maternal instinct to nurture the child she is carrying, Mrs Li takes female monstrosity to its extreme, even surpassing Mei in her actions. In their analysis of the film, Emilie Yueh-yu yeh and Neda Hei-tung Ng affirm Mei’s satirical overtones, stating that ‘she ingeniously makes use of the “waste” of the Communist Party’s population control policy’ yet also functions as a ‘demon in a globalized culture worshipping excessive insatiable consumption’ (2009: 153). Cannibalism may be equated with capitalist consumption (only those who can afford Mei’s dumplings will profit from the elixir, after all), yet the gender politics at work are still more

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 135

explicit. Mei employs skilled salesmanship in giving her product legitimacy, convincing Mrs Li that cannibalism is in keeping with ancient Chinese tradition, yet what drives the former TV idol to take such drastic measures is a culture that demands perpetual youthfulness and desirability for women, forfeiting any other consideration. If Mrs Li ultimately becomes a demon herself it is due not simply to Mei’s influence, but to the world at large. Infanticide has been treated in other horrors, yet the film’s total obliteration of family values takes us beyond the pale.

For the most part, although horror cinema presents a number of dysfunctional families, the family remains intact as an ideal, even to the extent that monstrous offspring are often nurtured and protected. Refuting the idea that we are simply propelled by basic drives, horror testifies to the importance of upbringing, with ‘evil’ children increasingly presented as not simply demonic, but a reflection of negative role models. In the ironically titled Eden Lake (James Watkins, 2008) the most frightening thing about the feral youths who torment a couple in the woods is not only their lack of empathy but the fact that their murderous ringleader is ultimately protected by his parents. Children may become the terrifying perpetrators of violence, yet simply reflect the values of equally loathsome parents, who are evidently without any morality or compassion for anyone but their own. The couple who stray into ‘their’ territory are viciously hounded by these youths, with murderous consequences. Steve (Michael Fassbinder) is stabbed to death by the gang, and while his fiancée Jenny (Kelly Reilly) manages to get back to what we think is civilisation, we realise that we are not going to be given a happy ending. The real house of horror here is the seemingly ordinary terrace that Jenny is helped into by sympathetic seeming locals, revealed as the gang leader’s home. Taking the despairing point of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) up a notch, this is a world where teenagers have no respect for life, and we realise, as the parents close in on Jenny, exactly where they have learnt their behaviour. Like equivalent figures in Wolf Creek (Greg Mclean, 2005) and The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005), Jenny’s courage and resilience come to nought; she is last seen screaming as the adults move in, making us reluctant witnesses to a crime we can do nothing about. F (Johannes Roberts, 2010) is a similarly grim ‘hoodie-horror’ in which teenagers – faceless, thanks to the shadows cast by their hooded jackets – rampage around their school one night, mutilating and murdering any staff and students on site, motivated by getting the F grade signalled in the film’s title, yet which also points to a horrendous failing somewhere in society.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 136

Fairy Tale and Film

If the Grimms gave us horrible stories like ‘The Children Who Played Butcher with One Another’ – in which children imitate what they see, not realising the implications of their actions, the fear factor arises in these instances because these ‘child’ figures are far from innocent and simply don’t care.26 By contrast, Battle Royale (Fukasuku Kinji, 2000) subverts this fear of teenagers, placing us on the side of imperilled adolescents due to the cruel scenario the adult world has created for them: rounding up young offenders on an island where they are given weapons and ordered to kill each other off. Such films replicate adolescent fantasies of abandonment and estrangement, exaggerating the enmity of faulty parent figures while legitimating the need to wield violence without impunity. The man behind the scheme is shown to be estranged from his own daughter, a sadistic patriarch who seeks to eliminate the younger generation because he has failed at being a father. While this ambition may fly in the face of the natural order, such narratives have been around for some time. Warner notes that man-eating ogres date back to classical mythology, with Kronos eating his own offspring to avoid being replaced, contending that ‘monsters, ogres and beasts who kill and eat human flesh ... variously represent abominations against society, civilisation and family’ (2000: 11). The particular threat posed by fathers emerges as a notable theme in post-seventies horror, reflecting socio-political critiques formulated in this period. As Mark Jancovich affirms, the family ‘remains a precarious institution, and the role of the father presents a distinct problem ... the families which are defined as a challenge to forms of domination are usually clearly distinguished from the patriarchal family’ (1992: 85). The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) exemplifies this threat in the psychotic father, Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson), who seeks to kill his wife and child. A haunted hotel may align his murderous impulses with those of previous ‘caretakers’, yet the fact that he broke his son’s arm before the move affirms his danger, even before cabin fever set in.27 The elimination of the bad father is clearly necessary for this family to survive, an evaluation Vivian Sobchack reads as endemic of the era, when a redundant patriarchy seemed evident, asserting that ‘as the culture changes, as patriarchy is challenged, as more and more families no longer conform in structure, membership and behaviour to the standards set by bourgeois mythology, the horror film plays out the rage of paternal responsibility denied the economic and political benefits of patriarchal power’ (1996: 152). This resentful rage is ably embodied by sadistic serial killer Freddy Kreuger, deemed ‘the paradigm authority figure, the ultimate bad father’ by his creator,

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 137

Wes Craven, figured as ‘a metaphor for our culture, of what we are doing to our kids’, which ultimately constitutes letting the younger generation down (Mackenzie, 1999: 16). The real point of such films, ultimately, is similar to the problematic parenting featured in fairy tales: a means of inciting autonomy. As Tony Williams notes in his analysis of the Elm Street films, Freddy punishes not only errant teenage behaviour, but dependence on parents, affirming that ‘the films all make clear that submission to any form of family authority results in death’, with the final film stipulating that ‘any desire for parental love and acknowledgment is dangerous and deadly masochistic’ (1996: 176). The fact that Freddy adopts the guise of both mothers and fathers affirms that faulty parents of either gender endanger their offspring, and the only way to evade this threat is to surpass needing them.

Although it corroborates this sentiment, Korean horror Hansel and Gretel (Pil Sung Yim, 2007) also affirms the need to set more positive examples. The story takes place in a magical house in the woods where the spirits of former children, seeking a new parent, lure potential candidates to their home with jewels and other treasures. Victims of abuse in a former children’s home, they were visited by Father Christmas one year and given supernatural powers, the result of which is that anyone who displeases them is killed and those trying to escape become lost in the woods. Despite horrific experiences at the hands of adults, they long for a positive parental figure, a desire continually frustrated by the flawed examples that come their way, including potential mothers as well as fathers. Interestingly, the young man they choose to take care of them, whom they refer to as ‘Uncle’, is someone we learn at the outset of the film is shortly going to be a father. Unlike other adults they have encountered he displays no sexual interest in them and does not succumb to greed. Although he makes a few unsuccessful attempts to leave, his good character is affirmed and these long-dead children eventually allow him to return to the real world and take care of his new family in a rare example of a happy ending. Zipes commends the film as a ‘surreal meditation about what we do to children when we bring them into a vicious world’, and notes that the hero’s innocence is his saving grace (2011: 206). The abused child spirits may be empowered to an unnerving degree, yet realise violence is wrong when ‘Uncle’ tells them such actions make them no different to the adults that have failed them. Although reluctant to ‘grow up’ and leave their home, he shows them that adults are not all bad and they finally venture out into the world. The film thus sets itself apart from many others discussed, largely because ‘Uncle’ proves to be a great deal more successful at recuperating

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 138

Fairy Tale and Film

violent child spirits than the mothers we have assessed. The name given to him is significant because he is not a patriarch, and most importantly of all, a sense of recovery and change is allowed, rather than repeating established patterns.

In kindred fashion to ‘The Juniper Tree’, horror has provided a number of examples where supernatural children restructure their families, often with disconcerting results. Unhappy child spirits claim mothers in the Dark Water films and The Orphanage, while in The Daisy Chain and The Dark women are fatally ousted from households by ghost girls who favour fathers. The fact that the sole approved carer secured by the ghostly children in Hansel and Gretel is an innocent young man provides an interesting variation on this theme, securing their trust and encouraging them to let go of their rage, as well as their dependence on adults. The fable-like Treeless Mountain (So-Yong Kim, 2008) also concerns itself with neglected children, in this case two young girls who find themselves adrift in the world when their parents divorce and their working mother is unable to care for them. A selfish aunt favours drinking to mentoring her charges, and happiness and safety are only found when they are packed off to granny in the country. Presenting an older woman as nurturer is a significant contrast to the usual vilification, yet while Treeless Mountain recuperates the value of older women, it also questions the impact of divorce on children and asks who will care for them.

Brigid Cherry notes that family breakdown frequently serves as ‘either the source of the horror or an entry point for the monster to invade’ (2009: 109), an observation that has been applied to horror from the 1970s on. Just as parental separation in The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) has been critically suggested as a reason for Regan’s vulnerability to possession, Carrie also situates an adolescent ‘monster’ in the home of a single-parent family, and we might ask whether contemporary concerns about single mothers are a means of expressing sympathy for the women involved, or greater concern for their children. Recent films have shown a number of lone mothers struggling to protect children from supernatural entities, yet frequently dying as a result. Maternal sacrifice may thus convey a sense of tragic heroism, yet the result is that mothers, like fairy tales of old, are simply removed from the family. Fathers who assume the sole burden of parental responsibility may progressively affirm nurturing qualities as approved masculine traits (reflecting new expectations, in line with changing family structures), yet continued critiques of motherless households (from Chainsaw’s Sawyer family to The Dark) also suggest ongoing concerns about lone parents of either

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Houses of Horror 139

gender. Most significantly perhaps, while villainous parents have been countered by selfless sacrificing mothers and caring fathers, monstrous children appear to have intensified, some of whom cruelly replicate the abuse they have suffered, while others assert a simple desire to be cared for. Ultimately, horror’s assessment of families hovers between sentiment and cynicism, aware of their capacity to bring out both the best and the worst in humanity. The genre’s numerous dysfunctional examples may be interpreted as a fulfilment of Freudian beliefs yet equally seem to parody such ideas, making the most of horror’s subversive potential.

As to the socio-political insights that Wood and others have discerned, we might note that any sympathy for marginalised subjects, including abused children, is often tentative at best. Far from necessarily welcoming the returning repressed as a corrective to social injustice and inequality, the anger and violence displayed by ‘monsters’ may simply entrench their Otherness, regardless of the circumstances that created them. Films have pointed to social forces – as well as troubled psyches – that create conflict and endanger offspring, affirming that parents of either gender may be a villain or a hero, just as horrific actions can occur in all kinds of family structures – with houses of horror taking any number of forms.

However, far from reiterating Freudian fatalism, a degree of faith is proffered in our ability to survive domestic dangers and difficulties – altered perhaps, but not necessarily ‘damaged’. As fairy tales have long suggested, problematic families may come to be expected by protagonists, but leaving the family home is just the start of their story.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com

6 Postmodern Revisions: New Tales for Old?

Whether we term it ‘defamiliarisation’ or ‘de-Grimming’, an interest in revising established narratives has become increasingly popular, utilising methods often aligned with the postmodern. Cristina Bacchilega describes ‘postmodern’ fairy tales as stories that rework classic tales and tropes, distinguishing themselves from traditional tales through rewrites that ‘refuse to obey their authority by revising and appropriating them’ (1997: 4). This is what Angela Carter implied in describing her work as putting new wine into old bottles, asserting that ‘most intellectual development depends upon new readings of old texts.

I am all for putting new wine in old bottles, especially if the pressure of the new wine makes the bottles explode’ (1983: 69). Cinema has been keen to extend this experiment, often playing with expectations – or simply playing up to them – yet even examples that mock the conventions they draw upon are not necessarily as incendiary, or innovative, as we might think, partly due to the growing prominence of this approach. Far from necessarily provoking shock in deviating from the ‘traditional’ version, we have come to expect fairy tale films to retell familiar stories with a twist of some kind, as is testified by upcoming releases including a role-reversing Peter Pan that recasts Captain Hook as a detective in search of a child snatcher, ‘The Little Mermaid’ retold from the princess’s perspective, and a version of ‘The Pied Piper’ where a bullied schoolboy assumes the role of the mythical avenger. Methods aiming to invert our customary view of character and story may have been regarded as experimental once but are now largely routine, as Maleficent (Robert Stromberg, 2014), Disney’s new version (subversion?) of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ affirms, granting the wicked fairy a sympathetic backstory and additionally giving her top billing. Audacious as such rewrites may seem, it is time to ask whether such revisions are 140

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

141

evidence of increased cynicism and sophistication among audiences and film-makers, prompted by a desire to challenge and subvert our usual understanding of fairy tales, or whether a sense of playfulness has become increasingly adopted simply to imbue new life into old tales, with no greater ambition than seeking to invest familiar formulas with added appeal. What I refer to as ‘postmodern’ revisions involves a host of techniques that have started to typify cinematic treatments of fairy tales, and we might consequently ask whether ideas once deemed to be experimental and alternative have not only become quite commonplace, but potentially defy the spirit in which they were initially intended. Does the growing use of ‘postmodern’ motifs signal that ‘classic’ tales have become outmoded (in either their presumed ideology or their relevance to our lives) or is this simply a way to repackage fairy tales for the modern cinema-going audience?

In her book Postmodern Fairy Tales Bacchilega approves postmodernism’s usefulness as a ‘deconstructive discursive tool’, highlighting a ‘playfulness with regard to performance and gender stability’ as particularly appealing (1997: 19–20). Using the term ‘anti-tale’ to describe its oppositional nature, she contends that ‘the postmodern fairy tale’s dissemination of multiple possible versions is strangely powerful – all re-tellings, re-interpretations, and re-visions may appear to be equally authored as well as unauthorised’ (23). We might compare this point to Rosemary Jackson’s critical assessment of fairy tales as essentially conservative, asserting that, because they are set in the past and narrated anonymously, this precludes their ability to be used questioningly.1 In fact, fairy tales have undergone a continuous process of revision and retelling, from their oral origins to the various writers and screen-writers who have sought to use fairy tale motifs in new ways: often updating events, using first-person narrators to enhance subjective interest, and situating characters in more complex scenarios to give stories greater social relevance. Far from being monolithic, unchanging and unquestioning, the very opposite seems to be the case. The critical power of ‘de-Grimming’ fairy tales has been embraced by critics and writers alike, including what Steven Benson refers to as ‘the Angela Carter generation’ (2008: 8),2 with authors such as Margaret Atwood and Gregory Maguire redeploying fairy tale motifs for the modern age. It is partly through this kind of rewriting that films have been inspired to adopt similar methods: employing framing devices that provide a contemporary context, presenting tales from the perspective of formerly marginalised (perhaps even villainised) characters, using strategies such as wry voiceovers to disrupt the narrative flow or comment on the action, with

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 142

Fairy Tale and Film

additional changes in content and characterisation further deviating from expectation. While seemingly new, this approach to fairy tales has some interesting precursors. As Zipes points out, a ‘carnivalesque’ attitude has long been apparent in film, citing examples that have sought to ‘ridicule and play with the conventional forms and ideologies of the tales’ ranging from Disney’s early Laugh-O-Grams of the 1920s, Tex Avery’s animations of the 1930s and 1940s, the ‘fractured fairy tale’ animations of the 1960s, through to live-action films such as The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner, 1987) – all of which parody fairy tale tropes in various ways (Zipes, 2011: 53). Although once deemed innovative, this irreverent approach has increased to the extent that it has virtually come to be expected. Few would expect to see a ‘straight’ version of a fairy tale today – and we might consequently ask whether ‘postmodern’ treatments of the fairy tale in film genuinely undermine our understanding of classic versions (in the way Bacchilega suggests), influencing us to re-evaluate some of their problematic ideological underpinnings, or whether they produce variations with problems of their own.

The roots of such experimentation have a surprisingly long legacy.

Despite some alignment with methods of distanciation often deemed ‘postmodern’ and thus considered to be fairly contemporary,3 many associated traits long pre-date the term – just as the ‘Angela Carter generation’ has a considerable ancestry, with writers utilising parody and intertextuality centuries ago. The female writers of contes de feés writing in seventeenth-century France adopted techniques such as framing devices, references to other stories, an elaborate writing style and innovative female characters to distinguish themselves from male peers and question conventional mores.4 They might thus be seen to initiate a model subsequently redeployed by many twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers who have rewritten fairy tales, both in print and on screen.

Notably, however, while progressive claims are often made of literary variations, cinematic treatments tend to be considered far more critically, seemingly accused of using the same methods for differing ends.

As films have increasingly experimented with fairy tale conventions, often with some commercial success, it appears more difficult to make oppositional claims for postmodern techniques per se. Consequently, in an article co-written with John Reider focusing on recent fairy tale films, Bacchilega appears to moderate her former claims, acknowledging that motifs such as a conflation of genres and knowing self-referentiality do not necessarily question and challenge ‘gender norms’, but work to reinforce them. Particular exception is taken to ‘the parodic practice of undercutting fairy tale conventions’ only to ‘return to Disney’s familiar

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

143

fairy tale expectations’ (2010: 28) – an inclination even non-Disney films apparently collude with, considering the Shrek films no different, in essence, to the Disney films they parody, particularly given the central love story.5 Enchanted (2007) is similarly accused of utilising postmodern features for regressive ends, ridiculing romantic escapism ‘only to conclude by celebrating the same set of conventions’ (31). This is considered an ideologically suspect use of parody (often deemed a key weapon in postmodernism’s deconstructive arsenal), feigning cynicism simply to disarm sceptical audiences. In their view it makes no odds if the re-visioned princess chooses a kindly ogre over a conceited prince, or sets up her own business in New York when she opts to stay with a divorced dad, claiming that ‘the gestures of rebellion against patriarchal convention are only pretexts setting up its eventual triumphant celebration’ (33). Disregarding just how unconventional these narrative changes are, or the way they represent a ‘playfulness with regard to performance and gender stability’ so commended by Bacchilega a few years earlier, it seems a romantic denouement is the chief problem, providing the ‘obligatory happy ending’ (32) that is implicitly aligned with escapist enchantment.6 By contrast, Bacchilega and Reider approve Pan’s Labyrinth because it eschews any such impulses and ‘allows no subordination and separation of its sometimes nightmarish fairy-tale from the nightmare of history’ (34). We might question this claim, however, for while the film does not misrepresent historical fact (as we know, Spain’s civil war did not end with triumph for its people after the film’s events, but eventually gave way to decades of fascist rule) it does provide a happy ending via the most fantastical of conceits, the ‘sometimes nightmarish’ fairy tale eventually turning into a dream-come-true. Admittedly, the extent to which we validate Ofelia’s return to her fairy parents is moot, yet while these critics applaud the film for refusing escapism, this reading seems to be significantly problematised by its denouement. In addition, while Pan’s Labyrinth may be considered an ‘anti-tale’ in some respects, particularly given its horrific features, we might note that Guillermo del Toro has since sought to capitalise on the film’s surprise commercial and critical success by producing a string of films with similarly dark fairy tale elements, such as The Orphanage and Mama (discussed in the previous chapter), which similarly critique authoritarian corruption while providing fantastic compensation in the afterlife: a canny narrative strategy that offsets social critique with sentiment. Alongside fellow auteur Tim Burton, del Toro has helped nurture popular interest in darker fairy tale motifs, proving that ‘anti-tales’ are not inimical to

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 144

Fairy Tale and Film

commercial interests, but may even have become a new niche.7 Market forces are a necessary consideration. Films are an expensive business, generally motivated by a need to recoup investment and turn a profit, and while some retellings may aim to achieve more, perhaps prompting viewers to reformulate their understanding of fairy tales and the ideological work they perform, the results are often constrained by a desire to entertain and amuse. Ultimately, reboots and ‘reimaginings’ are a means of exploiting a known story, as much as questioning it, and even as they promise to give us something new this may not necessarily be novel.

Ever After (1998), a revamped ‘Cinderella’ (briefly mentioned in Chapter 1), illustrates the pitfalls of mistaking revisionism for radicalism.

Cathy Lynn Preston’s favourable analysis of the film (2004) rests a great deal on its postmodern features, including a framing device that positions a female descendant as narrator, yet this does not give her version greater authority than the Grimm brothers (who visit to hear it), and what is purported to be the ‘real’ story is scarcely any more feminist.8 The heroine may be intelligent, assertive, compassionate and socially aware – further defying the usual princess demeanour with her strength and impressive swordplay – yet Danielle (Drew Barrymore) puts such individuality aside when she falls for a feckless prince, and while the film plays with some conventions – casting Leonardo da Vinci as the heroine’s ‘godmother’ – other tropes remain untouched, including a wicked stepmother whose villainy is simply intensified. (Not only does Rodmilla (Anjelica Huston) kill Danielle’s father for his money, she sells her stepdaughter off to make more!) Evidently, while any number of twists may occur in such postmodern retellings, the demonisation of the older ambitious anti-mother is a given, against whom life with a vapid young man seems positively idyllic.

The two versions of ‘Snow White’ released in 2012 may also give their heroines a greater part to play, yet while Tatar has sought to claim these figures as progressive, describing Snow White and the Huntsman’s heroine as a ‘warrior princess’ – far removed from her ‘insipid’ folkloric forebear (Tatar, 2012) – an intrinsic female rivalry undermines such innovation.

Budgeted at $200 million, its script fought over by nine studios, and featuring Twilight star Kristen Stewart, the film clearly aimed to become a blockbuster, yet for all its expense and fanfare the Manichean set-up reveals nothing new. In an interview given during its release, director Rupert Sanders stated that the queen was symbolically intended to represent death and her stepdaughter life, reiterating an age-old dichotomy that uncritically aligns ‘evil’ and death with the older woman who must

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

145

be destroyed and replaced by a virtuous young rival.9 Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar analysed this duality in their landmark work, ‘The Queen’s Looking Glass’, using ‘Snow White’ as a paradigm of the way women are ideologically divided by patriarchy – the true force behind the magic mirror. As they contend: the central action of the tale – indeed, its only real action – arises from the relationship between these two women: the one fair, young, pale, the other just as fair, but older, fiercer; the one a daughter, the other a mother; the one sweet, ignorant, passive, the other both artful and active; the one a sort of angel, the other an undeniable witch.

(2000: 36) Although Charlize Theron claimed her interest in playing the queen was that her character was given some depth, the backstory provided simply entrenches misogyny. Ravenna’s villainy is attributed to her mother, a sorceress who raised her to believe that ‘beauty is power’, fuelling the queen’s murderous ambition and insecurity. Repudiating feminist critique, a woman is thus disingenuously instated as the malign force behind the mirror, making her daughter into a monster. Ravenna refers to men’s fleeting interest in women whilst stabbing her husband to death on their wedding night, yet even as she claims the throne for herself she remains convinced her looks are paramount. Refuting any potential sympathy, she sucks the beauty from female subjects, causing some to disfigure themselves to deter her interest and enable them to raise children (maternal sacrifice again signalling how to recognise a good woman). Death and decay are the result of Ravenna’s rule, and Snow White – cloyingly innocent and caring – is evidently needed to restore the blighted kingdom. The huntsman scarcely seems to merit a name-check in the title. Arrogant and selfish, he has little sympathy with Snow White’s cause, yet in reviving her with a kiss (when she falls for the old poisoned apple ruse) he secures her deference, and when she finally takes her place on the throne, having destroyed Ravenna, she wistfully eyes her saviour at the ceremony (her devotion a testimony of her ‘normality’ compared to her rival’s ruthless self-interest).10 Mirror Mirror (Tarsem Singh, 2012) is, in some ways, the more innovative rewrite. Camp, parodic, inviting us to laugh, rather than seeking to be taken seriously, this postmodern pantomime may retain female rivalry as its chief plot (Julia Roberts camping up the role of vain queen) yet also amusingly reworks convention. The narrative borrows from various sources, including pseudo-political concerns akin to Ever After

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 146

Fairy Tale and Film

(the queen similarly levying hefty taxes on her poverty-stricken subjects); an incarcerated heroine (see ‘Rapunzel’ (ATU 310)); and a romantic encounter at a masked ball (‘Cinderella’). It also offers a twist akin to Caroline Thompson’s Snow White (2001) in which, rather than vying for the affections of the king, a younger man becomes the contested object of desire. The queen puts the somewhat charmless prince (Arnie Hammer) under her spell, only for him to be disenchanted by true love’s kiss from Snow (Lily Collins). Refreshingly, the heroine announces her familiarity with this kind of story, repudiating her need for a hero, and says it’s time for a new ending, leading the dwarves in battle to regain her kingdom. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is referenced in the last act: the king having been cursed to roam the woods as a beast until his daughter’s love returns him to human form – just in time to approve her new boyfriend and lead her up the aisle. While the final marriage scene suggests a capitulation to romance, we are assured Snow still has her wits about her. Rather than being the ‘dumb bunny’ Anne Sexton describes her counterpart as, she recognises the crone offering an apple as a gift, and responds by cutting a slice with her dagger and presenting it to the old woman, cattily stating ‘age before beauty’. It’s the ultimate put-down, made all the nastier as we realise that the queen’s wrinkles are no disguise, but the cost of having misused magic. Taking the proffered slice, we can only assume she poisons herself.

The ending parallels the intimation in Anne Sexton’s poem ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ (from her collection Transformations), that Snow White is destined to become just like her nemesis, referencing the Grimm’s murderous wedding scene as the site where the heroine not only despatches her rival but also proves herself less than innocent: And so she danced until she was dead, subterranean figure, her tongue flicking in and out like a gas jet.

Meanwhile Snow White held court, rolling her china-blue doll eyes open and shut and sometimes referring to her mirror as women do. (Qtd in Meider, 1985: 159) The assertion is that Snow White shares the same flaws as her predecessor, namely vanity, yet Mirror Mirror suggests that she also acquires a level of cunning, finally learning to look after herself. We may not get

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

147

the ending we might want, particularly given the heroine’s investment in a dubious love interest (even lying to her father about the prince’s character, affirming he helped fight the queen rather than serving as her consort, and ignoring his attempt to kill her!) yet we can still applaud the fact that she takes an active role in her destiny, and ensures her self-preservation. If a character long conflated with virginal innocence can become ruthless (keeping a dagger in her wedding dress) without detracting from her heroism, perhaps there is a means of bypassing the usual dichotomy of approved femininity. All that remains is to overcome the rivalry that narratively pits women against one another, which involves telling different stories.

It is female sexuality, rather than rivalry, that ‘Red Riding Hood’ (ATU 333) chiefly concerns itself with, yet, as Catherine Orenstein notes of its heroine, ‘over the years she has been cloaked according to social and ethical fashion, in countless meanings and morals, warnings and winks’, often depicted either as victim or vamp (2003: 13). In Angela Carter’s collection The Bloody Chamber (1979) the tale is explored via three versions – ‘The Werewolf’, ‘Wolf-Alice’ and ‘The Company of Wolves’ – the last of which she helped to adapt as the film, The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan, 1984). Zipes regards the result as a landmark in cinematic treatments of ‘Red Riding Hood’, inaugurating greater experimentation in the heroine’s response to her encounter with a ‘wolf’, including ‘desire, rage and revenge’ (2011: 147). Desire is at the heart of Carter’s original tale, which has its heroine happily succumb to the ‘wolf’, although her cinematic counterpart behaves far more coyly. With its playful questioning of reality and illusion (framed as a dream yet with reality bleeding through amid a collapsing set), its variety of tales and time periods, and its intertextual retelling of ‘Red Riding Hood’ (via Angela Carter, with a nod to Charles Perrault), this is a quintessential postmodern film, yet not without its flaws. Its intent to subvert expectation is announced at the start, when the heroine asks, in response to her sister’s death in the woods, ‘why couldn’t she save herself?’ The question sums up Carter’s feminist revisionism, calling to mind oral forebears such as the young woman in ‘The Story of Grandmother’ who does indeed save herself. In the same vein, the film’s closing striptease (when the heroine arrives at granny’s cottage, realises the huntsman/ werewolf has won his wager, and starts to throw her clothes on the fire) affirms a confident female coming-of-age, in keeping with Carter’s eroticised version of the tale (in which the girl makes no attempt to escape but eagerly joins the wolf in bed). However, the film does not go as far as Carter’s fearless heroine, who is last seen sleeping ‘sweet

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 148

Fairy Tale and Film

and sound ... in granny’s bed, between the paws of the tender wolf’ (1984: 159).11 Instead, although Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) starts to undress, we are given no bed scene. Having kissed the huntsman, she shoots him, turning him into a wounded wolf, arousing compassion rather than carnal interest. Soothing him with a story about a wolf-girl, Rosaleen is transformed into a wolf herself and runs off with her new companion as her parents arrive. The film dismantles its own narrative at this point as a pack of wolves enter the dream-world and pull an outsize dollhouse apart. The last scene shows the heroine’s contemporary counterpart waking to see a wolf crashing through her bedroom window and screaming at the sight. Carter objected to this hysterical reaction, which dramatically deviates from both her story and her original screenplay, and Zipes describes the scene as a ‘revolting contradiction’ of her aims.12 Others have sought to resolve the inconsistency, with Bacchilega asserting that the intruding wolf may be read as the heroine (1997: 70), while Kim Snowden suggests the sleeping Rosaleen may eventually be devoured and incorporated by her ‘powerful sexual desiring Other’ (2010: 175). Ultimately however, while the film’s end is undoubtedly flawed, its most disappointing departure from the original story is the scene it ignores. Jordan may show us a young woman who finally runs with the wolves yet omits the catalyst behind her bestial transformation and thus removes what was most powerful about Carter’s version: the validation of Red Riding Hood as a sexual being.13 Warner aptly describes Carter as ‘a fantasist with a salty turn of mind, a dissident with a utopian vision of possibilities’ who ‘practised through her writing a constant stretching of the permitted, of the permissible.

Taboo was her terrain, nothing was sacred’ – as was evident in making her heroines carnal creatures. ‘Her Beauties choose to play with the Beast precisely because his animal nature excites them and gives their desire licence’ (1995: 195, 6, 308). Warner notes various literary precursors in which beastly transformation similarly liberates heroines (such as Basile’s ‘She-Bear’ and D’Aulnoy’s ‘White Cat’) yet also estranges them, ‘the change of appearance casts the heroine out of family, out of the fold, and even out of society’ (355). Orenstein discerns a similar denouement in The Company of Wolves, observing that ‘Rosalee’s coming-of-age is not without cost – her grandmother dies, she becomes an outcast, transformed into a she-wolf, and must flee her own family’ (2003: 167). We might ask how much Carter’s bold questioning has continued in film. Freeway (Matthew Bright, 1996), Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005) and Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000) can all be seen as

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

149

modern-day versions of ‘Red Riding Hood’ that explicitly confront the notion of female victimhood, yet while the first two films cast their female protagonists as table-turning avengers, eliminating predatory men, the latter places Carter’s sexually assertive wolf-girl in a horrific coming-of-age tale that vilifies female sexual maturation (which can be read either as a critique of the genre’s abjection of women or as a corroboration of this idea). Ginger’s threat is deemed so intolerable that she is eventually killed by her sister, who succumbs to ‘the curse’ herself in the sequel, while the final instalment, in tracing their vulpine natures to their ancestors, suggests wolf-women cannot be tolerated in any age.14 ‘Red Riding Hood’ has proved especially fertile for revisions – given its symbolic appeal and the potential to dramatically reinterpret the central dynamic between woman and wolf – yet while Tanith Lee’s short story ‘Wolfland’ (1983) affirms, in kindred spirit to Carter, the benefits (and necessity) of becoming wolf-like, cinematic treatments evidently regard this idea with some hesitancy. When revamped Reds prove able to look after themselves, like Ginger, Freeway’s Vanessa or Hard Candy’s protagonist, they are presented as virtual psychopaths, while a more romanticised alliance with the wolf, in examples like Blood and Chocolate (Katja von Garnier, 2007), insists on de-clawing their heroines.

Red Riding Hood (Catherine Hardwicke, 2011) reiterates this tendency.

Although it seems to take inspiration from Carter’s writing and The Company of Wolves (revealing the extent to which contemporary fairy tale films are increasingly referencing one another), it offers a very pale comparison. The adolescent heroine, Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), lives, like Rosaleen, in a rustic village and similarly undergoes a voyage of selfdiscovery. However, her love for aloof woodcutter Peter is presented as slavish devotion, her initiation into sex amounts to ‘letting him have his way’, and the suggestion that they will become werewolf lovers has none of the same charge that Carter gave such a union. A dastardly witch-finder-cum-werewolf-hunter adds a dash of Hammer Horror to proceedings, but the main point is to distance the heroine from her parents and initiate an outsider romance designed to attract Twilight fans. Realising that her father is a murderous werewolf (responsible for killing her half-sister, mother and grandmother) and that she shares his bloodline, Valerie despatches him and goes to live in her grandmother’s house, where she and fellow werewolf Peter can presumably enjoy some freedom. For all the film’s posturing about an emancipated girl, flouting convention to follow her heart, the heroine is manifestly uninspiring

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 150

Fairy Tale and Film

and Hardwicke’s teen version of ‘Red Riding Hood’, despite being made three decades after Jordan’s film, seems far more regressive in its gender politics, and worryingly devoid of any feminist impulse.

The Village (M. Night Shyamalan, 2004) similarly employs ‘Red Riding Hood’ motifs and sets its action in what appears to be a medieval forest, only to rupture the fearful fantasy created by the village ‘elders’.

A girl’s coming-of-age is shown to be more than sexual when Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard) makes her way through the forbidden forest and realises how much her worldview is the result of parental distortion and disinformation. The twist in the film is the moment we learn how easily we have been duped ourselves – by the costumes, the ornate language used by the villagers, and the earnestness of their warnings about the world beyond. Given Shyamalan’s subsequent attempts to rework fairy tale tropes, this is a rare example of faultless storytelling. The heroine’s blindness does more than heighten a sense of dread as she makes her way through the forbidden woods to get medicine for her fiancé. Since her blindness is derived from a childhood illness, we realise that her parents’ generation have harmed, rather than protected, their offspring by lying about the world beyond their borders, the make-believe beasts claimed to populate the forest creating a potent allegory of Bush’s fear-mongering during the Gulf War.15 The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, 1999) also plays with our understanding of what is real. Conflating elements of ‘Babes in the Wood’ (ATU 327A) and ‘Hansel and Gretel’, the film is set in modern America yet takes us into an enchanted realm where maps prove ineffectual in making sense of the terrain as three teens go into the woods, on a quest to substantiate a myth, and prove hopelessly ill-equipped. As Eric S. Mallin notes, ‘the Blair Witch exposes not technology’s threat but its failure, and (remaining undetected by the camera) she demonstrates the totemic power of the pre-technological past to wreak murderous havoc ... Map, compass, lighting, sound and camera equipment all become useless in discovering or combating her’ (2002: 112–13). Cannily marketing itself as found footage, we learn at the outset that the three student film-makers failed to return from their journey and their film is therefore all that remains of them.16 Heather’s reliance on ‘filtered’ perception is such that she struggles to put her camera down, even as danger looms, finally using it to apologise for placing them all in peril. Like the curious girl in the Grimm tale, ‘Frau Trude’, fatally punished for her interest in a witch, the key figure behind the ‘project’ is explicitly blamed for the unfolding tragedy, unwittingly bringing a legend to life as reality and fantasy converge.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

151

We are back in the woods with The Brothers Grimm (Terry Gilliam, 2005) where fairy tales again come true in unexpected and unpleasant ways – although a pantomime feel undercuts the fear factor. Postmodern devices include rewriting the Grimm brothers as charlatans rather than scholars and inserting them into the action. When various young girls disappear in the woods, including recognisable characters such as Red Riding Hood and Gretel, the brothers investigate, coerced by a general from the French occupying army, aiming to disabuse peasants of their superstitious beliefs. However, they are forced to conclude that the disappearences are a case of ‘authenticated enchantment’. Magic, in other words, is real. We learn that a vain queen (Monica Belluci) took up residence in a tower in the woods to evade the plague. Using sorcery to stay alive, yet hideously aged, she enchants a huntsman to bring her females to regain her youthful beauty. For all its cavalier attitude, the plot thus hinges on the misogynist cliché of a powerful seductress who sucks the lifeblood from village girls (an apparent descendant of the vampiric Countess Bartory and precursor to Ravenna) and turns men’s minds to mush. Angelika (Lena Headey) may be a more unconventional female character, yet mainly serves as a disputed love interest for the brothers (reiterating the trouble women can cause) and is distastefully held captive by an amorous Italian to ensure that the Grimms are the ones who save the day. Order resumes when the queen is destroyed, the brothers smashing her magic mirror. However, a remaining shard, bearing the queen’s eye, leaves its ‘happy ever after’ in question, affirming a reluctance to dispense with the genre’s biggest cliché.

Disney’s Tangled (Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, 2010) is notable in this regard, providing a radically reworked ‘Rapunzel’ which conspicuously intensifies the witch’s villainy. Retitled to evade any reference to its source story, with executives believing a direct fairy tale connection would deter male interest, various twists are made of the tale.17 On the plus side, the heroine’s hair functions as more than a ladder; it lights up, heals and is used to empower the heroine.18 More negatively, her foster mother is presented as a callous predator, rather than protector, while the male lead serves as liberator. In the original story a baby is fostered by a neighbouring witch because of her mother’s desire for stolen vegetables and her husband’s hasty agreement, yet the film makes the child a magical princess cruelly stolen by ‘Mother’ Gothel. Driven by vanity (a trait notably absent from the original tale), she exploits Rapunzel’s regenerative power to regain her youthfulness, selfishly seeking to keep this for herself. The tower, once figured as a form of protection from men (with early versions of the tale

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 152

Fairy Tale and Film

featuring intruding ‘princes’ impregnating the unwitting girl), is now a prison devised by the ultimate smother-mother, gaining her daughter’s compliance by encouraging a fearful view of the world. While Gothel deliberately undermines Rapunzel, self-realisation comes through the hero’s entrance into her life. Flynn Rider – as he calls himself – is no passing prince, but a thief who takes refuge in the tower after stealing a crown. Swiftly disarmed by Rapunzel (with a frying pan), he is coerced into helping her find her true home, eventually reveals his real name (Eugene) and proves himself a loyal friend. He rescues Rapunzel when Gothel returns her to the tower, and despite becoming gravely injured, selflessly rejects the chance to be healed, cutting Rapunzel’s hair off to dissuade Gothel’s malevolent interest (causing the shocked harridan to fall to her death from the window). In a rare point of fidelity to the original story, Rapunzel’s tears also have healing properties, enabling Eugene’s recovery, and he oversees her reunion with her parents and closes the film by telling us they lived happily ever after. Much like the ‘Snow White’ remakes that followed, an evil female is destroyed while a hero of dubious moral character is improved by his relationship with a kind-hearted and courageous heroine.

The same plot is reworked in Oz, the Great and Powerful (Sam Raimi, 2013), Disney’s prequel to The Wizard of Oz (1939) and an evident attempt to take advantage of two key trends in recent years: postmodern revisions of established fairy tales and scenarios able to showcase the latest 3D effects. The title character, Oscar Diggs (James Franco), is a carnival huckster and philanderer who finds himself transported to a strange land during a tornado and quickly reverts to his old tricks with the first young woman he meets. Eleonora (Mila Kunis) falls for his charms yet is transformed into a wicked witch when he betrays her. Losing her beauty as she succumbs to rage – her tear-scarred face adopting a frightening green hue – she rejects the option of magically fixing her looks, crying: ‘No! Let him see what he has done!’ However, rather than punish Oscar, the film figures her sister, Theonora (Rachel Weisz), as its villain: having killed the former ruler of Oz, blaming the good witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) for the crime, and additionally encouraging Eleonora’s transformation by revealing Oscar’s infidelity.

Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked (1995) may serve as apparent inspiration in presenting a familiar character from a new perspective, yet while Maguire specifically sought to challenge conceptions of virtue and evil, giving the Wicked Witch of the West a name (Elphaba) and a sympathetic backstory, Raimi’s ‘prequel’ simplistically reinstates the inherent wickedness of its witches. Theonora is motivated by ruthless

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

153

self-interest – similar traits to the film’s hero, ironically, yet clearly evil in female form – and while Oscar cruelly breaks her sister’s heart, Eleonora is additionally demonised for allowing bitterness to take over.

By contrast, approved females are the fragile china doll (who elicits Oscar’s caring side) and the equally passive Glinda (who refuses to engage in violence and piously waits for the Munchkins’ promised man to come to their deliverance). Their faith is rewarded as Oscar eventually rids the Emerald City of its wicked witches and becomes its ruler, yet, in contrast to Dorothy’s rite-of-passage, his triumph is far from endearing. Although he acquires a newfound sense of responsibility he is also set up for life, with a fortune in the city coffers and Glinda serving as meek new love interest. Despite pulling back the curtain on the enigmatic ‘Wizard’, the film fails to make him very likeable, especially in his relations with women. Ultimately, the Wicked Witch of the West remains more threatening than sympathetic, while the man who hurt her oddly becomes the film’s hero. If he is chastened by his conduct this is not apparent (we know from The Wizard of Oz that he will authorise Eleonora’s murder), and making him such a contested object of desire smacks of an egotistical male fantasy, evidently aiming to appeal to male viewers rather than women.19 The film’s producer, Joe Roth, stated that a key intention behind the film was to find a story with a male lead, contending that ‘during the years that I spent running Walt Disney studios I learned how hard it was to find a fairy tale with a good strong male protagonist. You’ve got your Sleeping Beauties, your Cinderellas, your Alices, but a fairy tale with a male protagonist is very hard to come by’ (see Hill, 2013a).20 Having a male character at the helm is presumably motivated by an aforementioned interest in securing male viewers, yet we might justifiably protest when a female-centred narrative is appropriated simply to allow male characters to take precedence, as occurs in Raimi’s Oz prequel. A mooted version of the Arabian Nights is perhaps the most audacious rewrite of all, making Scheherazade – the frame tale’s narrator and heroine, who saves herself through the power of her storytelling – a damsel in distress rescued by one of her creations. As ‘postmodern’ as such a reinterpretation may be, it also affirms the worst tendencies of many cinematic revisions, altering familiar tales with abandon while failing to acknowledge their original value, or inspiring new levels of interest or understanding.

It is not that ‘classic’ tales must remain untouched – they have been subject to continued alteration since they were conceived and as such there is no direct claim to ownership or originality – it is simply that many adaptations seem cynically motivated, creating twists simply to

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 154

Fairy Tale and Film

add a new spin, and missing the potential to tell an interesting story that is liable to have some impact and longevity. All too often, fairy tales are optioned simply to showcase special effects (with 3D still a cash-cow for the industry), providing easy entertainment, occasionally resulting in some irreverent and unusual takes, yet scarcely any that might make us think.

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (Tommy Wirkola, 2013) exemplifies the worst tendencies of postmodern revisions: repudiating any reason to be taken seriously through its title alone, with profanities and anachronisms aiming for hipness yet falling short even as crude entertainment. In this adult (or, more accurately, adolescent) version a grown-up Hansel (Jeremy Renner) is diabetic due to having been force-fed sweets and filled with bitterness, while sister Gretel (Gemma Arterton) struts with attitude yet utterly betrays her folkloric forebear in swiftly acquiescing to distress mode, relying on various male helpers throughout. As in Oz, good witches are easily told apart due to their attractive looks and aversion to violence, legitimating the siblings’ mission to wipe out the bad ones. In the new family history that is provided, Hansel and Gretel’s mother is rewritten as a martyr, and child ‘abandonment’ explained as a means of protecting her children. A powerful white witch, denounced to superstitious locals, yet sworn against hurting humans, she instructed her husband to hide them in the woods (under a protection spell) and sacrificed herself to the mob. The big bad witch who betrayed her (Famke Janssen, bizarrely unrecognisable in prosthetics) gets her comeuppance at a Sabbat where the siblings and their helpers gleefully massacre the revellers, delivering gore in three dimensions. Inane beyond imagining, it is perhaps sufficient to say that the best thing about Wirkola’s film is its title sequence, a series of woodcuts hinting at an alluring folkloric past which the film sadly betrays.

Jack the Giant Slayer (Bryan Singer, 2013) is an equally disappointing retread that favours spectacle over story, taking the classic rags-to-riches tale of a poor farm-boy who steals from a giant and creating a plot that borders on the reactionary. Jack (Nicholas Hoult) has a favourite tale his late mother once read to him, the story of giant-slaying King Erik and his magic beans, inspiring the dream of emulating his hero. Reality and fairy tale collide when he sells his uncle’s horse for a handful of beans.

One falls beneath a floorboard and grows into a monstrous tree, creating a pathway to the land of giants above. An added complication is that a woman becomes trapped in the house as it ascends with the vine.

Princess Isabella (Eleanor Tomlinson), aiming to avoid marriage, escapes the royal palace at Cloister and finds her way to Jack’s home the night

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

155

it moves skyward. A rescue party is set up and intrigue provided via her intended groom’s actions once he reaches the top. Wearing a crown that secures his reign over the giants (dimwits with a taste for human flesh and a grovelling attitude to royalty), he intends to use his gargantuan subjects to rule the human world below. Although the rogue dies, Jack effectively steals his idea, obtaining the crown and putting the giants under his rule once they reach the ground. Now a king in his own right, the all-conquering (if somewhat questionable) hero marries the princess and they raise a family, with ‘King Erik’ their favoured bedtime story.

An odd final scene claims that the giant-ruling crown is hidden among the crown jewels in the Tower of London, a modern cityscape bringing us to present-day England, although how we are meant to regard this ‘revelation’ is unclear. Frustratingly, given Bryan Singer’s collaboration with Usual Suspects writer Christopher Mcquarrie, the film is a tiresome escapade with poor effects and cardboard characters. Isabella’s romance with Jack is unconvincing and her role as princess-in-peril annoyingly regressive. Jack’s good fortune is still more perplexing.

His encounter with a holy bean trader intimates divine rule, yet his use of force (exploiting the giants to advance himself) does not infer enlightened leadership or suggest that life will improve for the general populace, with Cloister’s subjects as deferential to the king as the mentally diminished giants. While the film may not seek to be taken seriously we might ask why an intriguing folk tale has been divested of any progressive features, seemingly concocting a romance to legitimate tyrannical power. If the aim is to affirm that dreams can come true, and poverty is no barrier to aspiration, Jack’s acquisition of the giant-taming crown remains difficult to approve, with any intended satire failing to coalesce in an adaptation that amounts to little more than another wasted opportunity.

The problem with such examples is that, far from undermining risible attitudes, they are bizarrely legitimated instead. The unlikely hero makes good, the feisty yet vulnerable princess meets her love match, and nothing of any greater substance is achieved in vehicles intent on delivering big-budget pantomimes to the masses while giving their source material lamentably short shrift. We are likely to see many more remakes and retellings of well-known fairy tales, with high-profile directors and actors involved, as the quest for a potential hit inspires a repeated return to familiar territory. A tongue-in-cheek approach and willingness to mix things up have clearly proved popular in adapting fairy tales for the modern market, affirming that ‘postmodern’ revisions have become an effective business strategy, even if the result is variable

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 156

Fairy Tale and Film

at best. Ethan Gilsdorf (2013) has speculated on why the fairy tale film is likely to be a Hollywood mainstay, pointing out that ‘since fairy tales tend to be in the public domain, they offer a bonus: no pesky author estates with which to negotiate film and toy rights’, a situation enabling considerable freedom in rewriting such tales, as well as a wider profit margin. Nonetheless, the capacity to provide interesting new versions seems relatively rare. Tatar stresses the importance of inspiring new modes of thinking, using the term ‘defamiliarization’ as a means of ‘breaking the magic spell that traditional tales weave around listeners.

This may take the form of a shift in perspective – retelling a story from the point of view of one of its villains – or it may take the form of an abrupt reversal in a traditional plot’ (1992: 237). However, although she regards such methods as ‘playful disruptions’ (236) of canonical texts, they have become increasingly familiar, and do not necessarily have the impact they once did.

Providing genuinely innovative rewrites is clearly no easy feat, particularly as what constitutes a progressive interpretation is likely to remain in dispute. Bacchilega and Reider’s (2010) rejection of romantic concerns and happy endings is a familiar criticism, and Zipes makes similar comments in his introduction to Greenhill and Matrix’s collection, Fairy Tale Films, drawing a distinction between ‘films that want to titillate and guarantee happiness and those that want to compel us to engage with open eyes all those haunting dilemmas that cause existential and social problems’ (2010: xii). In his view the fairy tale film should draw attention to life’s difficulties, rather than detract from them, and he specifically approves postmodern features such as ‘parodies ... aesthetic experimentation, and the mixing of genres’ as means of engendering ‘new insight into art and life – mirroring the possibility of estranging ourselves from designated roles and the conventional patterns of classical tales’ (xii) – although a key problem remains in the extent to which such methods are used to amuse rather than necessarily enlighten us.

In his analysis of fairy tale films, The Enchanted Screen (2011), Zipes contrasts ‘conventional’ fare against ‘experimental’ examples that are implicitly approved for their postmodern features, particularly parody, contending that ‘carnivalesque’ fairy tales are capable of providing ‘resistance against stale dominant forms of social and cultural relations’ (2011: 55). However, his distinction between what is ‘fun’ – described as ‘cotton candy, fluffy, sweet and without nutrients’ – and the ‘carnivalesque’ – deemed capable of provoking reflection and ‘a questioning of the hierarchical arrangements of society’ (56) – is obviously quite contentious, with no way to determine accurately how a film will

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

157

necessarily be understood. As we have seen, de-Grimmed fairy tales have become the rule, rather than the exception, yet far from necessarily providing rewrites that expose and challenge inequalities, they seem more likely to reiterate tropes we might have rightly considered outmoded today, with ‘irony’ an evident pitfall of postmodern parody, granting the politically incorrect carte blanche.

Far from offering progressive alternatives, the danger is that questionable clichés simply become compounded by the kind of pantomime inaugurated by The Princess Bride (a film Zipes applauds for undermining fairy tale tropes yet which could equally be claimed to reinforce them). Greenhill and Matrix cite the film in discussing a contemporary tendency to ‘sample and remix many fairy tale stories, themes and motifs into a new adventure that delivers a kick of déjà vu to spectators’, yet they also allude to inherent difficulties in such examples of ‘postmodern doubling as they unsecure the narrative integrity of the classic tales while remaining faithful to the overarching generic conventions’ (2010: 14). Accordingly, Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright) spends the majority of her role blindfolded or speechless, passively waiting for her true love, Wesley (Cary Elwes), to save her, with suicide considered her sole means of revolt, while the film’s hero – even half-dead and virtually paralysed – swaggers confidently to a heroic end. Stardust (Matthew Vaughn, 2007) self-consciously reworks the same formula, rendering its heroine, Yvaine (Clare Danes), utterly dependent on the hero and, despite billing itself as ‘the fairy tale that wouldn’t behave’, actually conforms to a number of ‘rules’: powerful women are vain and evil, good ones passive and pretty, and heroes take narrative prominence. Although it could be argued that such vehicles are not intended to be taken seriously, or that a ‘traditional’ quasi-medieval setting obliges them to comply with ‘period’ conventions, we might consider examples that retain a contemporary touch, even in an apparent storybook world, without resorting to stereotypes. Zipes may deride Ella Enchanted (Tommy O’Haver, 2004) as ‘fluff entertainment that adds a touch of feminism to make it more fashionable’ (2011: 186), yet negates its many progressive features, including a feisty heroine who breaks her own curse of obedience, as well as breaking traditional rules in saving an imperilled prince.

Far from relying on intervention from a fairy godmother, Ella (Anne Hathaway) creates her own destiny, fuelled by a liberal political mission to bring justice to a hierarchically divided kingdom, and (in pointed contrast to Ever After, which Zipes also commends) she sees her aspirations become a reality.21

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 158

Fairy Tale and Film

Film-makers have clearly drawn inspiration not only from ‘classic’ fairy tales but an array of writers who have subjected them to scrutiny over the years, adopting various devices such as a backstory that alters our understanding of events or characters, or updating the plot to elicit new meaning, albeit with variable results. Although many waste the chance to truly skewer expectations, some more inspiring revisions are also apparent, including female protagonists given a wider set of aspirations than wooing a prince, just as male counterparts have experienced notable rewrites as caring, communicative figures: changes that reflect differing expectations that are attributable, in part, to feminism’s influence. What is regarded as radical or experimental will inevitably divide critics, yet we should seek to avoid simplistic claims and be attentive to the diversity of fairy tale inflected narratives, especially attempts to appeal to a more discerning audience, including some evident attempts to please women. Recent releases from Disney affirm the near-ubiquity of postmodern traits today, as well as the differing uses they have been put to in revising classic tales.

Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010) utilises Beauty and the Beast and Maleficent screenwriter Linda Woolverton, together with a director renowned for his ‘reimagined’ fantasy films, to tell a new version of the tale, although one that remains curiously derivative. The design resembles cult computer game American McGee’s Alice,22 the heroine’s dreams of ‘Underland’ and the suggestion that she may be mad are reminiscent of Disney’s equally dark Return to Oz (Walter Murch, 1985), and there are additional references to The Wizard of Oz, particularly Alice’s task to restore order in her dream-world by overcoming an evil female. Turning the heroine into a dragon slayer (killing the ‘Jabberwocky’ to depose the hated Red Queen and reinstate her sister as ruler) is a novel twist, inventively using a Tenniel illustration from Through the Looking Glass (1871) to rewrite the depicted hero as Alice (in chainmail), making her more a participant than an observer. However, the story is scant, effects take precedence, and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is the sole character with any depth in what is ultimately a hollow enterprise. Various references are made to Burton’s previous films: the trademark twisted tree (The Nightmare Before Christmas), an arranged marriage (Corpse Bride), a fantasist father (Big Fish), a thwarted love story between the heroine and Depp’s Hatter (Edward Scissorhands) and the Red Queen’s alliance with her villainous henchman (Sleepy Hollow), yet the result is an unsatisfying mess. Even in seeking to provide a ‘feminist’ twist – having Alice decline marriage in the closing frame and become an apprentice in the company her father founded – this is let down by

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

159

questionable objectives. Her aim of being the first company to secure trade with China may be intended to prove how much she has inherited her father’s unfettered imagination yet has been criticised for its Imperialist overtones (appearing woefully negligent of Britain’s role in the opium wars), and while the point is to create an opportunity to escape a cloistered society that fails to value our eccentric heroine, evading the usual romantic denouement, its good intentions are undone by shaky colonial aims, as well as the parallel drawn between an evil queen and a mother who has no consideration for her daughter’s happiness.

A spin-off series, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (ABC 2013–14), plays even more dramatically with Carroll’s creation in a move that might be regarded as further consolidating the Disney Corporation’s ‘ownership’ and appropriation of fairy tales. However, far from simply affirming their reputation as a ‘paratext’, we might consider some other recent films that dramatically rework classic tales yet also affirm themselves as innovative rule-breakers.

Frozen (Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, 2013) takes issue with a number of common Disney criticisms, particularly the vilification of a powerful woman. A radical rewrite of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Snow Queen’ (1845), the film redeems a former villain and allows its queen to ascend the throne without a consort, focusing on the love between two sisters as the most important relationship featured, while a suggested love interest is exposed as duplicitous and dangerous. Admittedly, the result is such a loose interpretation of Andersen’s tale it scarcely seems to warrant any connection, yet its positive intentions might nonetheless be applauded. As its producer, Peter Del Vecho, states in comparison to its source ‘“inspired by” means exactly that. There is snow and there is ice and there is a queen, but other than that we depart from it quite a bit’, aiming to tell the story ‘in a way that we can understand the characters and relate to them’ (Connelly, 2013).23 The fact that its female co-director was responsible for the script has been widely credited for giving the story an unconventional female spin, reconnecting two estranged sisters, and resulting in perhaps one of the most widely seen films to pass Sweden’s Bechdel Test. (Developed in 1985 as a means of detecting gender bias in cinema, in order to pass, a film must have more than one named female character and they must have a conversation about something other than a man.) As Jennifer Lee states proudly of Frozen, ‘We definitely pass’ (qtd in Gee, 2013), and it is sobering to think that this is so remarkable, particularly for a high-grossing film – and especially one made by Disney. As Catherine Gee notes, ‘Many Disney (and Pixar) films do not pass this test, and even those that do tend

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 160

Fairy Tale and Film

to do so by pitting a female heroine against a thoroughly evil female villain, rather than having the two be sidekicks or friends’ (2013).

The difference is acknowledged by co-director Chris Buck, who states that ‘When it comes to certain things earlier princesses may have done, I think Disney has grown up a bit’ (2013). Where Andersen offered no explanation for his villain (who kidnaps the heroine’s best friend after turning his heart to ice) – a failing Winter Witch (David Wu, 2012) simply repeats – Frozen provides a context that redeems the queen, without removing her power or placing her in thrall to a man. Although purists may balk at such a radical revision, in seeking to provide a rewrite that modern (especially female) audiences can engage with – and earning considerable approval – the film proves that interesting innovations can be found in the most surprising of places, reiterating a need to dispense with jaded assumptions. Maleficent is similarly radical in its reworking of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, providing a backstory that explains why the title character curses an innocent infant (no longer simply motivated by petulance over a party invite), and makes a power-hungry man the undisputed villain. The same twist on ‘true love’ is presented – in this case between the unlikeliest of fairy godmothers and her foster daughter – and although a prince is shoe-horned in at the end, the love story is, once again, between two females. As the opening voice-over states, this version is designed to make us rethink how well we know the story, and the fact that Disney revised one of their own ‘classics’ in this case is especially significant.24 Naysayers may claim that making Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) a nurturing figure (redeemed by love) diminishes her in some way, yet she is rewritten as a powerful and heroic figure, the central relationship is surprisingly touching, and such female friendly plotting is all the more welcome because it has proved so rare, particularly given the stated interests of some Disney executives (keen to attract male viewers) and the rewrites that have consequently been approved – affirming a need to judge every film on its own merit.

Indeed, while Donald Haase asserts a need to avoid repeating negative generalisations about sexism, proclaiming that we should ‘look beyond the works of Disney’ (2004: 31), it seems Disney offers a good means of observing how criticisms have been creatively responded to by the film industry. As ever, cynics will attribute mercenary intentions behind these modifications, yet we should appreciate positive messages, and progressive stories, where we can find them, especially given the prominence and popularity of such films.

All rewrites are inherently ambivalent – equally capable of shoring up hoary tropes and contestable ideas as of challenging them. In terms

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Postmodern Revisions

161

of innovative retellings of fairy tales, this book has suggested a number of examples, yet what constitutes an inspiring or progressive variation depends on who we are and how we read them, with meaning invariably in the eye of the beholder. The aim of ‘de-Grimming’, Tatar’s ‘defamiliarization’, or even Carter’s decanting metaphor, may have originated via an interest in exploring beyond the established ‘canon’ and interrogating the ideological assumptions behind classic tales, yet what were once useful devices for taking tropes apart may simply be used to refashion fairy tales for the modern market, possessing no greater ambition than eliciting amusement, with some potentially reprehensible results. We might also question if the underlying basis for fairy tale revisions – the assumption that they function as forms of propaganda (used to uphold a hegemonic social order) – is an accurate assessment?

Many of the most interesting films discussed in this book rearticulate centuries-old concerns: approving feisty heroines who seek to improve their lot, commending kind-hearted heroes who differ from the machismo of male counterparts, warning against greed and misplaced ambitions, affirming the dangers and difficulties of bad marriages and unhappy families – as well as the potential to survive such traumas.

As such, we might reconsider how much the original tales truly require revision, or whether we need to rethink some of these assumptions also.

Fairy tales for the modern age need to navigate a difficult path, aiming to please a more critical and increasingly diverse audience with contrasting demands. We want tales to entertain and divert us, yet to also have a degree of credibility and depth, to see characters we can identify with, yet who are also larger than life. We like our intellects to be flattered by recognising familiar tropes, enjoy sharing jokes about the improbability of events and their deviation from expectation, and seem perennially intrigued by stories bent out of shape, creatively retold and reconfigured, while remaining recognisable and relevant.

Cinema’s promise to give us new tales for old has an obvious appeal, yet while every new version has the potential to surprise, they also carry the risk of diminishing returns. Shiny new versions, with all the attractions of top stars and the latest effects, will not necessarily guarantee a worthwhile viewing experience – much less an edifying story with any kind of long-term resonance that many classic tales still have – and this is an important point to note, for whatever revisions have occurred, classics stay for a reason. Although experimental devices have been used to question and challenge, they have also been utilised in quite conventional ways, affirming that techniques are as open to interpretation as fairy tales themselves. Invariably, we can be sure of

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 162

Fairy Tale and Film

endless new permutations. After all, this is what fairy tales have always done, altering and adapting to suit changing audiences and intentions, and our taste for them is unlikely to change any time soon. We may have lacklustre or downright disappointing results, uninspired retreads simply aiming to make a fast buck, yet we will keep looking for something special all the same. Much like Aladdin’s battered old lamp, it may be the most unpromising example – the one that elicits the lowest expectations – that gives us what we desire.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Epilogue: The Importance of Enchantment

It seems that the fairy tale film is experiencing both the best of times, and the worst of times: enjoying increased critical and industrial attention, while the films deemed worthy of commendation appear to be relatively small. Cinematic interest in rejigging familiar stories is long established, of course, and fairy tales largely ‘presold’ in this respect, with star appeal, an epic scale and special effects best appreciated on the big screen all figuring prominently as major incentives for studio investment. However, recent examples have largely proved to be disappointing – particularly given the many talented figures involved in dismal projects such as Jack the Giant Slayer and Oz the Great and Powerful.

The likelihood of further releases of similar ilk, effects-driven crowd pleasers without substance or staying power, would seem to corroborate critical misgivings about the co-opting of fairy tales for commercial ends. Nonetheless, as I said at the outset of this book, the more obvious fairy tale adaptations are by no means the most interesting examples, and although it is easy to become frustrated or discouraged in response to so many creative opportunities missed, it is more important to focus on areas of continued innovation and inspiration.

Back in 1993, in a statement coinciding with the BFI’s season of screenings, Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment, Marina Warner commended the fairy tale film for ‘its capacity to face up to real-life difficulties and deal with them imaginatively, to make the best of adversity’, adding, ‘if a popular medium can’t challenge the status quo, as well as support it, we might as well all shrug ourselves into an early grave’ (qtd in Petrie 1993: 3). In her subsequent book, From the Beast to the Blonde (1995), she admits some concern about the absorption of fairy tales into popular commercial culture, yet again strives to counter cynicism, contending that ‘it seems a simple admission of defeat to weep 163

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 164

Fairy Tale and Film

and gnash one’s teeth at the thought of EuroDisney’ just as ‘it is simply unthinking and lazy to denounce all the works of Disney and his legacy’ (1995: 414).1 Two decades on, in her latest book, Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights (2012), Warner reiterates a need to reassess what fairy tales have to offer us, affirming ‘the uses of enchantment in a sceptical age’ (432) as a means of recognising some level of unity in a very divided time, claiming that the universal appeal of so many tales provides important common ground. As ever, her faith in the fairy tale is encouraging, as is her attempt to positively reclaim what ‘enchantment’ constitutes, serving as both a source of pleasure and a crucial means of reconceiving reality. The term ‘enchantment’ has been highly debated over the years, used by Bruno Bettelheim to describe the psychoanalytic work performed by fairy tales, yet serving as a byword for being duped, according to Jack Zipes, who claims that fairy tales have largely been deployed to instruct and inhibit individuals as part of the civilising process. ‘Enchantment’ is thus aligned with an ideological endorsement of the status quo and ‘breaking the magic spell’ a way to perceive and resist such devices, a means to ‘do away with the mystique and charisma that pervade our lives so that we can grasp the deceptive and arbitrary uses of enchantment and entertainment’ (Zipes, 2002a: x). Notably, however, while fairy tales have frequently been used to deceive us, Zipes claims that they may also serve as an antidote, tempering a degree of wariness with some optimism in arguing that ‘within the tales lies the hope of self-transformation and a better world’ (2002a: xi). Arguing that narratives can be ‘re-utilised’, he considers ‘Utopianism’ a key incentive,2 and although he has become increasingly cynical about our ability to achieve these ideals, Zipes nonetheless asserts a continued need for fantasy ‘to contemplate alternatives to our harsh realities’, claiming ‘more than titillation, we need the fantastic for resistance’ (2009: 48).

Warner reiterates the sentiment, yet ‘enchantment’ is not perceived as a euphemism for delusion, but a flight of fancy with a sense of purpose, serving as a necessary prelude to change. As she contends, ‘the strange and admirable pleasures of magic are connected to the acts of enchantment and the transfiguring effects of imaginary possibilities’, aligning this capacity with ‘the prophetic ability to imagine what has not yet come to be’ (2012: 433). Put simply, without being able to conceive an alternate reality, we have little hope of creating one. As Tatar asserts, ‘fairy tales are good to think with’ (2013) and to rethink our view of the world, yet most of all to enable us to imagine that progress is possible.

Breaking the magic spell should not come at the cost of believing in the most compelling aspect of fairy tales: the extraordinary transformations

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Epilogue

165

at the heart of these stories, their sense of wonder and wish-fulfilment, and their affirmation of positive change, even against the odds. This is the remit of fairy tales after all: to present protagonists faced with perils and difficulties, yet also endorse their ability to surpass them. The question that appears to give so many scholars pause is whether progressive claims can be made for cinematic variations, with the film industry negatively regarded as working to maintain consensus and a tendency to denounce happy endings as an escapist fantasy.

A key aim of this book has been to challenge such negative thinking, selecting films that attest to the positive impact cultural criticism and socio-political movements have had on narratives, while also aiming to avoid simplistic generalisations. Our understanding of fairy tales – and film – is better served in seeking examples that widen our critical and imaginary horizons, I would argue, rather than affirm foregone conclusions. Although scholars have struggled to come to terms with the fact that fairy tale revisions, so often applauded in print, acquire a different hue in celluloid, we should not regard the medium as invariably at the mercy of commercial considerations, acknowledging the ability to reflect key changes in our understanding of gender, materialism and power – without necessarily deeming these gestures to be insincere. As critics have noted, a marked ambivalence is apparent in the fairy tale film, just as fairy tales themselves are contrary narratives, yet a number of significant films appear to have been overlooked on somewhat tenuous grounds. While this is attributable to a level of snobbery, devaluing the popular on the questionable grounds that people don’t know what’s good for them (a critique in keeping with determinist theories of media power and the accompanying belief that commercial cinema’s interest in fairy tales is wholly negative), the danger of such thinking is that it refutes any grounds for improvement. Zipes has pessimistically claimed that ‘what might have been considered subversive or provocative in the past has been domesticated through the market and changing tastes and values’, going on to claim that there is ‘little room for genuine opposition’ (2009: 19). This idea of co-optation has been echoed by others, especially with regard to fairy tale films, and may be linked to ‘the old Marcusian notion of recuperation, where a radical concept which once had purchase rapidly becomes a commodity and, in the process, is washed, laundered and hung out to dry’ (McRobbie, 1994: 15). However, such thinking denies the fact that political ideas may find their way into popular culture simply because there is a genuine demand for them.

What Zipes describes as ‘changing tastes and values’ have arisen for a reason, informed by the political movements and altering attitudes of

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 166

Fairy Tale and Film

the last century. The result can be seen in the way traditional motifs have been revised in recent films: presenting assertive, intelligent heroines who want more from life than marriage; new depictions of masculinity that applaud traits such as sensitivity and compassion; an appraisal of greed and the acquisition of wealth as more damaging than desirable, scenarios that draw attention to the continued threat of male violence, and a willingness to review established ideas about malevolent mothers, desiring daughters and the seemingly perpetual problem of unhappy families. These themes reflect key changes resulting from opposition to dominant culture, and although the retention of somewhat reprehensible tropes in other films affirms that we cannot afford to be complacent, neither should we ignore what political movements have achieved. Hopefully, this analysis will encourage a reconsideration of what counts as a fairy tale film, as well as what may justifiably be termed a radical or (at the very least) innovative revision, exposing texts to continued debate and exploration. Just as no fairy tale ever truly ends, because they are continually retold and reinterpreted, films are continuing the same tradition, and the fact that we are likely to disagree about every one of them is because the fairy tale film is ultimately as diverse as its audience.

In concluding his investigation of the fairy tale film, The Enchanted Screen, Zipes argues that ‘fairy tales films, the very best of them, are concerned with profound human struggles and seek to provide a glimpse of light and hope’, while the worst ‘belong to the society of the spectacle and generate illusions that divert us from we need most ... illumination about the causes of our conflicts, hope that we may enjoy epiphanies that deepen the meaning of our lives’ (2011: 350). Immediately, a problem of interpretation arises: when is a film simply a diversion, and how can ‘hope’ be distinguished from such ‘illusions’? Zipes selects half a dozen examples deemed to be particularly worthy of commendation, all of which cast children as protagonists yet do not offer ‘escapist’ assurances through allowing the children’s desires to take precedence.

In fact, in two of his examples, Pan’s Labyrinth and Mermaid (Anna Melikyan, 2007), the protagonists – both alluring figures with vivid imaginations – die in perplexing and pointless fashion. While Zipes applauds the fact that these films do not ‘create a false sense of happy end or an empowered child who can obtain anything he or she wants and master the world’ (366) we might ask what is wrong with such a fantasy, and why dreams of empowerment are so negatively regarded.

The fact that both films suggest a rebirth in another realm seems far more unsettling, particularly given his wariness about issuing ‘false

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Epilogue

167

promises’. The purpose of fairy tales is manifold, yet far from simply allowing dark realities to engulf the protagonist, they provide a means to transcend problems, rather than succumb to them. In fact, Zipes has claimed, in an earlier work, that ‘we have been attracted to fairy tales because they are survival stories with hope’ (2006: 27). It consequently seems imperative, one would assume, to applaud tales where protagonists not only face adversity, but successfully overcome it. A happy ending is far from necessarily conservative. On the contrary, it grants us the imaginative power to rethink what is possible. Unlikely heroes who earn themselves a kingdom, imperilled heroines who put a difficult past behind them, fabulous beings and magical encounters that enable dreams to come true may all seem unbelievably far-fetched, yet a sense of wonder should also be valued for the creative freedom it allows to defy apparent restrictions and imaginatively reconceive reality.

Many of the most inspiring films of recent years corroborate what is arguably the fairy tale’s greatest aim: the belief that we might bend reality to our will, with protagonists who use their imaginations to rewrite the rules and turn established ideas on their head. The heroines in Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2002) and The Secret of Roan Inish (John Sayles, 1994) pay no heed to cynical adults in their midst, or beliefsystems that have no place for them. Instead they create a world they can fit into, in which they fulfil a central heroic mission. Their faith in local myths is rewarded with a magical encounter, thus providing their embattled communities with a sense of identity and hope. A Maori legend is thus rewritten, granting a 12-year-old girl a central place as the mythical whale rider, repudiating the limitations her elders have set in finally assuming the role of leader, while the Selkie legend is similarly reborn through a young girl’s imagination, reuniting her fragmented family in rural Ireland. Fantastical events may be included in these narratives, yet they seek to imbue a recognisable world with magic, fuelled by their heroines’ refusal to accept mundane reality when they can believe in something better. In a similar vein to these girls, Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), the six-year-old protagonist of Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012), reiterates an affinity with nature, as opposed to ‘civilisation’, taming the imaginary beasts that stalk her world. In a gesture similar to that shown to Max, the hero of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1963), these beasts bow down before the small girl, effectively making her queen of all the wild things, before departing. Although the film might be accused of too idealised a portrait of those struggling to live on the margins of civilisation, defiance among the dispossessed ‘bathtub’ residents is affirmed

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 168

Fairy Tale and Film

as a necessary strategy for those who survived hurricane Katrina, and the film’s astonishingly resilient heroine, in imagining her story being retold to others, leaves us with a powerful affirmation of the need to construct fables to mark one’s place in the world. Although left without any parents to take care of her, the film champions Hushpuppy’s selfbelief, fully aware that she is a survivor, raised to flex her muscles and roar. Like the wild-child in Hanna (Joe Wright, 2011) a fellow creature of the wilderness, she may be orphaned and alone in the end, yet imbues us with confidence about her ability to survive. These girls’ key attributes are their defiance and drive, their refusal to be defeated, with fables and fairy tales crucially influencing their worldview. Zipes may criticise happy endings and empowered children, yet protagonists who mould reality to their will, refusing to let convention or naysayers dictate what they believe about the world, its potential, and their capacity to make a difference, are infinitely more positive and inspiring than narratives that simply kill their dreamers off.

A comparison with The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013) makes the point clear, a film in which the difficulties of struggling to survive are given a sharp realist edge. A young boy dies foraging for scrap metal, replacing Wilde’s sentimental religious allegory with a comment on the desperation of hard times.3 A child’s death brings pathos certainly, yet we might also consider this the most cynical means of manipulating an audience, whether it is intended as a sobering message about seeking to grow up too fast or a queasy paean to enduring innocence, enabling a perpetual childhood, untainted by the adult world.4 Personally, I like my heroes to be empowered and alive, and my stories to provide something to believe in. Seeing the world as it is may provide needed insight at times, but seeing the world anew hinges on a conceptual re-visioning which is equally imperative. Wish-fulfilment is as crucial a part of contemporary storytelling as it was when stories were first exchanged, in even darker times, and we need fairy tale films that we can identify with, that comment in some way on recognisable human experiences, yet which also suggest the possibility of a better life, giving us something to believe in. As Tolkien argues, critics should not ‘confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter’, explicitly praising the ‘escapist’ for not succumbing to ‘acquiescence’ or fatalism (1991: 299).

The capacity to dream, to use one’s imagination, is not simply the preserve of child protagonists, and we might note some instances where films have celebrated childlike adults. In The City of Lost Children (JeanPierre Jeunet, 1995) the villain has grown prematurely old because he is

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Epilogue

169

not able to dream, while the hero is approved for his childlike nature.

The heroine in Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) is also an adult-sized child, whose kindness and quirkiness have not been tempered by age, drawing her to help others and to see the world differently. The hero of Le Havre (Aki Kaurismäki, 2011) is similarly represented, described as ‘an overgrown child’ whose good heart and simple faith unite various people in a common cause (helping a young African boy evade the authorities and find his mother), and he is duly rewarded with a miracle cure for his wife. It scarcely matters that the events are not necessarily credible; they are charming, inspiring and seek to bring out the best in us. Tolkien used the term ‘recovery’ to describe this unbridled enthusiasm and openness, contending that a fundamental feature of fairy tales is the ability to grant a ‘childlike’ perspective of the world that enables us ‘to see beyond what has become trite and familiar’ (1991: 298). By giving adult characters this capacity, these films assert that cynicism and disillusionment are not inevitable. Their exuberance, their belief in making a difference and their altruism pay off, working an enchantment of sorts.

Various ideals are often invested in critical interpretations of fairy tales, believing that they can offer us some insight into ourselves, provide ways to discuss covert subjects and perhaps reveal what unites us.

The question of why so many similar stories have been told around the world is likely to be an endless debate, yet one answer that suggests itself is the idea that we are not so different, fundamentally, essentially drawn by the same wish to be enchanted and amused, to share familiar stories about extraordinary protagonists, and at the same time be challenged in our view of the world and its potential. Zipes may consign the most progressive inclinations to the past, arguing that folk tales served to ‘keep alive a certain hope that powerless folk could overcome obstacles, determine their own destinies, outwit giants, and prevent ogres and witches from eating them’ (2006: 239), yet there is no reason to think that the same impulses are not present today, repeated in various cinematic incarnations that affirm the ability to transcend adversity, essentially providing us with larger-than-life survival stories.

Enchantment can be considered a form of curse or trickery – deluding the unwary – or it can serve as a source of inspiration and pleasure.

Tolkien responded to critical denigrations of escapism by asking ‘why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in a prison, he tries to get out?’ (1991: 298) and the point remains pertinent. Fairy stories enable a way to venture beyond the walls and envisage a preferable mode of existence. They might thus be considered aspirational, rather than

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 170

Fairy Tale and Film

evasive, and while there is always likely to be disagreement about the merits of wish-fulfilment, we should note that this is perhaps their most compelling draw. Film-makers have increasingly adopted an irreverent approach to retold tales, aware that viewers are likely to be familiar with the source and will be drawn to a new angle of some kind, yet whether we are shown a storybook past from a contemporary perspective, or witness magic at work in the modern world, our aim is little different, arguably, to that of our forebears – wanting stories that fuel our imaginations and fill our lives with possibility. Contemporary audiences may be more sophisticated, in some ways, and perhaps more cynical about the realities of the world, yet what we seek from fairy tale films is much the same as the idealised ‘folk’ who once gathered at fields and firesides to hear earlier versions of these tales: wanting stories of substance that allow the vicarious pleasure of triumph against the odds – without any qualms about the fantastical devices used to achieve a happy end.

Angela Carter described fairy tales as narratives ‘with a relaxed attitude to the reality principle and plots constantly refurbished in the retelling’ (1990: xvii) and it seems somewhat misguided, given their patent lack of realism, to claim any need to be disenchanted. Their motive, as Carter states, is to entertain and provide pleasure, ‘one of the most ancient and honourable functions of art’, craftily adding ‘since there is no such thing as pure pleasure there is always more going on than meets the eye’ (xii). What we choose to take from them will invariably differ, certainly given the contrasting interests of folklorists, critics and audiences, yet they remain endlessly intriguing precisely because they cannot be easily contained or explained, belying those who would seek to discredit them, and thereby eliciting our continued attention.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 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 equivalent, 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 misnomer 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 residents realising who they truly are. Sleepy Hollow pushes the detective premise 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-files, 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

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 172

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

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/folktaletypes.html.

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.

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.

Ironically, this idea of being ‘low-culture’, although often pejoratively intended, has also been a cause to take fairy tales, and their folkloric predecessors, 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).

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).

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

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 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 separate 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 biological 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 chronology to oral tales is notoriously difficult, making any attempt to argue a clearcut 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. Lieberman responds to Lurie’s point about a biased selection

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 174

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

Notes to Chapter 1 process by using one of its examples and conducts an analysis based solely on Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy book (published in the late nineteenth century), negating to look at alternative heroines in more recent collections or offering any evidence of wider research to support her argument.

Lurie’s claims not only heralded a key debate in feminist criticism, they also instigated a re-evaluation of fairy tales, resulting in new collections featuring assertive heroines, and a wider cache of characters to inspire audiences and later writers.

Marina Warner’s book From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers (1995) similarly argues the case for regarding fairy tales as a woman’s genre, used to covertly discuss mutual experiences and concerns. In her 1986 essay ‘To Spin a Yarn’, Rowe makes a similar contention.

Ironically, Lieberman did single out a particular strand of fairy tales she approved of – Animal Groom tales involving ‘female questers’ who journey to the ends of the earth for a man, such as ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon’ (ATU 425A), claiming the heroine plays an ‘agentive’ role in re-humanising a character. While this plot is seemingly just as regressive as waiting for a prince, romanticising self-sacrifice in the name of love, the heroine is admired for being ‘active’, irrespective of motivation. Lieberman’s article is reprinted in Zipes (1984: 185–200).

‘Kate Crackernuts’ is especially notable because it confronts so many tendencies often targeted by critics – while retaining marriage as the ultimate reward. The less attractive girl is the heroine, who disenchants the prettier half-sister her mother has disfigured, using her wits to ultimately marry them both off to princes.

Stone has since made the most of this ability to imaginatively transform tales. (See her essays ‘Burning Brightly’ (1993) and ‘Fire and Water’ (2004), in which she explains how two Grimm tales are retold to create heroines with greater agency and significance, allowing a punished girl to live in her version of ‘Frau Trude’ and changing the gender of the male hero in ‘The Water of Life’). These strategies were anticipated by Heather Lyons and Carolyn Heilbrun in the late seventies, while the seventeenth-century conteuses disguised and cross-dressed their heroines for similar ends: to counter the constraints of their gender and time.

Lucy Armitt cites Waelti-Walters in this observation (1982: 80), quoted

by Armitt (1996: 28).

In early versions Snow White originated as the object of a king’s desire (a variation collected by the Grimms and later elaborated by Carter), Sleeping Beauty is a victim of sexual abuse (a motif discussed later in this chapter), and Cinderella’s abasement among the ashes is explicable as a means of deterring an incestuous father (an idea that related tale type ‘Donkeyskin/Catskin/All-kindsof-fur’ (ATU 510B) expounds, presenting a darker explanation for the heroine’s disguise and flight from home, as noted by Tatar (1992) and Warner (1995)).

Zipes (2002a) elaborates his evaluation of the transition fairy tales have undergone.

See Maria Tatar’s Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales, in which she notes the way in which sexual matters were treated with distaste by the Grimms, affirming that they felt more comfortable detailing acts of violence than what she terms as ‘the facts of life’. One result of this tendency is that ‘intimations

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 1

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

175

of a father’s passion for his daughter are discreetly kept to a minimum, while the evil deeds of a stepmother are invariably writ large’ (2003: 150).

See Mirror, Mirror (Bernheimer, 1998) in which various female writers attest to the influence fairy tales have had on them. Authors responsible for popular fictional works with fairy tale motifs include Margaret Atwood, Isabelle Allende, A.S. Byatt and Angela Carter (as well as notable male writers such as Gregory Maguire and Neil Gaiman). The fact that there is a considerable audience for such work proves an extensive adult interest, although more work is needed on reception. The surlalune messageboard (surlalunefairytales.com/introduction/disneyfairytales.html) provides some insight into the variety of female fairy tale fans online, and their often divergent attitudes to fairy tales, particularly what is considered to be ‘negative’ or otherwise, while Brigid Cherry’s research (2009) into the relationship between horror fans and a childhood love of fairy tales affirms that it is not necessarily romantic overtones that gain prominence!

Generally considered one of the oldest fairy tales in existence, a number of scholars have attempted to trace the history of the Cinderella tale, including Jack Zipes, who contends that ‘the Cinderella type heroine was changed during the course of four millennia – approximately 7000 BC to 3000 BC – from a young active woman who is expected to pursue her own destiny under the guidance of a wise gift-bearing dead mother, into a helpless, inactive pubescent girl, whose major accomplishments are domestic, and who must obediently wait to be rescued by a male’ (2002b: 195). What stands out, however, even in his example of an early matrilineal version such as ‘Moon Brow’, is the same basic emphasis on female rivalry and marriage. These are the bare bones of the ‘Cinderella’ plot, after all, although modern versions often depart from both tendencies. Far from assigning more progressive features to the past, we should reassess what contemporary variations of the tale have to offer. As Zipes admits, the mass media (including film) ‘have presented variations on the Cinderella tale that either reinforce the patriarchal texts or place them in question’ (2002b: 197), yet he seems unable to discern many examples of questioning films, even in his more recent work.

The same phrase, ‘paying “lip service” to feminism’, has been adopted by a number of female critics, including various contributors to Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity (Greenhill and Matrix, 2010), offering a veritable chorus of disapproval.

Although feminist critics often target Disney for providing unrealistic and uninspiring female role models it is important to question how much the acculturation theory is supported by research evidence. Interestingly, a crosscultural survey conducted by Maya Gotz et al. (2005) into the way children incorporate media products in their creative play found that they were selective in what images were chosen and the use made of them. The work is cited

by Butler (2009: 52).

A scene in Shrek the Third (Chris Miller and Raman Hui, 2007) exemplifies their point when a group of ‘Disney’ princesses are held captive and simply ‘assume the position’ (striking winning poses as they wait to be saved) while Fiona, despite being an ogress, is equally passive. Although her mother headbutts the way out of their cell in an amusing deviation from expectation, Bacchilega and Reider claim this joke is at the expense of feminists. Only in

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 176

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

Notes to Chapter 1 the final instalment, Shrek Forever After (Mike Mitchell, 2010), is Fiona given an alternative role to being Shrek’s wife, although the embittered warrior version, railing against ‘true love’ as a lie that failed to save her, scarcely seems preferable – requiring a Disneyesque denouement to put everything right. Although I believe Bacchilega and Reider neglect any positive elements in the Shrek films, this highlights a key problem with postmodern parodies, as is discussed further in Chapter 6.

At the time of the sequel’s release, producer and star Sandra Bullock affirmed a desire to confront the conventions for women in comedy, stating, ‘Why does the girl have to end up with the guy? Why can’t it be a buddy film?’

The fact that it bombed is perhaps sufficient answer.

There is also a more negative reading of this casting choice, affirming heroines to be male-identified. Having lost her mother, young Cinderella has only a male parental influence and it is curious that this is echoed in a number of films, effacing the mother completely. While some critics have objected to the fact that Perrault exchanged the dead mother’s spirit with a fairy godmother in his version ‘Cendrillon’ (1697), thereby removing the daughter from a powerful maternal presence to watch over her, cinematically casting the godmother as male might be read as an even greater removal from a female mentor.

An early tale that bears some kinship with both ‘Cinderella’ and the animal groom tale is of course ‘Cupid and Psyche’ (ATU 425A), part of Apuleius’ book The Golden Ass. As John Gilbert summarises, ‘this long tale has all the elements of myth and fairy tale – a king with three daughters, two of them wicked; an unseen lover, rumoured to be bestial and in this case of divine, not merely noble, birth; a sequence of apparently impossible tasks ... and a journey to the underworld’ (1970: 138). Like ‘Cinderella’, sibling rivalry almost curtails an unfolding romance and like ‘Beauty and the Beast’ an arranged marriage is shown to be both perilous and pleasurable – the bride realising her true feelings only when she loses her partner, literally going to hell and back to prove herself! The fact that Venus plays the wicked stepmother, envious of her rival, yet with a touch of Baba Yaga in administering Psyche’s ‘test’, further adds to the mythic richness and significance of the tale.

Tatar (1992) reminds us that many such tales have violent denouements, with beast-grooms requesting to be beheaded or skinned, testing the heroine’s devotion and maturity as she is physically forced into close contact with the beast (and required to perform a task considered repellent). As Warner (1995) notes, the beastly female in Mme d’Aulnoy’s ‘White Cat’ similarly asks to be beheaded as a final test of love.

Marriage to a beast who is beyond romantic redemption provides the flipside to this scenario, with its antithesis ‘Bluebeard’ (ATU 312) further discussed in Chapter 5.

Warner argues that this moderating stance towards marriage is atypical of the ‘critical and challenged rebelliousness of the first generation of women fairy tale writers’ (1995: 294). For further discussion of the conteuses, and the criticism they have had, particularly in relation to marriage, see Harries (2001) and Seifert (2004).

Giambattista Basile’s tale ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’, collected in The Pentamerone, has an even older forebear in the fourteenth-century romance ‘Perceforest’ (author unknown). ‘Perceforest’ differs from Basile’s version in terms of the sleeping princess not being violated by a stranger, but a man she fell in

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 2

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

2

177

love with before being enchanted. Troylus is urged by Venus to give in to his desire and has intercourse with Zellandine, and she subsequently gives birth to a child that awakens her when it sucks the poisoned flax from her finger. Venus’ temptation is reminiscent of the blame placed on the devil in ‘The Maiden without Hands’, a tale that similarly side-steps sexual abuse and emphasises motherhood as a form of rebirth and renewal. In both early examples of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ the incumbent heroines bear no grudge towards their attackers, and blame is diverted towards threatening females, just as Perrault’s version casts a vengeful fairy as antagonist and romanticises the conduct of the ‘prince’, substituting rape with a chaste kiss.

Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita, 1973) has been cited by Tarantino as a primary influence on Kill Bill – a story of a young woman whose life is dedicated to seeking vengeance for her lost family.

Brünnhilde – according to Norse legend – was a wilful Valkyre who displeased Odin and was punished by being placed in an enchanted sleep. A ring of flames substitutes for Perrault’s deadly thorns in protecting her from being violated. Although the hero, Siegfried, manages to gain access and awakens her – removing her armour in some versions, in others, with a kiss – he does not succumb to ‘passion’, laying his sword between them when they sleep.

However, in contrast to the other ‘Sleeping Beauty’ tales cited, their relationship ends in tragedy, the heroine’s love for a man who forgets and betrays her marking her downfall.

Madonna Kolbenschlag, author of Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-bye (1981), has provided one of the most inventive ways of trying to redeem this figure by reconsidering her potential meaning. Arguing that it is time for what constitutes masculine and feminine roles to be re-evaluated, she affirms that women can play the part of the prince in the tale, and wake themselves to consciousness.

An interesting contrast is seventies curio Some Call it Loving ( James B. Harris, 1973). A young woman, asleep for eight years and exhibited as a ‘sleeping beauty’ in a travelling carnival, is bought by a wealthy yet lonely man, who learns that her ‘coma’ is contrived through medication. As she awakes she recalls being abused and becomes increasingly unhappy, finally asking to return to her endless sleep. Contradicting the romantic revamp the Grimms gave the tale, Jennifer is not saved, and not what her ‘prince’ expected. Leigh’s film focuses so much on the abuse experienced by the (mostly naked) protagonist that it comes close to prurience at the expense of its intended message.

Kenneth Branagh’s plans for Cinderella (due for release in 2015) were quickly picked up by the media, seizing on an ‘independent’ Cinderella as an apparently novel idea. See, for example: www.gazettenews.co.uk/uk_national_ entertainment/10963493.Branagh_My_Cinderella_independent/ (posted 25 January 2014).

Curses, Wishes and Amazing Transformations: Male Maturation Tales

1. Tatar further notes that male characters are distinguished by naïveté – whether it be silly, foolish, simple or unworldly – arguing that ‘if the female protagonists of fairy tales are often as good as they are beautiful, their male

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 178

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Notes to Chapter 2 counterparts generally appear to be as young and naïve as they are stupid’ (2003: 87).

Tatar adds the important caveat that compassion is rarely extended to fellow humans, particularly siblings, but shown to animals or unfortunate beings who later repay the debt by helping the hero win a princess (1992: 42). In the films assessed in this chapter, by contrast, they need to express these qualities directly to their partners.

Examples offered from the Grimm Tales are ‘The Golden Bird’, ‘The Queen Bee’, ‘The Three Feathers’, ‘The Golden Goose’ and ‘The Water of Life’, in which youngest sons overcome limited expectations, leading Heilbrun to claim their situation is ‘a paradigm of female experience in the male power structure that no woman with aspirations above that of a sleeping princess will fail to recognise’ (qtd in Haase (2004: 6).

In narratives like ‘East of the Sun and West o’ the Moon’ and other descendants of the ‘Cupid and Psyche’ story a woman is responsible for re-humanising an enchanted man. Devoted sisters in ‘The Twelve Brothers’ and ‘The Six Swans’ similarly risk everything for this task. The men are usually blameless, subject to a cruel curse and rely on female intervention to put things right.

The heroine’s trial may range from a single night with a despised creature (as occurs in ‘The Frog King’), journeying to the ends of the earth, or years of silent suffering. The women assume the key narrative role and must perform necessary duties to redeem their men, whether it be putting their lives on hold or adjusting their expectations (like the heroine of ‘Beauty and the Beast’).

In ‘The Uses of Enchantment’ (1993a) Warner notes how the tale’s meaning is open to interpretation, citing its use under fascism ‘to steel the Hitler Youth in classroom propaganda’, while also acknowledging its original intent as a simpleton tale, simply designed to amuse. In From the Beast to the Blonde (1995b) she uses it as a parallel for the motives governing female tale-tellers – as a means of confronting fears.

Although Warner adds, in a later article, that ‘she’s not portrayed as particularly old, however, just an older woman’ (2009), the fact she is also his godmother, who has been raising him as her son, adds another dimension to his rejection, demonstrating how Villeneuve’s version of the tale is not only much less romantic than Madame de Beaumont’s, but akin to the other conteuses in portraying the fairy godmother in a sinister light.

In the film’s repudiation of Gaston, Warner describes the Beast as the preferred exemplar of masculinity, ‘a wild man in touch with nature’, and alludes to Robert Bly’s call for men to find their ‘warrior within’ (Warner 1995: 317–18). The allusion is misplaced, however; the Beast ultimately exemplifies Bly’s derided ‘soft man’, and his transformation by a woman is a phenomenon Bly especially deplores.

A rare role reversal is found in Penelope (Mark Palansky, 2006). A rich family is cursed by a witch for a tragic slight against her daughter that occurred generations previously. As a result, the first girl born to them is cursed with a pig-nose and ears, which plastic surgery is unable to fix, a plight that will only to be altered when she gains the love of ‘one of her own’. This is assumed to mean marrying someone wealthy, yet the twist in the tale is that Penelope (Christina Ricci) breaks the curse herself the moment she genuinely starts to like herself, which entails leaving home – and her superficial

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 2

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

179

parents – and acquiring a sense of acceptance. At the end of the film an apparent scoundrel, Johnny (James McCavoy), turns out to have a heart, similarly having been judged too much by appearances, and he declares his feelings without being aware the curse has been lifted – although the gesture is somewhat undermined by the fact that Penelope’s nose was hardly monstrous and her nature is achingly sweet. Both Beastly and Penelope affirm the upside of curses as a means of finding true love. They also suggest that the rich are not necessarily any happier than the rest of us, with affluence seemingly its own curse. Only when they leave their respective ‘castles’ do the protagonists learn to connect with others – and notably choose poor love interests who are more in touch with their emotions than their privileged yet emotionally aloof parents. As examples made for an adolescent market, fairy tale tropes are interestingly reworked to provide love stories that extol the virtues of compassion, humility and looking beyond appearances, adding a dose of liberalism for additional sugar-coating.

A mother–daughter variation of the parent/child body-swap is Freaky Friday (1976), which also unites the protagonists through their ordeal, while Big (1988) and 13 Going on 30 (2004) rework the body-swap scenario from the perspective of a child propelled forward in time, who is similarly forced to realise that childhood is to be cherished, rather than resented, particularly given the foibles of adult relationships. 17 Again (2009) reverses the fantasy as a disgruntled middle-aged man gets the chance to relive his youth and realises his commitment to his family.

The theme is extended, without supernatural intervention, in films such as Big Daddy (1999), Knocked Up (2007) and Role Models (2008), in which male slackers are transformed by parental responsibility.

Although an early draft of the screenplay makes a spurned lover (and apparent witch) the catalyst for Phil’s curse, wanting him to pay for his curt treatment of her, the film leaves us without any specific cause.

A later film starring Black, Gulliver’s Travels (2010), is another contribution to the ‘slacker gains responsibility’ sub-cycle, the magical device in this case being a Bermuda Triangle-style phenomenon that transports the hero to Lilliput. Again, the message is that true love will happen once a sense of commitment to others is shown, literally helping the ‘little people’ in this case. Although some critics deplored the lack of Swiftian satire in the film, the fact the hero is romantically rewritten stands in pleasant contrast to the misogyny displayed by the original novel’s hero, who returns from his travels so repulsed by his wife’s smell he prefers to sleep in the stables!

The fact that Mike seeks to address his daughter’s self-image and attitude to boys (claiming this is the specific responsibility of fathers and not mothers) is particularly notable, clearly having grown up in a generation where gender expectations were altering, although the film also affirms how easily retrenchment occurs. While the mother is alive in this case, Lesley Mann performs her usual role as a goofy mother, somewhat frustrated with her lot, seeking to establish a separate identity – offering another interesting role reversal.

Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio was initially serialised in a newspaper and later published as a book in 1883 due to its immense popularity. The story has an obvious mythic quality in terms of the rite of passage undertaken by the protagonist. A wooden puppet is carved from a log, mysteriously imbued with a

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 180

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

Notes to Chapter 2 spark of life, and wishes to become a real boy. Initially making his adoptive father’s life difficult through continual misbehaviour (running away, acting without consideration, led astray by others and doing as he pleases), he eventually matures as he discovers a sense of responsibility and conscience, and ultimately has his wish granted.

Peter Pan first appeared in J.M. Barrie’s novel The Little Bird (1902) and his adventures were reissued as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906). In 1904, Barrie produced a play in which ‘the boy who wouldn’t grow up’ takes the Darling children to Never Land. The play was such a success Barrie rewrote it in book form, published as Peter and Wendy (1911). The book was revised and shortened in 1915, with variations remaining in print ever since. While little is revealed about his past, we are informed that Peter left home and was not able to return, subsequently finding company in the form of Lost Boys – who fell out of their prams as infants and have since gone to live with Peter in Never Land. His reason for wanting Wendy is claimed to be for the boys’ benefit, rather than his, but although they act as figurative parents she eventually tires of mothering everyone and grows weary of Peter’s failure to reciprocate her love. Much speculation has been attributed to the meaning of the character and his reluctance to grow up, with many biographical features awarded significance by critics. The most salient and undisputable of these is that Barrie modelled Peter on his own brother, who died tragically young. This lends a somewhat morbid factor behind Peter Pan’s failure to mature: the idea that he is himself dead, believed by some, as is referenced in the book, to accompany the spirits of dead children to heaven. He is thus not simply a mischievous sprite, or even a ‘boy’ who refuses to acknowledge the adult world, but a typically Victorian attempt to imbue the spirit world with sentiment, with Never Land a child’s version of paradise. For more on Peter Pan’s associations with the dead see Purkiss (2000).

While Spielberg has tended to romanticise Peter Pan (conspicuously referenced in ET and Hook), and P.J. Hogan’s 2003 film is a thwarted love story, he acquires more sinister meaning in recent appearances, depicted as a childsnatcher in the TV series Once Upon a Time and upcoming film Hooked.

In interview Burton has commented on the links between Edward Scissorhands and ‘Beauty and the Beast’, collaborating with Caroline Thompson on the theme (2006: 84–99).

There are parallels to be drawn here with RoboCop’s Alex Murphy, who is taunted about his inability to offer his former wife ‘a man’s love’, and we might note Edward Scissorhands’ appearance among a range of cyborg films in the late 1980s and 1990s that similarly question masculinity itself. See my book, Cyborg Cinema (Short, 2011a), for further discussion of this theme, evaluating the male cyborg in film as an example of ‘reconstructed masculinity’.

See Johns (2004), who explores Baby Yaga’s intense ambivalence, noting that depictions of the character range from a monstrous figure, accused of stealing the souls of dead unbaptised children, to a protective mother, with links to Persephone. This contrariness is interestingly depicted in the animated film Spirited Away (2000) in the form not only of Yu Baba (whose fearsome appearance is offset by the devotion with which she coddles her overgrown baby) but of her more amiable twin sister, who insists on being called ‘granny’ and helps the heroine return home.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 3

3

181

Wealth through Stealth: Evening the Odds, or Flirting with Disaster?

1. Ruth Bottigheimer summarises the most common wish-fulfilment fantasies evident in the Grimm Tales as ‘sudden riches, an advantageous marriage for an impoverished heroine or hero, or unlimited food’ (1987: 9).

2. Tatar provides another salient reason for the seemingly arbitrary distribution of good fortune in fairy tales, and their equally uneven approach to moral conduct, asserting that because tales frequently invert one another this leads to resulting contrariness in what is approved and reproved. As she concludes, ‘the fairy tale, in sum, knows no stable middle ground. Inversion of character traits, violation of narrative norms, and reversal of initial conditions are just a few ways in which it overturns notions of immutability and creates a fictional world in which the one constant value is change’ (2003: 102).

3. In ‘The Golden Goose’, ‘How Six Made their Way in the World’ and ‘The Devil’s Three Golden Hairs’ a duplicitous king defies a lowly hero’s attempt to win his daughter’s hand, setting a series of seemingly impossible tasks.

4. Zipes especially commends tales celebrating collective enterprise. ‘The Musicians of Bremen’ features outcast animals working together to secure a home, while ‘How Six Made their Way in the World’ unites a group of men to outwit a king, a tale Zipes observes is comparable to The X-Men as figures with extraordinary skills such as strength and superhuman vision combine to defeat a tyrant. Whether it be inadvertently scaring robbers to set up residence in their home, or an unlikely union forged to win a wager, combined efforts, and a degree of stealth, help disenfranchised figures get ahead.

5. Disney’s film version enhances Aladdin’s character considerably, eventually setting the genie free. Limiting him to three wishes means he cannot exploit the genie indefinitely, yet the gesture is also intended to affirm his good nature, just as being forced to woo his princess – rather than winning her through magical feats – redeems the roguish elements some have associated him with.

6. Sibling rivalry is often exacerbated by material success, resulting in murderous deceit, found in tales from various cultures, and between siblings of either gender. Sisterly enmity in ‘The Porter and the Ladies’ and ‘The Jealous Sisters’ has corresponding tales about treacherous brothers in the Arabian Nights, while the Grimm Tales include stories of sisters killed through envy (eventually gaining revenge as spirits) as well as fraternal counterparts like ‘The Singing Bone’, in which a callow youth slays his brother to prosper from his achievement yet is also undone when the discovered remains tell their story.

7. Zipes elaborates the context for this theme, describing the misery faced by common soldiers, forcibly conscripted to serve, treated poorly, and discharged with little pay, as well as noting the Grimms’ anti-monarchist sentiments as each having a bearing on the kind of stories and sympathies favoured. See Zipes (2002b: 82).

8. Godwin’s apparent intent was a politically motivated rewrite of a traditional folk tale and it is interesting to note socialist leanings in a version told a century later by Amabel Williams-Ellis, suggesting that the father was punished for being altruistic. As the woman selling the life-changing beans informs

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 182

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

Notes to Chapter 3 Jack, his father was ‘a good man and had shared his money with those who had nothing’, conduct that sufficiently enraged the giant to kill and steal from him, and stirring his son, a notorious idler, into action (1976a: 160).

The Arabian Nights presents a number of females serving as crucial assets for male heroes, such as the fairy Peri Banou, and a sorceress who gives her life battling a merciless jinni. The fact that Morgiana has no such powers yet is willing to perform mass homicide to defend her master’s household affirms her as an exceptional heroine, and it is consequently perplexing that her name does not appear in the title. Interestingly, Marina Warner reveals that Hanna Diab originally named the tale ‘The Stratagems of Morgiana, Or the Forty Thieves Exterminated by the Skill of a Slave’ (2012: 360), yet the printed version by Antoine Galland unfairly cedes heroic recognition to her master. Although Warner has questioned whether the tale was genuinely archived from the Orient, she nonetheless references Morgiana in citing ‘clever and courageous slave girls’ among her litany of positive female characters advanced by Scheherazade to persuade her husband of women’s worth as trustworthy allies (2012: 4, 16).

Some other notable female swindlers in film include the eponymous heroine in Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997), a middle-aged black woman – and single mother – who manages to outwit a group of male cons and gets away with the entire haul, while Lateesha Rodriguez (Mo’Nique) is equally memorable in Domino (Tony Scott, 2005), performing a robbery – with female cronies – to pay for her grandchild’s operation, with the remainder sent to needy children in Afghanistan!

Bottigheimer contends that, as a rule, greed is generally punished in the Grimm Tales and women are seen as a threat to wealth, citing ‘The Fisherman and his Wife’ as an example where the wife’s escalating arrogance squanders the couple’s good fortune (1987: 129). It is possible to see Sarah as a similar figure of blame, with every piece of advice given to her husband backfiring.

Many female characters pay for greed in some way, yet there are no hard and fast rules in crime dramas. Sometimes stealthy women get away with crimes, while a modest and virtuous wife like Carla Jean, who wants no part in her husband’s acquired money, still pays a tragic price.

Another link between both films, which adds some fairy tale resonances, is the fact that chasing an animal leads both groups to their unlucky finds.

Hank and his cohorts veer off into the woods pursuing a fox that crosses their path (an icon of stealth that backfires for the group), while Llewellyn, seeking to make some extra money hunting, follows a wounded pronghorn to the scene of a drug deal gone awry (emulating a familiar Grimm trope in which the pursuit of a deer is often the catalyst for misfortune). What both men learn, sadly far too late, is that they were better off as they were, the animals that lead them to tainted treasure evidently leading them astray.

The title ‘Three Kings’ may also refer to the Grimm tale, ‘The Water of Life’, in which the virtuous hero saves three kings by sharing his fortune with them, and is, in turn, redeemed by their gratitude.

Generically labelled ‘political thrillers’, we are taken on an extraordinary adventure where a message strives to be heard, a quest for wealth replaced by loftier goals for heroes aiming to redistribute money where it ‘rightfully’ belongs. Interestingly, these are American films that criticise US involvement

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 4

183

in overseas conflicts, yet in which a happy ending necessitates the few select beneficiaries becoming exiles from their own countries. Money gets the chosen few out of a desperate situation, without any more democratic solutions offered. A caustic variant is offered by Buried (Rodrigo Cortés, 2010), rewriting Poe’s ‘Premature Burial’ in a cold geopolitical light. A hapless American truck-driver wakes to find himself in a coffin, buried somewhere in the Iraqi desert, with a torch, a knife and a mobile phone. His kidnappers demand that he negotiate ransom money for his release, yet it is his US employers, ultimately, who are cast in a much dimmer light, cannily deciding to terminate his contract to avoid an insurance pay-out to his family. Stealth, greed and ruthlessness, we are reminded, are intrinsic to survival and prosperity, and human life relatively worthless.

15. Examples of female craftiness in the Grimm Tales include a wily servant in ‘Clever Gretel’ who gets a free chicken dinner by lying through her teeth, while in ‘The Three Spinners’ (ATU 501) an idle gluttonous girl achieves a royal marriage, freed from ever having to spin again, solicited through her mother’s boast. The wish-fulfilment fantasy of not having to work is generally couched in domestic terms – making a good marriage in which the woman is allowed some sovereignty – sometimes deceiving her husband to evade work (as occurs in ‘The Lazy Spinner’ (ATU 1405)), or even getting away with an affair, if she is crafty enough (see the tale type entitled ‘Trickster Wives and Maids’ (ATU 1741)). In other examples, wiliness is used as a form of protection, to avenge a rape, as occurs in ‘Maid Maleen’, or to get out of an unhappy marriage, like the girl in ‘The Hare Bride’, abducted and abused by her beastly husband, who steals away one day and returns to her family.

4

Dangerous Liaisons: Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels

1. Women who defy serial killers appear in various narratives throughout history, serving as a popular theme in the medieval ballad. In ‘Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight’ the heroine takes advantage of her attacker’s post-coital slumber to kill him with his own dagger in an arresting depiction of female stealth (Purkiss, 2000: 73–4). A number of fairy tales similarly champion females who resist unwelcome suitors, including those written by female contemporaries of Perrault. In ‘The Subtle Princess’, written by his cousin, Marie-Jeanne L’Heritier (in advance of ‘Bluebeard’), the heroine kills the man responsible for shaming her sisters and threatening her life, although the message is somewhat undermined by her attraction to his brother, forgiving him for also seeking to kill her (in a pledge to his dying sibling!). Given her contrasting antipathy towards her sisters, whom she sends to the workhouse after their disgrace, one could argue that ‘Bluebeard’ is far more progressive in endorsing female solidarity.

2. Georges Melies’ charming cinematic version of ‘Bluebeard’ adds this magical revival to the finale, with all the murdered brides revived and happily paired off at the end!

3. In the famous frame tale to the Arabian Nights, Scheherazade delays her execution and assuages her husband’s murderous distrust of women over three

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 184

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Notes to Chapter 4 years of storytelling, yet as Marina Warner notes, one of her tales includes an alternative version of the frame tale, in which the heroine, Bilqis, takes on another virgin-killing king and murders him. A jinniya, with supernatural powers, she provides an interesting contrast to the romantic redemption offered in the collection’s frame tale, and serves as a precursor to the many female avenger figures that similarly challenge male violence (2012: 5).

In Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938), intimations of the first Mrs de Winter’s sexual deviancy are seemingly just cause for her husband’s enmity, and subsequent distrust of women, her dominance over him such that even her memory consumes him. The theme is echoed by Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) in which the first Mrs Rochester is similarly blamed for unfairly chaining her husband to a lunatic and thus denying his freedom – although it is she who is truly confined by him. Perhaps the most perplexing aspect of both stories is that they were written by women yet situate ‘virtuous’ female characters in opposition to unsympathetically presented rivals. For further discussion of this theme, and the influence of fairy tales such as ‘Snow White’, see Gilbert and Gubar (2000).

Although Clover contends that the Final Girl is intended as a primary means of male identification (thereby explaining her often androgynous name and lack of sexual conduct), this is a claim that I contest, affirming this character as a powerful source of female identification and a vital means of stating progressive claims for these films. For further elaboration on this point see Short (2006: ch. 1).

A variation in horror that draws upon ‘Bluebeard’ is Skeleton Key (Iain Softley, 2005), in which a brother and sister serve as the villains, using voodoo to possess people’s bodies and thus prolong their life. The forbidden chamber, in this case, is the attic of their New Orleans home where the bodies are kept, and the female investigator is a carer, hired by the couple, who succumbs to the same fate. Another interesting twist on the tale is achieved in Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987), with the wicked stepmother par excellence, Julia (Clare Higgins), succumbing to sexual curiosity with her husband’s brother soon after her marriage and providing him with several male victims when they resume their affair after his resurrection: a demon lover in this case being an explicit turn-on for the kinky bride. The sequel, Hellbound (Tony Randel, 1988), reverses the situation when Julia is returned from hell and re-fleshed with the blood of various female victims, a room full of hanging female corpses explicitly referencing ‘Bluebeard’.

Noting the film’s many allusions to ‘Bluebeard’, Tatar affirms a significant reversal in the plot, arguing that ‘in The Piano, it is Ada who carries the burden of a troubled past and who possesses a dark secret’ (2006: 123). Although Campion leaves this secret a mystery in the film, her novel discloses further information about the heroine’s background: informing us that she elected to stop speaking after her father reprimanded her as a child, and significantly revealing that the piano once belonged to her mother.

Interestingly, Campion has since voiced regret about the film’s ending, particularly Ada’s survival and new life with Baines. As she states two decades after The Piano’s release: ‘I thought some of it was really good, but I thought [of the ending, in which Ada is tied to her sinking piano, but then kicks free and surfaces], “for freaking hell’s sake, she should have stayed under there.”

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 4

185

It would be more real, wouldn’t it, it would be better? I didn’t have the nerve at the time. What if Ada just went down, she went down with her piano, that’s it’ (Campion, 2013). It is hard to say how the film would have altered with this imagined director’s cut, yet the insight suggests an implicit melancholia (or wilfulness) in Ada which even a new life with as unconventional a lover as Baines cannot alleviate. Gothic romances are often criticised for shoring up romantic inclinations, even when a critique has been mounted against patriarchy, and The Piano might be seen in this light, with perhaps too great a transformation afforded to its protagonist through the power of love. If the piano functioned as Ada’s primary love object (and preferred means of communication), its loss suggests that she is ready to exist without it, even breaking her vow of silence and learning to speak again, which can be read as a conciliation of sorts, yet her desire to join the piano at the bottom of the ocean (confessed in voice-over at the end of the film) suggests there are no pat endings here. Campion would revisit the motif of death through drowning in her 2013 TV series, Top of the Lake, which opens with a young pregnant girl wading into the water in a bid to end her life.

9. Such criticism was similarly levied at Angela Carter in response to The Bloody Chamber, with critics contending that masochistic or submissive impulses in female sexuality are politically regressive and therefore have no place in women’s writing. (For further discussion of such criticism see Bacchilega (1997)). The counter-argument is that while women continue to experience such impulses they have every place in our creative world, with the accompanying understanding that expressing potentially disturbing ideas does not necessarily condone them. Indeed, it seems scarcely coincidental that Moore made Frannie a mature English professor with an interest in Virginia Woolf, who initially describes words as her ‘passion’. Seemingly confident and assured in her profession, her composure soon unravels when she becomes involved with a man. From the tarty outfit worn on her first date with Malloy, trading her usual flats for heels, to the mixed signals she gives to the various men in her life, Frannie’s tale is designed to provoke questions about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ behaviour. Campion inserts a number of fairy tale references (beyond the ‘Bluebeard’ motif of a killer the heroine must thwart) to extend this form of questioning, including the nearly lost shoe (re)placed on Frannie’s foot by various male figures, the romanticised story of how her parents met while ice-skating (shot in a deliberately dated film style) and the engagement ring, presented on the killer’s blade, signalling a fatal betrothal – all of which are designed as a form of romantic disenchantment. Ironically, while her first fantasy about Malloy is based on sexual subservience, and she subsequently follows wherever he leads, without any apparent instinct at self-preservation, Frannie crucially learns to defend herself through him.

10. We might recall that ‘Le Barbe Bleu’ was said to be influenced by two French noblemen, Cunmar of Brittany (who murdered a succession of pregnant wives) and Gilles de Rais (who killed hundreds of children), although the veracity of these crimes is uncertain. As Marina Warner attests, Gilles de Rais was a companion at arms to Joan of Arc while ‘Cunmar the Accursed’ deposed the legitimate king of Brittany, factors suggesting their villainy may have been exercises in propaganda (1995: 260–1).

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 186

Notes to Chapter 4

11. Campion returns to this theme of male violence in her series Top of the Lake, in which a female detective uncovers not only an incestuous father but a corrupt police chief involved in sexually exploiting young women – and guilty of murdering at least one victim. Both men use the sedative Ruphinol to immobilise their victims, and evidently assume they can get away with their crimes, yet the tables are turned by the end of the series. Placing a gun in the hands of both the incest victim and the detective (a former victim of violent sexual assault subsequently threatened by her duplicitous boss), the weapon is used against both these men.

12. Clover makes the same claims about impotence in reference to the slasher’s various male killers, who are deemed childlike, sexually repressed, and either mentally or physically incapable of intimacy with women, leading to the rage we witness on screen.

13. Warner provides other interesting attempts to account for the mystery of the first wife’s ‘crime’, including the idea that she was a ‘bluestocking’, angered by her husband’s drunkenness on their wedding night, who dyed his beard blue in revenge! (1995: 247).

14. I discuss this film in more detail in the fifth chapter of Misfit Sisters (Short, 2006) in which it is argued that Starling’s gender and age grant her a privileged ‘female gaze’, inflecting her ability to decipher the clues in Frederika’s bedroom.

15. J. Hoberman (1991) retitles the film ‘Nancy Drew meets the Minotaur’, contrasting the mythic beast-man with the film’s monstrous villain.

16. Jagged Edge makes an interesting contrast to Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987) which casts Glenn Close as a dangerous villain, despatched by the good wife. A particularly nasty example of a backlash film, the modern Gothic, in this case, does not blame the duplicitous husband for endangering his family with an affair and it is the single career woman who is unremittingly demonised instead.

17. As Larsson fans will know, Men Who Hate Women was his original title for the first Millennium book, a title that makes his gender politics clear.

18. The idea of a serial killer used satirically is prefigured in Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdu (1947). Based on the real-life French killer Henri Landru, who killed at least 12 women for their money, the character is transformed by Chaplin’s film into a black comedy. If the context of losing his bank job due to the Depression and having to care for an invalid wife and son are intended to create sympathy for the character, a culture of greed motivates American Psycho’s yuppie killer, with female victims, in both cases, paying the fatal price. We might also note a disturbing penchant for romanticising killers in teen series such as The Vampire Diaries, in which the heroine’s attraction to murderous men is championed rather than critiqued.

19. This brilliant punch-line concludes Thurber’s 1936 version of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, titled, ‘The Girl and the Wolf’, in which our heroine saves herself by taking an automatic out of her basket. See Zipes (1993: 229). Roald Dahl pays Thurber suitable homage in his version: The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.

She whips a pistol from her knickers.

She aims it at the creature’s head And bang bang bang she shoots him dead. (1992: 40)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 5

187

20. In the Iroquois tale ‘The Horned Snake’s Wife’, the heroine escapes with help from a spirit god and acquires special powers, ridding the world of ‘bad-hearted creatures’ (Matthews, 2000: 55). In the West African tale ‘Keep your Secrets’, collected by Angela Carter, the heroine is saved by heeding her mother’s advice and not trusting her new husband unduly. Offering a lovely retort to ‘Bluebeard’, female duplicity is thus understood to be an essential survival strategy (2012: 68–9).

5

Houses of Horror: Domestic Dangers and Man-made Monsters

1. Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1977) is a pioneering work in this regard, drawing attention to the usefulness of fairy tales in aiding a child’s emotional development, enabling them to ‘master the psychological problems of growing up’ (6) while additionally helping traumatised children to realise their experiences are neither unique nor insurmountable. Although often criticised for displaying too great a debt to Freudian psychoanalysis, Bettelheim references some interesting interpretations of classic fairy tales by his patients, including admiration for Rapunzel and Gretel as heroic female figures who survive abusive experiences. Others have continued to draw upon the fairy tale’s therapeutic potential, including Alison Lurie’s work on incest survival in fiction and experience.

2. Dundes makes this claim of ‘The Girl without Hands’, asserting that as she is ‘guilty of the original incestuous thought’ she is punished accordingly (1987: 61). For an eloquent refutation of the idea that abused girls are really to blame for their father’s incestuous desires, and the flawed logic of transposing Freud by situating the cause of incest with its apparent victims, see Tatar (1992: 125–6). In the same book Tatar makes similarly short shrift of the narrative tendency (in tales such as ‘Catskin’ and ‘Donkeyskin’) to blame dead mothers for inciting incestuous desires in their husbands, asking them to choose a replacement modelled only in their image and thus making their daughters a victim of their mother’s vanity rather than their father’s monstrous desire. An interesting summary of the various interpretations made of the ‘unnatural father’ theme, and accompanying problems with the psychoanalytic school, can be found in Jeanna Jorgensen’s online article (2012).

3. As Wood contends, ‘the connection of the Family to Horror has become overwhelmingly consistent’, noting that the genre’s various monsters, including psychotic killers, demonic entities, monstrous children and cannibals, are ‘all shown as products of the family’, suggesting that this very institution demands reassessment (1984: 181, 187).

4. See Williams (1996), in which he claims that even in a conservative climate the family remains a problematic institution whose legitimacy is questioned in horror. Chika Kinoshita aligns Wood’s theory with contemporary Japanese horror (2009: 107).

5. See Clover (1992) for further discussion of this theme. Although she discusses films such as Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972) and I Spit on your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978) as examples of a redneck menace in the wilderness, the idea has continued with films like Wrong Turn, a rare contemporary example that

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 188

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Notes to Chapter 5 shows Clover’s Final Girl to be alive and well, even in an age of greater nihilism. Other narratives, such as Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and its sequel The Devil’s Rejects (2005), offer a murderous redneck family in preference to their ‘normal’ victims, reiterating horror’s age-old interest in subverting our understanding of monstrosity. The UK’s cycle of ‘hoodiehorrors’ might be seen as an Anglicised variant of the same anxieties about a feral underclass, moving a threat formerly associated with rural areas into urban locations.

Campbell outlines the key mythic stages of this journey – departure, initiation and return – in his famous work The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Equating heroic tales with ceremonial rituals of adulthood, he further notes ‘exercises of severance’ in which the subject must undertake a ‘radical readjustment of his emotional relationship to parental images’, an idea that evokes psychologically leaving ‘home’ (1993: 136).

Driven by lust for her husband’s bad-boy brother, Frank, Julia updates the role of a succuba, procuring male victims to reconstitute her dead lover. Kirsty plays the virtuous Snow White to Julia’s wicked stepmother, yet, although she triumphs, Christopher Sharrett has a point in regarding the film’s main purpose as a punishment of female sexuality, affirming that ‘the neoconservative depiction of Pandora/Eve has Kirsty both unleashing the Cenobites and mastering the underworld (she escapes the temptations of “desire”)’ – while her lusty counterpart proves the fatal dangers of succumbing to temptation (1996: 263).

For further discussion of these films as female coming-of-age tales, and their relationship to fairy tales, see Short (2006).

See David Carter’s online article (n.d.), which similarly regards fairy tales and horror as essentially prohibitive and conservative, although a specific moral coda is not always stringently adhered to – in either genre.

According to Barbara Creed’s The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (1993), heavily referencing Julia Kristeva, a further psychological reason dates back to antiquity, aligning the maternal body with abject Otherness. Although I agree with some of Creed’s observations, a tendency to reiterate essentialist ideas hinders her analysis, with little consideration of how monstrosity might be positively reclaimed.

As Tatar puts it, ‘most of the men who produced written versions of this tale implicate the wife in the father’s bid for his daughter’s hand. Fidelity to the wishes of a dying spouse thus comes to supplant incestuous desire as the motive for the father’s attempted seduction of his daughter’ (1992: 128).

The distinctive appearance of the spectral females in each film, and their role as vengeful spirits, has an interesting historical connection, as Brigid Cherry points out, stating precedents in traditional Japanese ghost stories, where such figures are similarly dressed in white with long straggly hair, echoing the funeral rites of the Edo period. In one of the most famous tales, ‘Yotsuya Kaidan’, a female protagonist called Oiwa is poisoned by a rival for her husband, leaving her with the drooping eye later seen on Sadako (2009: 196).

Robert Hyland claims that Asami’s monstrosity is imagined by Aoyama due to ‘guilt feelings derived from his own behaviour (as well as patriarchy’s abuses) which causes him to project his anxieties’, a reading that substantiates her abuse yet refuses to admit her sadistic ‘revenge’ (2009: 205).

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 5

189

14. As Diane Purkiss notes (2000), superstition was thus used to explain the tragedy of infant mortality as well as legitimating acts of abuse and abandonment.

15. An edited version of Orphan is often broadcast on television, omitting any details of Esther’s abusive upbringing, and thus offering the father a total reprieve.

16. Folk tales warning against the potential cost of grief often involve mordant humour, as in chain tales resulting in an ever increasing list of tragedies.

Some Grimm examples are ‘Little Louse and Little Flea’ and ‘The Death of the Little Hen’, which warn against ‘undue’ grieving as various characters fail to pay adequate attention to the continued hazards of life. The lesson is repeated in contemporary cinematic horror that urges bereaved parents to remain vigilant for harm, and prioritise their surviving children. Orphan’s snowbound setting may additionally be significant, suggesting a possible reference to the Russian folk tale ‘The Snow Maiden’ – its title character proving insubstantial, just as ‘Esther’ is merely a persona.

17. Moving into her mother-in-law’s former home, Martha makes a change that might be viewed as significant, turning a holy picture in their bedroom to the wall. She may declare herself a modern woman by this gesture, unfettered by the superstition besetting the village women, yet trouble soon follows.

18. Purkiss (2000) is again instructive here, noting that, according to superstition, pregnancy was deemed to render a woman at risk of being ‘fairy taken’ and her newborn would not be considered safe until its baptism. She also points out that autism has popularly been used to explain the belief in changelings, with related behaviour often misread as possession.

19. The governess in The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) offers another case of repression and suspected neurosis that culminates in infanticide, a film The Others clearly borrows from.

20. The name is a Middle English word, meaning both ‘good lady’ and ‘old woman’ or ‘hag’. It may also be a reference, in this context, to Keats’ poem ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ (1819) – in which a knight is lured to a wintry lake by a lady, lulled to sleep, and dies – just as Coraline will lose her life if she allows her dream mother to take over. Gaiman’s interest in maternal doubling and the ‘other mother’ is equally evident in MirrorMask – also made into a film.

21. In fact, the story derives from a popular Korean folk tale known as ‘Janghwa, Hongryeon’ (‘Rose Flower, Red Lotus’), which is similar to ‘Snow White’ in featuring a wicked stepmother. She resents her stepdaughters so much that she falsely claims one has had a miscarriage in order to shame her, instructs her son to drown her, and torments her sister to commit suicide at the same site. The truth is eventually uncovered and when the father remarries his wife gives birth to twin girls, presumed to be their reincarnated souls.

22. In a DVD interview the directors state that the Freudian subtext of the original film was a big draw for them, one they deliberately wanted to expand, although whether or not they intended to parody the daughter’s Electra obsession is not stated.

23. Marina Warner argues that Demy’s film offers a critique against the psychoanalytic theories usually applied to incest tales (1993a: 31), while David Butler commends ‘the camp aesthetic used to sugar its troubling themes but leave them present all the same’ (2009: 54). By contrast, Jack Zipes objects to the way it ‘mocks the notion of incest’ (2011: 219) – a reading I agree with.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 190

Notes to Chapter 6

24. The mother-in-law’s accusation that her stepdaughter has given birth to a monstrous child might be an allusion to her incestuous background. Fears of genetic deformity may also be at the heart of tales featuring older mothers who beget ‘beastly’ offspring with surprise late pregnancies, children whose abnormality they must learn to accept.

25. The film shows how Precious survives a life of unimaginable degradation, her vivid imagination allowing her to transport herself to an imaginary future where she is respected, adored and happy. For the most part these scenes reflect the influence of a celebrity-obsessed pop culture. She dreams of a ‘light-skinned boyfriend’ who gazes at her adoringly as she poses for cameras. In the final scene, having taken possession of her two children and started a life of her own, with college in mind, she smiles for the first time, like her imagined self.

26. While critical scorn has been poured on these films, with Eden Lake accused of inspiring hatred against the working class, the UK riots of August 2011 would lend a hideous sense of reality to what seem like hyperbolic anxieties about unruly youth, raping and killing, as well as thieving, en masse, granting the ‘hoodie-horror’ disturbing prescience because so little seems to be exaggerated.

27. Tatar considers The Shining a ‘Bluebeard’ film, perceiving Danny to be the equivalent of the curious wife, due to his interest in a ‘forbidden chamber’ (rm. 217) at the Overlook (2006). However, it his mother – Wendy – who is the main transgressor, galvanised by her husband’s threat to renege her wifely obedience. Although previously in denial about Jack’s abusive nature, it is only when confronted with an axe-wielding maniac that she is forced to jettison the ideal of a happy family, saving both her son and herself from their likely death at his hands. Charlene Brunnell notes the Overlook’s uncanny ability to bring out the worst in people, describing it as: ‘the vampiric villain, consuming with malicious glee people of questionable character’ (1984: 95).

6 Postmodern Revisions: New Tales for Old? 1. See Jackson (1981) for details of her dismissive view of fairy tales, which not only ignores revisions (both literary and cinematic) but suggests little familiarity with the genre, considering the fairy tale’s main impetus to be nostalgic and reassuring. Lucie Armitt draws attention to such shortcomings in her own study, Theorising the Fantastic (1996), which admits the mutability of fairy tales and their openness to revision and reinterpretation, as well as their ability to unsettle. Published a year before Bacchilega’s book, Armitt also asserts an interest in postmodernism.

2. According to Jack Zipes, Erich Kaiser coined the term ‘de-Grimmed’ to describe rewritten Grimm tales, although it might equally be used where any ‘classic’ fairy tale has been subject to revision (2002b: 245).

3. The term ‘distanciation’ is generally used to describe a theatrical Brechtian device used to ‘break the fourth wall’ and thus involve the audience, with the aim of making them more critical and politically conscious. Techniques were adopted by film-makers such as Godard (with similar aims), yet have since been utilised more for stylistic effect.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 6

191

4. For further information about the conteuses, see Harries (2001) and Warner (1995). While Donald Haase, in his introduction to Fairy Tales and Feminism (2004), commends them for initiating a new mode of ‘feminist’ inquiry in their fairy tales, Lewis C. Seifert (in an essay published in the same collection) refutes feminist praise on the grounds that the majority of their texts concern themselves with heterosexual desire and conclude with marriages – failing to note the fact that many are unhappy! Copious references to his main rival, Patricia Hannon (1998), seem to unwittingly bolster her claims for the conteuses, noting how Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy’s female characters use shape-shifting to explore identities far removed from the domestic sphere.

The predilection for mise-en-abyme – playful self-reflection in their tales – is further approved by Hannon as a way to repudiate convention and prompt listeners to reflect on their meaning – motifs that anticipate ‘postmodern’ traits in contemporary fairy tale films. (See Seifert, 2004.).

5. Zipes, conversely, applauds the Shrek films as a retort to Disney’s ideology, considering the first film especially ‘radical’ in making an ogre and ogress the heroes and thus rendering ‘Disney aesthetics concerning beauty and ugliness questionable’, affirming ‘the freakiness of Shrek is a delightful anticipation of a de-Disneyfied world’ (2011: 243, 244).

6. I disagree that romance is necessarily part of a ‘patriarchal project’, and would reiterate the point made in Chapter 1’s discussion of rom-coms, that we need to consider feminism’s positive impact on this genre in terms of characterisation and aspiration (as well as acknowledging the potential for parody to undermine regressive stereotypes and extend feminist ideas, rather than simply co-opting them). The majority of contributors to Fairy Tale Films make the same criticisms as Bacchilega and Reider, with romances – even comic romances – deemed ideologically suspect, while films in which female characters encounter tragedy, such as Pan’s Labyrinth, The Company of Wolves and The Juniper Tree, are approved. Jack Zipes alludes to this dichotomy in his foreword to the collection, contending that the latter films ‘unnerve us because they destabilize our notion of the happy-ended and predictable fairy tale’ while ‘optimistic fairy tale films such as Ever After and Disney’s Enchanted demand that we critically reflect about false and artificial gender definitions and the backlash against feminism’ (2010: xii–xiii). He has since differentiated strongly between these films, approving Ever After for its portrayal of ‘a woman with power who could control her own destiny’ while deeming Enchanted ‘pitiful’ (2011: 186, 89), conclusions that are highly contentious yet affirm that, even as they both make use of postmodern tropes, such films can strongly divide opinion.

7. Confirming the degree to which the ‘anti-tale’ has established itself as an approved style, we might note that Burton and del Toro are attached to various forthcoming projects such as Pinocchio and Beauty and the Beast, having proven their ability to attract critical approval and commercial success.

8. See Christy Williams’ essay (2010) for a discussion of competing responses to the film and its politics. As Williams states, the frame amounts to little in the end ‘since the audience knows that the Grimms did not change their text’, further asserting that ‘Danielle’s transgressive behaviour is always enabled by men, in reaction to men, or framed by men and is therefore safely contained in a clearly patriarchal structure’ (2010: 103, 108).

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 192

Notes to Chapter 6

9. For Sanders the metaphysical connotations are thus: ‘As I see it the Queen is death and Snow White is life. The Huntsman is halfway between the two.

He’s suffered a great loss and he brings life and death together to find their equilibrium, so the world can turn again. The Queen has stopped death; therefore nature is repulsed and has turned in against itself.’ Interview given in Empire, Olly Richards, May 2012, p. 97.

10. There is some suggestion that the film was intended to have a sequel, explaining why the romance implied by the title is only hinted at in the end. Mercifully, another instalment seems unlikely, partly due to the scandal caused by the director’s extramarital tryst with his leading lady.

11. As Kimberley J. Lau (2008) asserts, Carter’s version soundly trumps both Perrault’s moralising and the original cautionary folk tale by affirming the heroine’s sexual agency, having her not only willingly engage in sexual relations (stripping the wolf-man after undressing herself) but burning his clothes to ensure he remains a ‘beast’ and joining him in this animalistic state.

12. Zipes cites various deviations between Carter’s screenplay and the finished film, describing how the girl was originally intended to respond to wolf howls outside her bedroom by diving into the floor, an apparent symbol of having reached adulthood (2011: 148–50). In Jordan’s DVD comments, made 20 years on, he refers to this as ‘a lovely image’ which technical problems prevented him achieving, noting that with today’s CGI Carter’s vision would have been easier to emulate. He also acknowledges that his ending makes little sense, stating of the screaming girl, ‘if it had been entirely logical she should look at this creature the same way she looked at the huntsman, that same curious gaze, y’know?’ (Neil Jordan, DVD Special Edition, Granada Ventures, 2005).

13. Jordan’s film is not alone in failing to explore Carter’s most radical feature.

Curiously, although Zipes dedicates his study The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood (1993) to Carter, and notes some interesting feminist revisions, including a tendency to stage a retaliation against ‘attack’, he seems reluctant to discuss Red Riding Hood as a symbol of sexual emancipation, regarding sexually confident depictions with some suspicion.

14. Cursed (Wes Craven, 2005) crudely reworks the same format: the sexually assertive wolf-girl is demonised and destroyed.

15. For an interesting analysis of the film’s allegorical parallels with the War on Terror see the article at www.reverseshot.com/article/archive_village.

16. Troll Hunter (André Ovredal, 2010) amusingly emulates Blair Witch’s approach, as student film-makers discover trolls are real, yet subject to a government cover-up. Unlike the elusive witch, these folk monsters are substantiated via impressive CGI footage whilst remaining essentially one dimensional. The idea that fairy tale characters exist in our world is an increasingly popular motif in contemporary entertainment, featured in various films and TV series including Once Upon a Time and Grimm – with precursors such as Buffy and Supernatural – and is, again, very postmodern.

17. See the article at http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/21/entertainment/ la-et-1121-tangled-20101121 for further details about Disney Animation studio’s claims regarding Tangled and their interest in creating Flynn as a way to appeal to boys.

18. Bruno Bettelheim approves Rapunzel for mobilizing her ‘rescue’ through her own body – an idea Tangled extends in using her hair to liberate herself from

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Notes to Chapter 6

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

193

captivity and illuminate the way out of a dark cavern (as well as healing wounds) although it is an asset that must ultimately be forfeited.

As journalist Rebecca Armstrong wryly points out, objecting to the gender reversal in Raimi’s prequel and imagining the same treatment in other plots, ‘Perhaps there’s a case for recasting some fairy tales so the glass slipper is on the other foot. Raphael in the tower, imprisoned by a warlock, whose only joy in life is the brave princess who scales his beard every night. Sleeping Beau, so damn hot that his jealous stepdad tries to poison him. Or maybe he should just let the witches of Oz be the stars, rather than the wizard.

It worked the first time round after all’, www.independent.co.uk/voices/ comment/female-protagonists-in-fairy-tales-imagine-if-the-witches-of-oz-gottheir-due-8537973.html, posted Sunday 17 March 2013.

According to Hill (2013a) the film originated through screenwriter Mitchell Kapner, eager to make a pitch, summarising Baum’s sixth Oz novel, The Emerald City of Oz (1910), to Roth and inspiring particular interest about exploring the Wizard’s background. The resulting film ignores all other features of the book, which Zipes notes is especially significant in convincing Dorothy to stay in Oz, with Baum emphasising its utopian quality as a land where poverty does not exist, everyone has sufficient food and clothing, and the nation’s wealth is intended for everyone’s benefit – a utopian society (with apparent socialist features) that is clearly absent from the film’s depiction of a matriarchal tyranny (Zipes, 2011: 285–6).

The postmodern aspects of the film include a self-reflexive announcement of the genre’s conventions in the opening and some amusing intertextual casting (such as The Princess Bride’s Cary Elwes serving as the villainous Uncle Edgar), yet its truly progressive feature is an ‘enlightened’ heroine who speaks out against exploitation, campaigns against separatist policies such as forcing elves to be entertainers, using giants as slaves, and demonising ogres, defends her darker-skinned friend from bullying, and finally leads a coalition of the marginalised to become ‘a nation of equals’. Another overlooked fairy tale film featuring Hathaway is The Princess Diaries (Garry Marshall, 2001).

Drawing from a series of books by Meg Cabot, a similar intent to overturn convention is displayed via a young woman who aligns being a princess with the power to achieve change, rather than having fancy dresses or wooing a prince. In the sequel she notably overturns the constitution by refusing to marry, insisting on ruling in her own right. While such films appear to have been critically ignored because they are aimed at teenage girls, one could argue that this is precisely why they are so important, providing refreshing alternatives to the usual ‘Disney princess’ model in creating empowering role models for young women – and setting an example Disney has started to emulate.

The game also features an older Alice, suggests Wonderland is her damaged psyche, and similarly makes the Jabberwock a servant of the villainous Red Queen.

For details about how long Disney’s ‘Snow Queen’ adaptation was in development, and a sobering reminder of the revision initially proposed, see Hill (2013b). As Hill relates, the original conception was an ice maiden who is eventually defrosted by a suitor, an idea Eisner was apparently very taken with, yet which was thankfully not developed. http://jimhillmedia.com/

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 194

Notes to Epilogue

editor_in_chief1/b/jim_hill/archive/2013/10/18/countdown-to-disney-quotfrozen-quot-how-one-simple-suggestion-broke-the-ice-on-the-quot-snowqueen-quot-s-decades-long-story-problems.aspx#.UmbFXxZPrTQ. 24. The elimination of the villain, conspicuously emulating Gaston’s demise in Beauty and the Beast, is also notable, providing an intertextual nod to Disney’s back catalogue, and similarly repudiating male abuse of power.

Epilogue: The Importance of Enchantment 1. Although Zipes has often voiced concerns about mass-produced fairy tales, singling out the Disney Corporation as emblematic of the most negative tendencies, he has also found something positive to say about examples such as Mulan and Return to Oz, even as he regards such films as atypical, affirming the need to evaluate every film on its own merits.

2. Zipes conceives various forms of reappropriation, including ‘social satire’, ‘utopian’, ‘pedagogical’, ‘feminist’, ‘comic parody’ and ‘spiritual’, yet affirms that many tales can ‘carry on several dialogues all at the same time’ (2002b: 245).

The notion of ‘re-utilisation’ derives from the German term ‘umfunktionierung’ and borrows from Bertold Brecht, Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin as an oppositional strategy, although Zipes admits it can be used for quite different ends.

3. The film also references British social realist film Kes (Ken Loach, 1969), as well as Italian neo-realist film Shoeshine (Vittorio de Sica, 1946) in which two boys similarly turn to crime, with bleak results, counterpointing a desire to care for animals against a cruel world.

4. There are various female characters in film whose lives are poignantly curtailed: the young girls seemingly taken by spirits in Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975), the sisters who end their own lives (due to a combination of heartbreak, grief and pious contrition) in The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999), the young girl murdered by a monstrous stepfather in Pan’s Labyrinth (only to be reborn in the world of her imagination), the dreamer who falls to her death in the place where she lived out her fantasies in Bridge to Terabithia (Istvan Csupo, 2007), or the equally fable-like Innocence (Lucile Hadzihalilovic, 2004) where tragedies similarly befall girls on the brink of sexual maturity. In all these cases we are invited to view the protagonists mythically, with the intimation that they were too good for this world, and able to enjoy greater freedom in death than they would as grown women, offering a bizarre inversion of Peter Pan. Indeed, the fact that some of these stories were based on real tragedies makes their apparent idealisation all the more disconcerting.

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Bibliography Aarne, Antti and Stith Thompson (1964) The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, trans. and expanded by Stith Thompson (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia) (originally published as Verze-ichnis der marchentypen, FF Communications, 1910) Andersen, Hans Christian (1994) Fairy Tales (1835–45; London: Penguin) Anderson, Celia Catlett (1986) ‘Spindle, Shuttle and Scissors: Ambiguous Power in the Grimm Brother Tales’, Children’s Literature and Education 17, pp. 226–32 Armitt, Lucie (1996) Theorising the Fantastic (London: Hodder Headline) Ashliman, D.L. (1986) ‘Symbolic Sex Role Reversals in the Grimms’ Fairy Tales’, in Forms of the Fantastic, ed. Jan Hokenson and Howard Pearce (New York: Greenwood Press), pp. 192–8 Atwood, Margaret (1993) The Robber Bridegroom (New York: Doubleday) ——— (1994) Good Bones and Simple Murders (New York: Doubleday) Bacchilega, Cristina (1997) Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press) Bacchilega, Cristina and Steven Swann Jones (eds) (1993) Perspectives on the Innocent Persecuted Heroine in Fairy Tales, Special issue of Western Folklore 52.1 Bacchilega, Cristina and John Reider (2010) ‘Mixing It Up: Generic Complexity and Gender Ideology in Early Twenty-First Century Fairy Tale Films’, in Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity, ed. Greenhill and Matrix, pp. 23–41 Barchers, Suzanne (1990) Wise Women: Folk and Fairy Tales from Around the World (Englewood: Co Libraries) Barrie, J.M. (1995) Peter Pan (first published as Peter and Wendy, 1911) (Newmarket: Brimax Books) Barzilai, Shuli (1990) ‘Reading “Snow White”: The Mother’s Story’, Signs 50, pp. 513–34 Basile, Giambattista (1979) The Pentamerone (1634–36; Westport, CT: Greenwood Press) Baum, L. Frank (1994) The Wizard of Oz (first published as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900; New York: Barnes & Noble) Benson, Steven (2008) Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) Bernheimer, Kate (ed.) (1998) Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales (New York: Doubleday, Anchor Books) Bettelheim, Bruno (1977) The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Vintage) ——— (1991) ‘The Struggle for Meaning’, in Folk and Fairy Tales, ed. Hallett and Karasek, pp. 326–45 Bottigheimer, Ruth B. (1980) ‘The Transformed Queen: A Search for the Origins of Negative Female Archetypes in Grimms Fairy Tales’, Amsterdamer Beitrage zur neuren Germanistik 10, pp. 1–12 ——— (1982) ‘Tale Spinners: Submerged Voices in Grimms’ Fairy Tales’, New German Critique 27, pp. 141–50 195

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 196

Bibliography

——— (ed.) (1986) Fairy Tales and Society: Illusion, Allusion and Paradigm (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press) ——— (1987) Grimms’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys: The Moral and Social Vision of the Tales (New Haven: Yale University Press) ——— (2004) ‘Fertility Control and the Birth of the Modern European Fairy Tale Heroine’, in Fairy Tales and Feminism, ed. Haase, pp. 37–52 Brunnell, Charlene (1984) ‘The Gothic: A Literary Genre’s Transition to Film’, in Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film, ed. Barry Keith Grant (London: Scarecrow Press), pp. 70–100 Buck, Chris (2013) Interview by Zoriana Kit, 26 November, www. studiosystemnews.com/spotlight-frozen-director-chris-buck-on-crafting-wellrounded-female-characters/ Burton, Tim (2006) Burton on Burton, ed. Mark Salisbury (London: Faber and Faber) Butler, David (2009) Fantasy Cinema: Impossible Worlds on Screen (London: Wallflower Press) Byatt, A.S. (1990) Possession (London: Chatto & Windus) ——— (1994) The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye (London: Chatto & Windus) Campbell, Joseph (1993) The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949; Princeton University Press) Campion, Jane (2013) Interview by Benji Wilson: ‘Ladies of the Lake’, Radio Times Magazine, 13–19 July, p. 14 Carter, Angela (1983) ‘Notes from the Front Line’, in On Gender and Writing, ed.

Michelene Wandor (London: Thorsons) ——— (1984) The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979; Harmondsworth: Penguin) ——— (ed.) (1990) The Virago Book of Fairy Tales (London: Virago) ——— (ed.) (1992) The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales (London: Virago) ——— (ed.) (2012) Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales (a single volume combining the first and second Virago collections) (2005; London: Virago) Carter, David (n.d.) ‘And the moral of the story is ...: Horror Cinema as Modern Day Fairy Tale’, www.interdisciplinary.net/ati/fht/fht1/carter%20paper.pdf Cashdan, Sheldon (1999) The Witch Must Die: How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives (New York: Basic Books) Cherry, Brigid (2009) Horror (London: Routledge) Choi, Jinhee (2009) ‘A Cinema of Girlhood: Sonyeo Sensibility and the Decorative Impulse in the Korean Horror Cinema’, in Horror to the Extreme, ed.

Choi and Wada-Marciano, pp. 39–56 Choi, Jinhee and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano (eds) (2009) Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema (Hong Kong University Press) Clark, Nick (2013) ‘Why Grandma, What a Big Family Tree you Have’, Review of Dr Jamshid Tehrani’s Research Findings on the History of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, The Independent, Friday 15 November, p. 20 Clover, Carol (1992) Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton University Press) ——— (1996) ‘Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film’, in The Dread of Difference, ed. Grant, pp. 66–80 Collodi, Carlo (2005) Pinocchio (London: Paperview) Connelly, Brendon (2013) ‘Inside the Research, Design, and Animation of Walt Disney’s Frozen with Producer Peter Del Vecho’, Bleeding Cool (25 September)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Bibliography

197

Cosentino, Donald (1982) Defiant Maids and Stubborn Farmers (Cambridge University Press) Cox, Marian E. Roalfe (1893) Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty Five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin and Cap O’Rushes (London: Folklore Society) Creed, Barbara (1993) The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge) ——— (1996) ‘Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection’, in The Dread of Difference, ed. Grant, pp. 35–65 Dahl, Roald (1992) Revolting Rhymes (London: Jonathan Cape) Donoghue, Emma (1997) Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins (New York: HarperCollins) Dundes, Alan (ed.) (1982) Cinderella: A Folklore Casebook (New York: Garland) ——— (1987) ‘The Psychoanalytic Study of the Grimms’ Tales with Special Reference to “The Maiden Without Hands” (AT 706)’, Germanic Review 62, pp. 50–65 ——— (ed.) (1988) Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press) Freud, Sigmund (1919) ‘The Uncanny’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVII (1917–1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works, 217–256, www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/bressani/arch653/ winter2010/Freud_TheUncanny Gee, Catherine (2013) ‘Frozen: The Disney Princess Comes in from the Cold’, Telegraph, 1 December, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10484803/Frozenthe-Disney-princess-comes-in-from-the-cold.html Gilbert, John (1970) Myths and Legends of Ancient Rome (London: Hamlyn) Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar (2000) ‘The Queen’s Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity’, in The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, 2nd edn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) Gilliam, Terry (1999) Gilliam on Gilliam, ed. Ian Christie (London: Faber and Faber) Gilsdorf, Ethan (2013) ‘Hollywood’s Grimm Obsession: Why Grown-ups Embrace the Promise of Happily Ever After Now, More than Ever’, Boston Globe, www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/03/23/hollywood-fairy-tale-obsession/ JWDnhD8EoIiH8yKj75iV6I/story.html Gordon, Susan (1993) ‘The Powers of the Handless Maiden’, in Feminist Messages, ed. Radner, pp. 252–88 Gotz, Maya, Dafna Lemish, Amy Aidman and Hyesung Moon (2005) Media and the Make-Believe Worlds of Children: When Harry Potter meets Pokemon in Disney (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).

Grant, Barry Keith (ed.) (1996) The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (Austin: University of Texas Press) Greenhill, Pauline and Sidney Eve Matrix (eds) (2010) Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity (also published as Fairy Tale Film and Cinematic Folklore: Fantastic Voyages, Monstrous Dreams and Wonderful Visions) (Logan: Utah State University Press) Grimm, Wilhelm and Jacob (1987) Grimms’ Fairy Tales (Richmond: Tiger Books) ——— (1990) Grimm Brothers: The Complete Collection (London: Routledge) ——— (1993) Grimm’s Fairy Tales: Selected Stories (Ware: Wordsworth)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 198

Bibliography

Haase, Donald (ed.) (1993) The Reception of Grimms Fairy Tales: Responses, Reactions, Revisions (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) ——— (ed.) (2004) Fairy Tales and Feminism: New Approaches (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) Hallett, Martin and Barbara Karasek (eds) (1991) Folk and Fairy Tales (New York: Broadview Press) Hannon, Patricia (1998) Fabulous Identities: Women’s Fairy Tales in 17th Century France (Amsterdam: Rodopi) Harries, Elizabeth Wanning (2001) Twice Upon a Time: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale (Princeton University Press) Hawes, Jane Harris (1978) ‘Psychosexual Contrasts in the Grimm’s Fairy Tales: The Youth Who Feared Nothing versus the Girl Who Lost it All’ (Diss., University of Michigan) Hawkins, Harriet (1993) ‘Maidens and Monsters in Modern Popular Culture: The Silence of the Lambs and Beauty and the Beast’, Textual Practice 7, pp. 258–66 Heilbrun, Carolyn G. (1993) Reinventing Womanhood (1979; New York: Norton) Hill, Jim (2013a) ‘Joe Roth Reflects on Oz, the Great and Powerful, Looks Forward to Malificent in 2014’, The Huffington Post, 3 April, www.huffingtonpost.com/ jim-hill/joe-roth-reflects-on-oz-t_b_2806542.html ——— (2013b) ‘Countdown to Disney: How One Simple Suggestion Broke the Ice on the Ice Queen’, Los Angeles Times, 18 October Hoberman, J. (1991) ‘Skin Flick’, Village Voice, 19 February Hollinger, Karen (1996) ‘The Monster as Woman: Two Generations of Cat People’, in The Dread of Difference, ed. Grant, pp. 296–308 Hubner, Laura (2007) ‘Pan’s Labyrinth: Fear and the Fairy Tale’, Paper presented at the ‘Fear, Horror and Terror at the Interface’ first global conference, 10–12 September, Mansfield College, Oxford, www.inter-disciplinary.net/ati/fht/fht1/ hubner%20paper.pdf (also in Stephen Hessel and Michèle Huppert (eds) (2009) Fear Itself: Reasoning the Unreasonable (Amsterdam: Rodopi)) Hyland, Robert (2009) ‘A Politics of Excess: Violence and Violation in Miike Takashi’s Audition’, in Horror to the Extreme, ed. Choi and Wada-Marciano, pp. 199–218 Jackson, Rosemary (1981) Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion (London: Routledge) Jacoby, Mario, Verena Kast and Ingrid Reidl (1992) Witches, Ogres and Devil’s Daughters: Encounters with Evil in Fairy Tales (Boston: Shambhala) Jancovich, Mark (1992) Horror (London: Batsford) Johns, Andreas (2004) Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale (New York: Peter Lang) Jorgensen, Jeanna (2012) ‘Sorting Out Donkey Skin (ATU 510B): Toward an Integrative Literal-Symbolic Analysis of Fairy Tales’, Cultural Analysis 11, http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~caforum/volume11/vol11_jorgensen.html Kinoshita, Chika (2009) ‘The Mummy Complex: Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Loft and J-horror’, in Horror to the Extreme, ed. Choi and Wada-Marciano, pp. 103–22 Knee, Adam (2009) ‘The Pan-Asian Outlook of the Eye’, in Horror to the Extreme, ed. Choi and Wada-Marciano, pp. 69–84 Köhler-Zülch, Ines and Christine Shojaei Kawan (1991) Snow White Has Many Sisters: Female Figures in European Fairy Tales, 2nd edn (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verglashouse Gerd Mohn)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Bibliography

199

Kolbenschlag, Madonna (1981) Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-bye (New York: Doubleday) Koven, Mikel (2007) Film, Folklore and Urban Legends (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press) Lang, Andrew (ed.) (1993) Tales from the Arabian Nights (Ware: Wordsworth, 1993) Lau, Kimberley J. (2008) ‘Erotic Infidelities: Angela Carter’s Wolf Trilogy’, Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy Tale Studies 22.8, pp. 77-94, www.core.ecu.edu/ engl/hackettt/WOST3510/carter.pdf Lee, Tanith (1983) Red as Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer (New York: Daws) Lieberman, Marcia (1984) ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come: Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale’, in Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England, ed. Jack Zipes (1972; London: Routledge), pp. 185–200 Lukaseiwicz, Tracie D. (2010) ‘The Parallelism of the Fantastic and the Real: Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth/El Laberintino del fauno and Neomagical Realism’, in Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity, ed. Greenhill and Matrix, pp. 60–78 Lundell, Torborg (1990) Fairy Tale Mothers (New York: Peter Lang) Lurie, Alison (1970) ‘Fairy Tale Liberation’, The New York Review of Books, 17 December, pp. 42–4 ——— (1971) ‘Witches and Fairies: Fitzgerald to Updike’, The New York Review of Books, 2 December, pp. 1–6 ——— (2005) Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales (New York: Crowell, 1980, rpt iUniverse) Luthi, Max (1991) ‘The Fairy Tale Hero: The Image of Man in the Fairy Tale’, in Folk and Fairy Tales, ed. Hallett and Karasek, pp. 314–25 Lyons, Heather (1978) ‘Some Second Thoughts on Sexism in Fairy Tales’, in Literature and Learning, ed. Elizabeth Grugeon and Peter Walden (London: Open University Press) Mackenzie, Suzie (1999) ‘Fear, Be My Friend’, interviews with Wes Craven, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, The Guardian ‘Weekend’ supplement, 23 October Maguire, Gregory (2000) Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (London: HarperCollins) Mallin, Eric S. (2002) ‘The Blair Witch Project, Macbeth, and the Indeterminate End’, in The End of Cinema as We Know It: American Film in the 90s, ed. Jon Lewis (London: Pluto), pp. 105–14 Matthews, Caitlin (2000) The Barefoot Book of Princesses (Bath: Barefoot Books) McRobbie, Angela (1994) Postmodernism and Popular Culture (London: Routledge) Meider, Wolfgang (ed.) (1985) Disenchantments: An Anthology of Modern Fairy Tale Poetry (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England) Merritt, Gregg (2000) Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press) Millet, Lydia (1998) ‘Wife Killer’, in Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales, ed. Bernheimer Minard, Rosemary (ed.) (1975) Womenfolk and Fairy Tales (Boston: Houghton) Moore, Robert (1975) ‘From Rags to Witches: Stereotypes, Distortions and Anti-Humanism in Fairy Tales’, Interracial Books for Children 6, pp. 1–3

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 200

Bibliography

Mottram, James (2006) The Sundance Kids: How the Mavericks Took Back Hollywood (London: Faber and Faber) Orenstein, Catherine (2003) Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale (New York: Basic Books) Perrault, Charles (1745) Contes de ma mere l’Oye (The Hague: Jean Neaulme) Petrie, Duncan (ed.) (1993) Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment: Lectures, Seminars and Essays by Marina Warner and Others (London: BFI) Pogrebin, Letty (ed.) (1982) Stories for Free Children (New York: McGraw-Hill) Preston, Cathy Lynn (2004) ‘Disrupting the Boundaries of Genre and Gender: Postmodernism and the Fairy Tale’, in Fairy Tales and Feminism, ed. Haase, pp. 197–212 Propp, Vladimir (1968) Morphology of the Folktale, 2nd edn (London: University of Texas Press) Pullman, Philip (2012) Grimm Tales for Young and Old (London: Penguin) Purkiss, Diane (1996) The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth Century Representations (London: Routledge) ——— (2000) Troublesome Things: A History of Fairies and Fairy Tales (London: Penguin) Radner, Hilary (ed.) (1993) Feminist Messages: Coding in Women’s Folk Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press) Ragan, Kathleen (ed.) (1998) Fearless Girls, Wise Women and Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World (New York: Norton) Rankin, Walter (2007) Grimm Pictures: Fairy Tale Archetypes in Eight Horror and Suspense Films (London: Mcfarland) Ray, Brian (2010) ‘Tim Burton and the Idea of Fairy Tales’, in Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity, ed. Greenhill and Matrix, pp. 198–218 Roberts, Warren E. (1958) The Tale of the Kind and Unkind Girls: AA-TH 480 and Related Tales (Berlin: De Gruyter) Roper, Lyndal (2006) Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) Rowe, Karen E. (1984) ‘Feminism and Fairy Tales’ (1979), in Don’t Bet on the Prince, ed. Zipes, pp. 209–26.

——— (1986) ‘To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tale’, in Fairy Tales and Society, ed. Bottigheimer, pp. 53–74 Sautman, Francesca Canade et al. (eds) (1998) Telling Tales: Medieval Narratives and the Folk Tradition (Basingstoke: Macmillan) Sawers, Naarah (2010) ‘Building the Perfect Product: The Commodification of Childhood in Contemporary Childhood Film’, in Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity, ed. Greenhill and Matrix, pp. 42–59 Seifert, Lewis C. (2004) ‘On Fairy Tales, Subversion and Ambiguity: Feminist Approaches to Seventeenth Century Contes de Fées’, in Fairy Tales and Feminism, ed. Haase Sexton, Anne (2001) Transformations (1971; New York: First Mariner Books) Sharrett, Christopher (1996) ‘The Horror Film in Neoconservative Culture’, in The Dread of Difference, ed. Grant, pp. 253–76 Sherman, Sharon and Mikel Koven (2007) Folklore/Cinema: Popular Film as Vernacular Culture (Logan: Utah State University Press) Short, Sue (2006) Misfit Sisters: Screen Horror as Female Rites of Passage (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Bibliography

201

——— (2011a) Cyborg Cinema, rev. edn (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) ——— (2011b) Cult Telefantasy Series (Jefferson, NC: McFarland) Snowden, Kim (2010) ‘Fairy Tale Film in the Classroom: Feminist Cultural Pedagogy, Angela Carter and Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves’, in Fairy Tale Films, ed. Greenhill and Matrix, pp. 157–77 Sobchack, Vivian (1996) ‘Bringing It All Back Home: Family Economy and Generic Exchange’, in The Dread of Difference, ed. Grant, pp. 143–63 Stone, Kay (1975) ‘Things Walt Disney Never Told Us’, Journal of American Folklore 88, www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/KayStone.pdf ——— (1985) ‘The Misuses of Enchantment: Controversies on the Significance of Fairy Tales’, in Women’s Folklore, Women’s Culture, ed. Rosan Jordan and Susan Kalcik (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press) ——— (1991) ‘Feminist Approaches to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales’, in Folk and Fairy Tales, ed. Hallett and Karasek, pp. 368–76 ——— (1993) ‘Burning Brightly: New Light from an Old Tale’, in Feminist Messages, ed. Radner, pp. 289–306 ——— (2004) ‘Fire and Water: A Journey into the Heart of a Story’, in Fairy Tales and Feminism, ed. Haase, pp.113–28 ——— (2008) Some Day Your Witch Will Come: Selected Writing 1975–2004 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) Suzuki, Koji (2005) Ring (London: HarperCollins) ——— (2006) From the Depths of Dark Water (London: HarperCollins) Tatar, Maria M. (1992) Off With Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood (Princeton University Press) ——— (2003) The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales, 2nd edn (1987; Princeton University Press) ——— (2006) Secrets beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and his Wives, new edn (Princeton University Press) ——— (2012) ‘Snow White: Beauty is Power’, The New Yorker, www.newyorker. com/online/blogs/books/2012/06/snow-white-and-the-huntsman-and-fairytales.html ——— (2013) ‘Sleeping Beauties Vs. Gonzo Girls’, The New Yorker, www. newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/03/sleeping-beauty-lady-gaga -hunger-games-heroines.html Tehrani, Jamshid (2013) ‘The Phylogeny of Red Riding Hood’ (originally published in scientific journal Plos One), www.academia.edu/5096348/The_Phylogeny_ of_Little_Red_Riding_Hood Thelander, Dorothy R. (1982) ‘Mother Goose and Her Goslings: The France of Louis XIV as Seen through the Fairy Tale’, Journal of Modern History 54, pp. 467–96 Thomas, Hayley (1999) ‘Undermining a Grimm Tale: A Feminist Reading of the Worn-Out Dancing Shoes (KHM 133)’, Marvels & Tales 13, pp. 170–83 Thompson, Stith (1955) Motif Index of Folk Literature, 6 vols (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press) Thum, Maureen (1993) ‘Feminist or Anti-Feminist?: Gender Coded Role Models in the Tales Contributed by Dorothea Viehmann to the Grimm Brothers Kinder-und Hausmarchen’, Germanic Review 68, pp. 11–21 Todorov, Tzvetan (1972) A Structuralist Account of Fantastic Literature (Munich: Carl Hanser)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 202

Bibliography

Tolkien, J.R.R. (1991) ‘On Fairy-Stories’, in Folk and Fairy Tales, ed. Hallett and Karasek, pp. 261–313 Uther, Hans-Jorg (1987) Catalogue of Folk Motifs (Saur) Valenti, Peter L. (1978) ‘The Film Blanc: Suggestions for a Variety of Fantasy 1940–45’, Journal of Popular Film 6.4 (Winter), pp. 295–303 Waelti-Walters, Jennifer (1982) Fairy Tales and the Female Imagination (Montreal: Eden Press) Wales, George (2012) ‘50 Greatest Fairy Tale Movies’, Totalfilm.com, 6 April Warner, Marina (1990) ‘Mother Goose Tales: Female Fiction, Female Fact?’

Folklore 101, pp. 3–25 ——— (1992) ‘Fairy Tale and Film: The Uses of Enchantment’, NFT booklet (February) (London: BFI) ——— (1993a) ‘The Uses of Enchantment’, in Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment: Lectures, Seminars and Essays by Marina Warner and Others, ed.

Petrie, pp. 13–35 ——— (1993b) ‘Through a Child’s Eyes’, in Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment, ed. Petrie, pp. 36–49 ——— (1993c) ‘Women against Women in the Old Wives Tale’, in Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment, ed. Petrie, pp. 63–84 ——— (1995) From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers (London: Vintage) ——— (2000) No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling and Making Mock (London: Vintage) ——— (2009) ‘Witchiness’ – Review of Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, London Review of Books 31.16, 27 August, www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n16/marina-warner/witchiness ——— (2012) Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights (London: Vintage) White, Susan (1993) ‘Split Skins: Female Agency and Bodily Mutilation in The Little Mermaid’, in Film Theory Goes to the Movies, ed. Jim Collins et al.

(London: Routledge), pp. 182–95 Wilde, Oscar (1980) Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (London: Book Club Associates) Williams, Christy (2010) ‘The Shoe Still Fits: Ever After and the Pursuit of a Feminist Cinderella’, in Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity, ed. Greenhill and Matrix, pp. 99–115 Williams, Tony (1996) ‘Trying to Survive on the Darker Side: 1980s Family Horror’, in The Dread of Difference, ed. Grant, pp. 164–80 Williams-Ellis, Amabel (1976a) British Fairy Tales (1965; London: Blackie) ——— (1976b) More British Fairy Tales (1965; London: Blackie) Windling, Terri (ed.) (1995a) The Armless Maiden and Other Tales for Childhood’s Survivors (New York: Tor) ——— (1995b) ‘Women and Fairy Tales’, The Endicott Studio Forum, www.endicottstudio.com/forashs.html ——— (1997) ‘Ashes, Blood and the Slipper of Glass’, The Endicott Studio Forum, www.endicott-studio.com/forashs.html Wood, Robin (1984) ‘An Introduction to the American Horror Film’, in Planks of Reason, ed. Barry Keith Grant (London: Scarecrow Press), pp. 164–200 ——— (2002) ‘The American Nightmare: Horror in the 1970s’, in Horror, The Film Reader, ed. Mark Jancovich (London: Routledge), pp. 25–32

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Bibliography

203

Yolen, Jane (1993) ‘The Brothers Grimm and Sister Jane’, in Reception of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, ed. Haase, pp. 283–9 ——— (2000) Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls (San Diego: Silver Whistle/Harcourt) Yueh-yu yeh, Emilie and Neda Hei-tung Ng (2009) ‘Magic, Medicine, Cannibalism: The China Demon in Hong Kong Horror’, in Horror to the Extreme, ed. Choi and Wada-Marciano, pp. 145–59 Zipes, Jack (1983) Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the Process of Civilisation (New York: Wildman) ——— (ed.) (1984) Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America (London: Routledge) ——— (1993) The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood: Versions of the Tale in Socio-Cultural Context, 2nd edn (London: Routledge) ——— (2002a) Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales, rev. edn (1979; Lexington: University Press of Kentucky) ——— (2002b) The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World, 2nd edn (1998; Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) ——— (2006) Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre (London: Routledge) ——— (2009) Relentless Progress: The Reconfiguration of Children’s Literature, Fairy Tales and Storytelling (London: Routledge) ——— (2010) ‘Grounding the Spell: The Fairy Tale Film and Transformation’, Foreword to Fairy Tale Films: Visions of Ambiguity, ed. Greenhill and Matrix, pp. ix–xiii ——— (2011) The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films (London: Routledge) ——— (2012) The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre (Princeton University Press)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Filmography AI: Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001) Aladdin (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1992) Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010) Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000) Audition (Odichon) (Takashi Miike, 2000) Batman Returns (Tim Burton, 1992) Battle Royale (Fukasuku Kinji, 2000) Beastly (Daniel Barnz, 2011) Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012) Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991) La Belle et la bĂŞte (Jean Cocteau, 1946) Big (Penny Marshall, 1988) Big Daddy (Dennis Dugan, 1999) Big Fish (Tim Burton, 2003) The Big Lebowski (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998) The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, 1999) Blood and Chocolate (Katja von Garnier, 2007) Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick, 2006) Bluebeard (Catherine Breillart, 2009) Bluebeard/Le Barbe bleu (Georges Melies, 1901) The Bone Collector (Philip Noyce, 1999) Bound (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1996) Brave (Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman and Steve Purcell, 2012) Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier, 1996) Bridge to Terabithia (Istvan Csupo, 2007) The Brothers Grimm (Terry Gilliam, 2005) Bruce Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2003) Buried (Rodrigo CortĂŠs, 2010) Butterfly Kiss (Michael Winterbottom, 1995) Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976) Cinderella (Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson, 1950) A Cinderella Story (Mark Rosman, 2004) The City of Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1995) The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan, 1984) The Cooler (Wayne Kramer, 2003) Copycat (Jon Amiel, 1995) Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009) Corpse Bride (Tim Burton, 2005) Cursed (Wes Craven, 2005) The Daisy Chain (Aisling Walsh, 2007) The Dark (John Fawcett, 2005) Dark Water (Hideo Nakata, 2002) 204

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Filmography Dark Water (Walter Salles, 2005) Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972) The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005) The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006) The Devil’s Rejects (Rob Zombie, 2005) Dirty Weekend (Michael Winner, 1993) Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012) Dolores Claiborne (Taylor Hackford, 1995) Domino (Tony Scott, 2005) Donkeyskin/Peau d’ane (Jacques Demy, 1970) Dumplings (Fruit Chan, 2004) Eden Lake (James Watkins, 2008) Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990) Ella Enchanted (Tommy O’Haver, 2004) Enchanted (Kevin Lima, 2007) Evan Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2007) Ever After: A Cinderella Story (Andy Tennant, 1998) The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) F (Johannes Roberts, 2010) Fargo (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1996) The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam, 1991) The 40 Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow, 2005) Freaky Friday (Gary Nelson, 1976) Freeway (Matthew Bright, 1996) Frozen (Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, 2013) Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944) The Gift (Sam Raimi, 2000) Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000) Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (Brett Sullivan, 2003) Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (Grant Harvey, 2004) Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992) The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) Green Card (Peter Weir, 1990) The Grifters (Stephen Frears, 1990) Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) Gulliver’s Travels (Rob Letterman, 2010) Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) Hanna (Joe Wright, 2011) Hansel and Gretel (Pil-Sung Yim, 2007) Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (Tommy Wirkola, 2013) Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005) Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987) Hellbound: Hellraiser II ((Tony Randel, 1988) The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977) Hook (Steven Spielberg, 1991) House of 1000 Corpses (Rob Zombie, 2003) I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing (Patricia Rozema, 1987) I Spit on your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978) In Bruges (Martin McDonagh, 2008)

205

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 206

Filmography

In the Cut (Jane Campion, 2003) In the Valley of Elah (Paul Haggis, 2007) Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) Innocence (Lucile Hadzihalilovic, 2004) The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) Insomnia (Christopher Nolan, 2002) The Invention of Lying (Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson, 2009) Jack the Giant Slayer (Bryan Singer, 2013) Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997) Jagged Edge (Richard Marquand, 1985) Jane Eyre (Robert Stevenson, 1943) Ju-on (Shimizu Takashi, 2000) The Juniper Tree (Nietzchka Keene, 1990) Kes (Ken Loach, 1969) Kill Bill vols I and II (Quentin Tarantino, 2003–4) Knocked Up (Judd Apatow, 2007) Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979) Lady in the Water (M. Night Shyamalan, 2006) The Last Seduction (John Dahl, 1994) Lawn Dogs (John Duigan, 1997) Le Havre (Aki Kaurismäki, 2011) Liar Liar (Tom Shadyac, 1997) The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1989) Little Otik (Jan Svankmajer, 2000) Looking for Mr Goodbar (Richard Brooks, 1977) Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001, 2002, 2003) Maid in Manhattan (Wayne Wang, 2002) Maleficent (Robert Stromberg, 2014) Mama (Andrés Muschietti, 2013) Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000) Mermaid (aka Rusalka, Anna Melikyan, 2007) Mirror Mirror (Tarsem Singh, 2012) Miss Congeniality (Donald Petrie, 2000) Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (John Pasquin, 2005) Monster (Patty Jenkins, 2003) Monster-in-Law (Robert Luketic, 2005) Mr and Mrs Smith (Doug Liman, 2005) Mulan (Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, 1998) My Best Friend’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1997) My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel Zwick, 2002) Never Been Kissed (Raja Gosnell, 1999) The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993) A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984) No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Cohen, 2007) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946) The Odd Life of Timothy Green (Peter Hodges, 2013) Orphan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009) The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007) The Others (Alejandro Amenabar, 2001)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Filmography Overboard (Garry Marshall, 1987) Oz the Great and Powerful (Sam Raimi, 2013) Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006) Penelope (Mark Palansky, 2006) Peter Pan (P.J. Hogan, 2003) Photographing Fairies (Nick Willing, 1997) The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) Pinocchio (Guillermo del Toro, 2014) Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2008) Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009) Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990) The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements and John Musker, 2009) The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner 1987) The Princess Diaries (Garry Marshall, 2001) Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (Garry Marshall, 2004) Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997) The Proposal (Anne Fletcher, 2009) Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) Public Enemy (William D. Wellman, 1931) Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) Red Riding Hood (Giacomo Cimini, 2003) Red Riding Hood (Catherine Hardwicke, 2011) The Red Shoes (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948) Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) Return to Oz (Walter Murch, 1985) The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002) Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998) Ring Two (Hideo Nakata, 2005) Role Models (David Wain, 2008) Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932) Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983) Scream quartet (Wes Craven, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2011) Secret Beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1948) The Secret of Roan Inish (John Sayles, 1994) The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013) 17 Again (Burr Steers, 2009) Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000) Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994) Shallow Hal (Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 2001) The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) Shoeshine (Sciuscià) (Vittorio de Sica, 1946) Shrek (Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, 2001) Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon, 2004) Shrek the Third (Chris Miller and Raman Hui, 2007) Shrek Forever After (Mike Mitchell, 2010) Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) A Simple Plan (Sam Raimi, 1999)

207

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 208

Filmography

Skeleton Key (Iain Softley, 2005) Sleeping Beauty (Clyde Geronimi, Les Clark, Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, 1959) Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh, 2011) Sleeping with the Enemy (Joseph Rubin, 1991) Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999) Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton, 1996) Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (Caroline Thompson, 2001) Snow White: A Tale of Terror (Michael Cohn, 1996) Snow White and the Huntsman (Rupert Sanders, 2012) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand, William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Shopsteen, 1937) Some Call it Loving (James B. Harris, 1973) Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2000) Splash (Ron Howard, 1984) Stardust (Matthew Vaughn, 2007) Swept Away (Guy Ritchie, 2002) Swimming with Sharks (George Huang, 1992) A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Jee-woon, 2003) Tangled (Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, 2010) 10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger, 1999) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) 13 Going on 30 (Gary Winick, 2004) Three Kings (David O. Russell, 1999) Three Wishes for Cinderella (Vaclav Vorlicek, 1973) The Treasure of the Sierre Madre (John Huston, 1948) Treeless Mountain (So-Yong Kim, 2008) Troll Hunter (AndrĂŠ Ovredal, 2010) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch, 1991) Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011) The Ugly Truth (Robert Luketic, 2009) The Uninvited (The Guard Brothers, 2009) The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995) Vice Versa (Brian Gilbert, 1988) The Village (M. Night Shyamalan, 2004) The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999) Waitress (Adrienne Shelley, 2007) Waking Ned (Kirk Jones, 1998) War of the Roses (Danny De Vito, 1989) Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2002) What Happens in Vegas (Tom Vaughan, 2008) What Lies Beneath (Robert Zemeckis, 2000) What Women Want (Nancy Meyers, 2000) Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, 2010) Whispering Corridors (Park Ki-hyeong, 1998) Winter Witch (David Wu, 2012) The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) Wolf Creek (Greg Mclean, 2005) Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988) Wrong Turn (Rob Schmidt, 2003)

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Index Aarne-Thompson-Uther (index of tale types) 6–7, 52, 171–2n AI: Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001) 3, 16, 64 ‘Aladdin’ (ATU 561) 74–5, 77, 82 Aladdin (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1992) 11, 28, 181n ‘Ali Baba’ (ATU 331) 1, 17, 79–80, 82, 84, 86, 89 see also Morgiana Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010) 1, 8, 158–9 ‘All-kinds-of-fur’ (ATU 510B) 174n Allende, Isabelle 175n Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) 169 American McGee’s Alice 158, 193n ‘Animal Groom’ (ATU 425A) 52, 174n, 176n, 178n see also ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon’, ‘The Frog King’ Arabian Nights collection viii, 3, 74, 76, 94, 134, 182n, 183n Armitt, Lucy 24, 78, 190n Armstrong, Rebecca 193n ‘Aschenputtal’ 8, 174n see also ‘Cinderella’ Atwood, Margaret 141, 175n Audition (Odichon) (Takashi Miike, 2000) 120–1, 188n ‘Baba Yaga’ (ATU 313/334) 40, 67, 134, 176n, 180n ‘Babes in the Wood’ (ATU 327A) 150 Bacchilega, Christina 5–6, 20, 140, 141, 142, 148, 156, 185n and John Reider 29, 142–3, 173n, 175–6n, 191n Basile, Giambattista 43 see also ‘She-Bear’, ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’

Battle Royale (Fukasuku Kinji, 2000) 136 Beastly (Daniel Barnz, 2011) 16, 55–6, 179n Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012) 167–8 Beaumont, Jean-Marie Le Prince de 34 see also ‘Beauty and the Beast’, conteuses ‘The Beautiful and the Ugly Twin Sisters’ (ATU 711) 51 ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (ATU 425C) 1, 4, 33, 34, 35, 54–5, 65, 176n, 178n, 194n Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991) 11, 28, 54–5, 56, 66, 178n Beauty and the Beast (TV series) 2, 171n Bechdel test 159 La Belle et la bête (Jean Cocteau, 1946) 3 Benson, Steven 141 Bettelheim, Bruno 33, 164, 187n, 192n Big (Penny Marshall, 1988) 60, 179n Big Daddy (Dennis Dugan, 1999) 179n Big Fish (Tim Burton, 2003) 158 The Big Lebowski (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998) 87 The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, 1999) 117, 150 ‘The Blind Baba-Abdalla’ (Arabian Nights) 76 Blood and Chocolate (Katja von Garnier, 2007) 149 Blood Diamond (Edward Zwick, 2006) 89 The Bloody Chamber (collection) 147, 185n

209

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 210

Index

‘The Bloody Chamber’ (story) 109 ‘Blubber Boy’ 12, 173n ‘Bluebeard’ (ATU 312) 1, 2, 4, 5, 14, 17, 92–5, 98, 99, 100, 102, 102–4, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 176n, 183n, 184n, 185n, 186n, 190n Bluebeard/Le Barbe Bleu (Georges Melies, 1901) 183n Bluebeard/Le Barbe Bleu (Catherine Breillart, 2009) 111–12 Bly, Robert 178n The Bone Collector (Philip Noyce, 1999) 106 Bottigheimer, Ruth 73, 75, 91, 181n, 182n Bound (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1996) 84 ‘The Boy Who Had Never Seen a Woman’ (ATU 1678) 53 see also ‘The Youth Who Wanted to Know What Fear Is’ Branagh, Kenneth 48 Brave (Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman and Steve Purcell, 2012) 9, 28 Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier, 1996) 11–12, 172n Brecht, Bertolt 190n, 194n ‘The Bremen Town Musicians’ (Grimm) aka ‘The Musicians of Bremen’ 73, 181n The Bridge to Terabithia (Istvan Csupo, 2007) 194n The Brothers Grimm (Terry Gilliam, 2005) 151 Bruce Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2003) 16, 59, 63, 69 Brunnell, Charlene 190n ‘Brünnhilde’ (ATU 519) 44, 177n Buck, Chris 160 Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) 192n Buried (Rodrigo Cortés, 2010) 183n Burton, Tim 4, 6, 10, 11, 143, 158, 180n, 191n see also Alice in Wonderland, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands,

The Nightmare before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow Butler, David 4, 9, 59, 189n Butterfly Kiss (Michael Winterbottom, 1995) 107–8 Byatt, A. S. 175n Campbell, Joseph 117, 188n Campion, Jane 184–5n see also In the Cut, The Piano, Top of the Lake Capra, Frank 58 Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976) 124, 138 Carter, Angela 12, 19, 24, 26, 113, 114, 140, 141, 142, 147, 148, 170, 172n, 174n, 185n see also The Bloody Chamber, ‘Blubber Boy’, ‘The Company of Wolves’, ‘Keep your Secrets’ Carter, David 188n ‘Catskin’ (ATU 510B) 174n see also ‘All-kinds-of-fur’, ‘Donkeyskin’, ‘The Maiden without Hands’, unnatural father ‘Cendrillon’ 8, 176n see also ‘Cinderella’ changeling motifs 121–3, 189n Cherry, Brigid 138, 175n, 188n ‘A Child Returns from the Dead’ (ATU 769) (Grimm) 120 ‘The Children Who Played Butcher with One Another’ (Grimm) 136 Choi, Jinhee 130 ‘Cinderella’ (ATU 510A) viii, 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 25, 29, 31, 32, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 119, 127, 146, 174n 175n, 176n Cinderella (Disney’s 1950 film) 27 A Cinderella Story (Mark Rosman, 2004) 16, 30, 31, 37, 47, 61 The City of Lost Children (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1995) 168–9 ‘Clever Gretel’ aka ‘Clever Gretchen’ (Grimm) 58, 91, 183n ‘The Clever Peasant Girl’ (ATU 875) 48 Clover, Carol 99, 186n, 187n see also Final Girl, the

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Index ‘The Company of Wolves’ (story) 147–8, 192n The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan, 1984) 147–8, 191n, 192n conteuses 18–19, 54, 142, 174n, 176n, 178n, 191n The Cooler (Wayne Kramer, 2003) 81 see also Jean-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy, Marie-Jeanne L’Heritier, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve Copycat (Jon Amiel, 1995) 107 Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009) 125, 189n Corliss, Richard 68 Corpse Bride (Tim Burton, 2005) 158 Craven, Wes 136–7 see also Freddy Kreuger, A Nightmare on Elm Street Creed, Barbara 188n ‘Cupid and Psyche’ (ATU 425A) 176n, 178n Cursed (Wes Craven, 2005) 192n D’Aulnoy, Marie Catherine 191n see also conteuses, ‘The White Cat’ The Daisy Chain (Aisling Walsh, 2007) 122–3, 138, 189n The Dark (John Fawcett, 2005) 123–4, 138 ‘Dark Water’ (original story, ‘Floating Water’) 125 Dark Water (Hideo Nakata, 2002) 125–5, 138 Dark Water (Walter Salles, 2005) 126–7, 138 ‘The Death of the Little Hen’ (Grimm) 189n Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller, 1949) 84 Del Toro, Guillermo 10, 11, 128–9, 143, 191n see also Mama, The Orphanage, Pan’s Labyrinth The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005) 135 The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006) 16, 39–40 The Devil’s Rejects (Rob Zombie, 2005) 188n

211

‘The Devil’s Three Golden Hairs’ (Grimm) 181n Diab, Hanna 182n Dirty Weekend (Michael Winner, 1993) 107 Disney 1, 3, 9, 10, 12, 14, 23, 27–8, 45, 48, 158–60, 175n, 194n Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012) 44 Dolores Claiborne (Taylor Hackford, 1995) 110, 132–3 Domino (Tony Scott, 2005) 182n ‘Donkeyskin’ (ATU 510B) 18, 94, 119, 132–3, 187n see also Peau d’ane (Jacques Demy, 1970), unnatural father Dumplings (Fruit Chan, 2004) 18, 133–5 short film version, Three … Extremes (2004) 133 Dundes, Alan 115, 187n ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon’ (ATU 425A) 174n, 178n see also ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Cupid and Psyche’ Eden Lake (James Watkins, 2008) 135, 190n Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990) 16, 65–6, 158, 180n Electra complex 114, 131, 187n Ella Enchanted (Tommy O’Haver, 2004) 11, 157, 193n The Emerald City of Oz (L. Frank Baum, 1910) 193n Enchanted (Kevin Lima, 2007) 28–9, 61, 143, 191n Evan Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2007) 60, 63 Ever After: A Cinderella Story (Andy Tennant, 1998) 29, 144, 145, 157, 191n The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) 138 F (Johannes Roberts, 2010) 135 Fargo (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1996) 82, 87, 107

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 212

Index

Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987) 186n film blanc 59 Final Girl, the 99, 106, 184n, 188n The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam, 1991) 3, 62–3, 68, 69 ‘The Fisherman and his Wife’ (ATU 555) 72, 87, 182n ‘Fitcher’s Bird’ (aka ‘Fowler’s Fowl’) 17, 94, 99, 107, 109, 110 ‘Floating Water’ (Koji Suzuki) 125 The 40 Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow, 2005) 62 ‘Frau Trude’ (Grimm) 150, 174n Freaky Friday (Gary Nelson, 1976) 179n Freeway (Matthew Bright, 1996) 111, 148, 149 Freud, Sigmund 18 see also Electra complex, uncanny, the ‘The Frog King’ (ATU 440) 33, 178n Frozen (Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, 2013) 28, 159–60, 193–4n Gaiman, Neil 125, 175n, 189n Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944) 96 The Gift (Sam Raimi, 2000) 105–6, 107 Gilbert, John 176n Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar 145, 184n Gilsdorf, Ethan 2, 10, 156 Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000) 148–9 Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (Brett Sullivan, 2003) 149 Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (Grant Harvey, 2004) 149 ‘The Girl and the Wolf’ (James Thurber, 1936) 111, 186n Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992) 84 The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) 83 Godwin, William 78, 181–2n ‘The Golden Bird’ (Grimm) 74, 178n ‘The Golden Goose’ (Grimm) 178n, 181n

‘Goldilocks’ (ATU 171) 117 Gotz, Maya 175n Green Card (Peter Weir, 1990) 34, 35 Greenhill, Pauline and Sydney Eve Matrix 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 27, 157 The Grifters (Stephen Frears, 1990) 82, 85 Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm 3, 25, 45, 174–5n, 181n Grimm (TV series) 2, 171n, 192n Grimm Tales (aka The Children and Household Tales) 23, 182n, 183n see also ‘All-kinds-of-fur’, ‘Aschenputtal’, ‘The Bremen Town Musicians’, ‘The Children Who Played Butcher with One Another’, ‘Clever Gretel’, ‘The Death of the Little Hen’, ‘The Devil’s Three Golden Hairs’, ‘The Fisherman and his Wife’, ‘Frau Trude’, ‘The Frog King’, ‘The Golden Bird’, ‘The Golden Goose’, ‘Goldilocks’, ‘Hans my Hedgehog’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘The Hare Bride’, ‘Hop o’ my Thumb’, ‘How Six Made Their Way in the World’, ‘The Juniper Tree’, ‘The King of the Golden Mountain’, ‘The Knapsack the Hat and the Horn’, ‘Little Louse and Little Flea’, ‘The Little Peasant’, ‘Maid Maleen’, ‘The Maiden without Hands’, ‘The Pink’, ‘The Queen Bee’, ‘Rapunzel’, ‘Red Riding Hood’, ‘The Robber Bridegroom’, ‘The Singing Bone’, ‘The Six Swans’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Snow White’, ‘The Starving Children’, ‘The Three Spinners’, ‘The Three Feathers’, ‘The Twelve Brothers’, ‘The Water of Life’, ‘The Wolf and the Kids’ Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) 4, 57–8, 63, 69 Gulliver’s Travels (Rob Letterman, 2010) 179n

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Index

213

Haase, Donald 6, 20, 47, 160, 173n Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) 117, 118 Hanna (Joe Wright, 2011) 168 Hannon, Patricia 191n ‘Hans my Hedgehog’ (Grimm) 173n ‘Hansel and Gretel’ (ATU 327A) 2, 19, 80–1, 117, 119, 133, 154 Hansel and Gretel (Pil-Sung Yim, 2007) 137–8 Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (Tommy Wirkola, 2012) 2, 154 Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005) 2, 111, 148, 149 ‘The Hare Bride’ (Grimm) 183n Heilbrun, Carolyn G. 20, 51, 174n, 178n Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Tony Randel, 1988) 5, 184n Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987) 118, 184n, 188n ‘The Hen is Tripping in the Mountain’ 95 L’Heritier, Marie-Jeanne see conteuses, ‘The Subtle Princess’ The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977) 117 Hook (Steven Spielberg, 1985) 111 ‘Hop o’ My Thumb’ (ATU 327B) 80, 81 ‘The Horned Snake’s Wife’ 187n House of 1000 Corpses (Rob Zombie, 2003) 188n ‘How Six Made Their Way in the World’ (Grimm) 73, 181n ‘How the Devil Married Three Sisters’ (ATU 311) 95 Hubner, Laura 118, 129 humbled heroine 33, 35, 39, 42 see also ‘King Thrushbeard’, ‘The Princess’s Laugh’, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ Hyland, Robert 188n

In Bruges (Martin McDonagh, 2008) 81–2 In the Cut (Jane Campion, 2003) 5, 17, 101–2, 103, 107, 185n In the Valley of Elah (Paul Haggis, 2007) 111 Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) 18, 109 Innocence (Lucile Hadzihalilovic, 2004) 194n The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) 189n Insomnia (Christopher Nolan, 2002) 107 The Invention of Lying (Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson, 2009) 53 ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ (ATU 328) 1, 2, 17, 19, 77–9, 90, 181–2n Jack the Giant Slayer (Bryan Singer, 2013) 79, 154–5, 163 Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997) 182n Jackson, Rosemary 141, 190n Jagged Edge (Richard Marquand, 1985) 107 Jancovich, Mark 136 Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë, 1847) 184n Jane Eyre (Robert Stevenson, 1943) 96 ‘Janghwa, Hongryeon’ (Rose Flower, Red Lotus) 189n see also A Tale of Two Sisters ‘The Jealous Sisters’ (Arabian Nights) 181n Johns, Andreas 180n see also ‘Baba Yaga’ Jordan, Neil 10, 192n see also The Company of Wolves Jorgensen, Jeanna 187n ‘The Juniper Tree’ (ATU 720) 18, 119–20, 124, 127, 138 Ju-on (Shimizu Takashi, 2000) 18, 120, 121, 188n

I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing (Patricia Rozema, 1987) 172n I Spit on your Grave (Meir Zarchi, 1978) 187n

Kaiser, Erich (‘de-Grimmed’ tales) 190n ‘Kate Crackernuts’ (ATU 306/711) 23, 174n

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 214

Index

‘Keep your Secrets’ 187n Kes (Ken Loach, 1969) 194n Kill Bill vols I and II (Quentin Tarantino, 2003–4) 44, 111 ‘The Kind and Unkind Girls’ (ATU 480) 51 ‘The King of the Golden Mountain’ (Grimm) 83 Kinoshita, Chika 116, 187n ‘The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn’ (Grimm) 73–4 Knee, Adam 130–1 Knocked Up (Judd Apatow, 2007) 179n Kolbenschlag, Madonna 177n Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979) 56 Kreuger, Freddy 136–7 Lady in the Water (M. Night Shyamalan, 2006) 12 ‘Lady Isabel and the Elf-knight’ 183n Lady Snowblood (Toshiya Fujita, 1973) 177n Lang, Andrew 74, 173n, 174n The Last Seduction (John Dahl, 1994) 84 Lau, Kimberley J. 192n Lawn Dogs (John Duigan, 1997) 16, 66–7 ‘The Lazy Spinner’ (ATU 1405) 183n Le Havre (Aki Kaurismäki, 2011) 169 Lee, Jennifer 159 Lee, Tanith see ‘Wolfland’ Liar Liar (Tom Shadyac, 1997) 56, 59, 60 Lieberman, Marcia 21, 22, 23, 26, 54, 111, 173–4n ‘Little Louse and Little Flea’ (Grimm) 189n ‘The Little Mermaid’ (Hans Christian Andersen) 11–12, 140 mermaid motif in films 172n The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1989) 11 Little Otik (Jan Svankmajer, 2000) 13 ‘The Little Peasant’ (Grimm) 74 Looking for Mr Goodbar (Richard Brooks, 1977) 101

Lord of the Flies (William Golding, 1954) 135 Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001, 2002, 2003) 1, 62 Lost (TV series) 171n Lurie, Alison 21, 22, 26, 29, 173n, 174n, 187n Luthi, Max 50–1 Mackenzie, Suzie 117 Maguire, Gregory 19, 141, 152, 175n Maid in Manhattan (Wayne Wang, 2002) 29 ‘Maid Maleen’ (Grimm) 183n ‘The Maiden without Hands’ (ATU 706) 132, 133, 177n, 187n Maleficent (Robert Stromberg, 2014) 140, 158, 160 Mallin, Eric S. 150 Mama (Andrés Muschietti, 2013) 127, 143 ‘The Man on a Quest for his Lost Wife’ (ATU 400) 53 Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000) 18, 109 Mermaid (aka Rusalka, Anna Melikyan, 2007) 166, 172n Millet, Lydia 103–4 Mirror Mirror (Tarsem Singh, 2012) 46, 145–7 Miss Congeniality (Donald Petrie, 2000) 31–2 Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (John Pasquin, 2005) 32, 176n ‘Mr Fox’ 95 Mr and Mrs Smith (Doug Liman, 2005) 35 ‘Molly Whuppie’ (ATU 327B) 23 Monster (Patty Jenkins, 2003) 108 Monster-in-Law (Robert Luketic, 2005) 16, 40–1 ‘Moon Brow’ 175n Morgiana 80, 84, 182n see also ‘Ali Baba’ Mottram, James 89 Mulan (Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, 1998) 28, 194n

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Index My Best Friend’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1997) 16, 41–3 My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel Zwick, 1992) 16, 31 Never Been Kissed (Raja Gosnell, 1999) 16, 31 The Nightmare before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993) 158 A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984) 117, 118, 136–7 No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Cohen, 2007) 17, 82, 87–8, 90, 182n Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946) 96, 98 The Odd Life of Timothy Green (Peter Hodges, 2013) 12–13 Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck, 1937) 68 Once Upon a Time (TV series) 2, 171n, 192n Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (TV series) 159 Orenstein, Catherine 147, 148 Orphan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009) 121–2, 131, 189n The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007) 127, 138, 143 The Others (Alejandro Amenabar, 2001) 124, 189n Overboard (Garry Marshall, 1987) 36 Oz, the Great and Powerful (Sam Raimi, 2013) 152–3, 163, 193n Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006) 128–9, 143, 166, 191n, 194n Peau d’ane (Jacques Demy, 1970) 131–2, 189n Penelope (Mark Palansky, 2006) 78–9 ‘Perceforest’ 176–7n see also ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’ Perrault, Charles 2, 3, 5, 8, 17, 25, 93–4, 98, 103, 147, 176n see also ‘Bluebeard’

215

Peter Pan 1, 6, 16, 56, 64–5, 68, 140, 180n, 194n Peter Pan (P.J. Hogan, 2003) 180n The Piano (Jane Campion, 1993) 5, 100–1, 172n, 184–5n Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) 194n ‘The Pink’ (Grimm) 173n Pinocchio 1, 3, 16, 56, 62, 63–4, 78, 179–80n Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2008) 12, 172–3n ‘The Porter and the Ladies’ (Arabian Nights) 181n Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009) 132, 133, 190n ‘The Premature Burial’ (Poe) 183n Preston, Cathy Lynn 144 Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990) 4, 29 The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements and John Musker, 2009) 28 The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner, 1987) 142, 157 The Princess Diaries (Garry Marshall, 2001) 193n Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (Garry Marshall, 2004) 193n ‘The Princess’s Laugh’ (ATU 559) 35 Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997) 172n The Proposal (Anne Fletcher, 2009) 37–9, 47 Propp, Vladimir 3, 171 Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) 99, 117 Public Enemy (William D. Wellman, 1931) 82 Purkiss, Diane 122, 180n, 189n ‘Puss in Boots’ (ATU 545B) 80 ‘The Queen Bee’ (Grimm) 178n ‘The Queen’s Looking Glass’ (Gilbert and Gubar) 145 Rapunzel (ATU 310) 19, 146, 151–2 see also Frozen Ray, Brian 65, 66 Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) 99

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 216

Index

Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier, 1938) 184n Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) 96 ‘Red Riding Hood’ (ATU 333) viii, 2, 14, 19, 147, 173n, 192n Red Riding Hood (Catherine Hardwicke, 2011) 11, 149–50 The Red Shoes (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948) 3, 11 Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) 81 Return to Oz (Walter Murch, 1985) 158, 194n ‘Ricky with the Tuft’ 53 Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998) 18, 120, 121, 123, 130, 188n ‘The Robber Bridegroom’ (ATU 955) 17, 84, 94, 99, 105, 107, 109, 110 Role Models (David Wain, 2008) 179n Rowe, Karen E. 23–4, 174n Salander, Lisbeth 108 Sanders, Rupert 144, 192n see also Snow White and the Huntsman Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932) 82 Scarface (Bryan De Palma, 1983) 83 Scheherazade viii, 108, 153, 182n, 183–4n Scream films (Wes Craven, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2011) 99, 118 ‘The Search for the Lost Husband’ (ATU 425) 53 Secret beyond the Door (Fritz Lang, 1948) 96–9, 104, 109 The Secret of Roan Inish (John Sayles, 1994) 167, 172n Seifert, Lewis C. 176n, 191n The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard, 2013) 168, 194n 17 Again (Burr Steers, 2009) 4, 60–2, 63, 69, 179n Sexton, Anne 146 Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000) 81, 84 Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994) 17, 76, 82, 85, 89

Shallow Hal (Peter and Bobby Farrelly, 2001) 4, 58–9 Sharrett, Christopher 188n ‘She-Bear’ (Basile) 148 The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) 136, 190n Shoeshine (Sciuscià) (Vittorio de Sica, 1946) 194n Shrek (Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, 2001) 29, 191n Shrek Forever After (Mike Mitchell, 2010) 176n Shrek the Third (Chris Miller and Raman Hui, 2007) 175n Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) 106, 186n A Simple Plan (Sam Raimi, 1999) 17, 76, 82, 85–7, 88, 89, 90, 182n ‘The Singing Bone’ (Grimm) 181n ‘The Six Swans’ (Grimm) 178n Skeleton Key (Iain Softley, 2005) 184n ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (ATU 410) 15, 21, 15, 43–5, 140, 160, 174n, 176–7n Sleeping Beauty (Disney 1959 film) 27 Sleeping Beauty (Julie Leigh, 2011) 45 Sleeping with the Enemy (Joseph Rubin, 1991) 5, 110 Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999) 158 Sleepy Hollow (TV series) 2, 171n Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton, 1996) 16, 68 Snowden, Kim 47, 148 ‘The Snow Maiden’ 189n ‘Snow White’ (ATU 709) viii, 1, 5, 15, 18, 19, 21, 25, 45–6, 119, 133, 144, 174n Snow White: A Tale of Terror (Michael Cohn, 1996) 130 Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (Caroline Thompson, 2001) 146 Snow White and the Huntsman (Rupert Sanders, 2012) 46, 144, 192n Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film version, 1937) 27 ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (Sexton poem) 146 Sobchack, Vivian 136

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Index Some Call it Loving (James B. Harris, 1973) 177n Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2000) 173n, 180n Splash (Ron Howard, 1984) 11 Stardust (Matthew Vaughn, 2007) 157 ‘The Starving Children’ (Grimm) 134 Stone, Kay 23, 174n ‘The Story of Grandmother’ 147 see also ‘Red Riding Hood’ ‘The Subtle Princess’ (L’Heritier) 183n ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’ (Basile) 43, 44, 176n Supernatural (TV series) 192n ‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long’ (Brian Aldiss) 64 Swept Away (Guy Ritchie, 2002) 36–7 Swimming with Sharks (George Huang, 1992) 84 Tabart, Benjamin 78 A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Jee-woon, 2003) 11, 18, 129–30, 131 ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ 37 Tangled (Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, 2010) 151–2, 192–3n Tatar, Maria 2, 5, 20, 25, 26, 33, 34, 45, 51, 53, 54, 72, 73, 75, 78, 95–7, 98–9, 100, 102, 103–4, 108, 124, 144, 156, 164, 174–5n, 176n, 177–8n, 181n, 184n, 187n, 188n, 190n Tehrani, Jamshid 14, 173n 10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger, 1999) 11, 37, 39, 47 Tenniel, John 158 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) 117, 138 13 going on 30 (Gary Winick, 2004) 179n Thompson, Caroline 66, 180n see also Edward Scissorhands ‘Three Brothers’ (ATU654) 51 see also ‘youngest son’ narratives Three … Extremes (2004) 133 see also Dumplings

217

‘The Three Feathers’ (Grimm) 178n Three Kings (David O. Russell, 1999) 89, 182n ‘The Three Spinners’ (ATU 501) 183n Three Wishes for Cinderella (Vaclav Vorlicek, 1973) 9, 172n Through the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll, 1871) 158 ‘The Tinderbox’ (Hans Christian Andersen) 77 Tolkien, J.R.R. 168, 169 see also Lord of the Rings trilogy Top of the Lake (series) 185n, 186n ‘Treasure Finders Murder One Another’ (ATU 763) 89 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948) 89 Treeless Mountain (So-Yong Kim, 2008) 138 ‘Trickster Wives and Maids’ (ATU 1741) 183n Troll Hunter (André Ovredal, 2010) 192n ‘The Twelve Brothers’ (Grimm) 178n Twin Peaks (TV series) 132, 171n Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (David Lynch, 1991) 132 Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011) 110–11 The Ugly Truth (Robert Luketic, 2009) 36 uncanny, the (unheimlich) 115–16 The Uninvited (The Guard Brothers, 2009) 18, 131, 189n unnatural father 187n see also ‘All-kinds-of-fur’, ‘Catskin’, ‘Donkeyskin’, ‘The Maiden without Hands’ The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995) 81 Valenti, Peter see film blanc The Vampire Diaries (TV series) 186n ‘Vasilisa the Priest’s Daughter’ 9 Vice Versa (Brian Gilbert, 1988) 56 The Village (M. Night Shyamalan, 2004) 150, 192n

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com 218

Index

Villeneuve, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de 54, 178n see also ‘Beauty and the Beast’, conteuses The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999) 194n Waitress (Adrienne Shelley, 2007) 43–4 Waking Ned (Kirk Jones, 1998) 85 War of the Roses (Danny De Vito, 1989) 35 Warner, Marina 1, 3, 4, 5, 13–14, 28, 34, 53, 54, 55, 56, 66, 75, 78, 89, 94, 109–10, 119, 136, 148, 163–4, 172n, 173n, 174n, 176n, 178n, 182n, 185n, 186n, 189n ‘The Water of Life’ (ATU 551) 174n, 178n, 182n Whale Rider (Niki Caro, 2002) 167 What Happens in Vegas (Tom Vaughan, 2008) 34–5 What Lies Beneath (Robert Zemeckis, 2000) 104, 106, 107 What Women Want (Nancy Meyers, 2000) 59 Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak, 1963) 167 Whispering Corridors film series 130 ‘The White Bride and the Black Bride’ (ATU 403) 41 ‘The White Cat’ (d’Aulnoy) 148, 176n Wicked (Gregory Maguire) 152

Williams, Christy 48, 191n Williams, Tony 116, 137, 187n Winter Witch (David Wu, 2012) 160 The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) 152, 158 ‘The Wolf and the Kids’ (ATU 123) 173n Wolf Creek (Greg Mclean, 2005) 167 ‘Wolfland’ (Tanith Lee, 1983) 149 Wood, Robin 115–16, 120, 139, 187n ‘The Wooden Baby’ 13 Woolverton, Linda 55, 158 Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988) 30 Wrong Turn (Rob Schmidt, 2003) 117 The X-Files (TV series) 171n X-Men 181n ‘Yotsuya Kaidan’ (Yotsuya Ghost Story) 188n ‘youngest son’ narratives 51, 53, 73–4 ‘The Youth Who Wanted to Know What Fear Is’ (ATU 326) 53–4, 178n Zipes, Jack 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 20, 22, 26, 27, 30, 44, 47, 48, 52, 54, 70, 71, 73, 75, 103, 112, 116, 137, 142, 147, 148, 156, 157, 164, 165–6, 167, 168, 169, 172n, 174n, 175n, 181n, 189n, 190n, 191n, 192n, 193n, 194n