'Moana' - A Movie We Need Right Now

Recent family movie releases have been both the break from stress, worry and confusion that families, especially kids, need right now, and they have uplifting messages to boot.

You know we were happily surprised by Trolls. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them not only brings magic and wonder in spades, it head-on addresses fear of the 'other' on many levels and underscores the importance of diversity. And, now Moana has hit theaters there's another reason to go.

From all reports, Moana is affirming the importance of supporting, believing in and training our young people to be truly great leaders (instead of doubting them), that girls can do whatever they truly set their hearts and minds to, that have a love interest isn't part of being a successful person and even more so, that platonic love can be a source of strength. It also sends an important message about how respectfully and correctly representing someone's else's culture (different than your own) can actually be a unifying force, strengthening communities, rather than widening the gap that tends to occur in fear of what is different; that there is much more value in respecting our various heritages equally than might be obvious.

Japanese poster

The echoes of happy, happy People Of Color feeling heard, are resonating across Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter and other social media right now, and, after recent weeks, that is a powerful and positive thing.

 (Diverse and respected review site, Rotten Tomatoes, that tallies both critic and audience responses, has a score of 98% positive for Moana at this writing - that's almost unheard of.)

Here's a handy PSA for all those who aren't Polynesian, just to help stop us all from putting our foot in it, and making everyone's jobs of trying to communicate, and build much needed bridges, harder than it has to be.

From Tumblr poster 96kwon:, a poster of Polynesian heritage who reports that, after concerns about misrepresentation, Disney did right by their culture:

A quick FYI for non pacific islanders for Moana

• Even though you only know Hawaiians doesn’t mean she’s just Hawaiian, and yes, there are more islanders than just Hawaiians.
•  Polynesian isn’t a language. Polynesia is a large group of islands that have their own distinct language, rich culture, and customs. There’s Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, Easter Islands, etc…
•  Moana isn’t one race she’s everything mixed into one because there are too many cultures to just base her off of just one island.
• Maui, as you might have guessed isn’t based off of just one legend either.
• Maui’s “War Dance” is called the Haka and they do that dance to scare their enemies before battle.
• Fun fact: Moana means Ocean
• Please don’t group all of the Pacific Islanders and their cultures into one.
• Another Fun fact: Pacific Islanders are some of the best navigators of the Ocean to have ever lived. There has even been evidence of them being the first to travel to America. sorry not sorry Columbus.
• And last but not least, PLEASE LOVE MOANA AND GO AND WATCH IT IN ALL ITS GLORY 

Spanish language poster

Spanish language poster

And now onto the legend/lore part. We haven't had the opportunity to view the whole film yet but reviews from a wide variety of sources point to it being a success - both as entertainment and as a proper representation of culture and related history and legends.

It's also reported to be full - chock full - of folklore Easter Eggs. Only problem is, we don't have access to a wide variety of Pacific Island folklore to ferret some of these out, but even if we did, we couldn't do better than to point you in the direction of the amazing Zalka Csenge Virág's storytelling, folklore and legend blog, The Multicolored Diary.  She's broken down all the Maui legend references in that character's key song, You're Welcome. The post is titled All the Maui legends crammed into Moana's "You're Welcome".

To explain what she's done, here's an extract from the intro of the post on The Multicolored Diary:

"..what really intrigued me as a storyteller was all the folklore Easter eggs hidden in plain sight. The best among them was Maui the Trickster's introduction song, titled "You're Welcome", which combined the features of trickster and culture hero perfectly.On top of that, each line of the song was a reference to an actual Maui legend."

Csenge goes on to explain the list she put together, with the encouragement that everyone should keep reading indigenous reviews in particular, to truly assess the representational success - both of culture and legends - in the movie. You can read the post (and hear the song in full) HERE.

True to Disney tradition, Easter Eggs , particularly from Ron and John's previous huge hit The Little Mermaid, are spread throughout, making the 'family' this film has come from clear. And,as we have been told over and over - stay until after the credits! There's an extra bit of happy at the very, very end.

"The White Snake" Illustrated by Megan Kelchner

In prepping to chat later in the month about The White Snake with Tales Of Faerie, I found this set of illustrations done by Megan Kelchner. Megan is currently studying for her BFA in Communications Design, focusing on Illustration. The point of the project was to take a fairy tale and change both the time period and geographic location.

Megan chose the Grimm's lesser known tale of The White Snake and set her series in the Yuan Dynasty in Tibet.

Her summary of The White Snake:

"...this story, (is) about a servant who eats a magical snake that allows him to speak to animals, (the ability of) which he uses to show kindness to them, and as a result is rewarded (later).

While I really like the design details and swirls in the clouds, the sun in the shape of the snake is inspired. Eating the snake, opens the man's eyes - well, ears, actually - to see the world differently, and his path changes as a result. Heading in the direction of the sun/snake, mirrored by the golden apple (which is in the story as 'a golden apple', although picked by ravens instead) is a nice visual statement too.

Pretty neat, right?

It's not too easy to find a variation of illustrations for this tale to begin with and is possibly the only interpretation I've seen that mixes things up a little in terms of the cultural emphasis and time. The story is actually pretty positive and bright (especially compared to a lot of Grimm's fairy tales, so it's even more surprising that most of the work you see based on it, is serious, sombre in mood and dark in color. I love that these are so very colorful. Its' a colorful story with lots of talking creatures and recognizable fairy tale motifs so it fits well.

If you're not familiar with the tale and find yourself intrigued, you'll be happy to know you're going to hear a lot more about it near the end of the month! (Probably closer to a week or so away, now.) It may not be set in such an exotic location but it's very magical nonetheless.

You can find more of Megan Kelchner's work at her website HERE.

A Great Suggestion For the OUAT Writers (AKA The Call To Use Different Fairy Tale Characters From 'Round the World)

With the season end reveal of Elsa coming to Storybrooke for Season 4 of Once Upon A Time, speculation is rife with regard to story lines, additional Frozen world character additions, plot twists and, as you can imagine, concerns about changing an already much-beloved character. Clearly, from the brief finale teaser, Elsa will be fair skinned (ie caucasian) but there are a lot of people, many already concerned with Disney's lack of POC representation, that see the same in OUAT, and that the addition of Elsa just exacerbates that.

   

(I'll get to why I am posting images of all these cultural variants of Cinderella in just a sec. Bare with me.) 

      

The "discussion" throughout social media has birthed a petition, calling for Tiana (from Disney's The Frog Princess) to be added to the cast and canon but not just as "fodder" like it seems most other POC characters have been used in OUAT.
   

The lack of POC people in the ABC show Once Upon a Time is rather depressing. They are either villains, dead or forgotten. The character Mulan has disappeared and Rapunzel, who was added to the royal line up, had one episode and she wasn’t even the focus. For three seasons, the fans have waited patiently for at least one POC who doesn’t get shafted. So to the writers and creators, would you please give us Tiana? All we are asking is for a POC character that gets to go on a journey and not be forgotten.  

The fact that the POC issue is coming up so regularly these days says a lot to me: not just about the lack of representation by arguably the most influential company using fairy tales in the world, but also that people are tired of the same regurgitation of stories. Red Riding Hood has been told multiple times the world over in a myriad of ways, yet Western retellings of Red Riding Hood tend to default to the girl in the red hood in the wood with a wolf.

        
Carissa Shuman, of The Celebrity Cafe, however, came up with a solution that I want to applaud, (despite the fact that it's highly unlikely this suggestion will be implemented):
           

Should Horowitz and Kitsis decide to include more POC, they could possible draw from fairy tales of other cultures which are sometimes stand-alone stories, and sometimes variations of their European counterparts. Their focus has been predominantly on Disney princesses, which does include Mulan and Tiana. However, they have also included or alluded to other popular stories such as Hansel and Gretel. If they were to refer to some other stories, they may want to use Leola from Melodye Benson Rosales’ Leola and the Honeybears, which is an African-American version of Goldilocks, who although not a princess is a well-known fairy tale character. 

                    

Another option could be to incorporate “relatives” of Red or Ella by using a variation of their story. For example, Lon Po Po is a Chinese version of Little Red Riding Hood written by Ed Young. There are also several versions of Cinderella. The idea of rags to riches is a common theme, and the Chinese have told it in Yeh-Shen by Ai-Ling Louie. Robert D. San Souci told it in his story entitled Cendrillon, a Caribbean Cinderella, and Rafe Martin told it in The Rough-Face Girl which stars a disfigured Algonquin girl.

  

The whole things about OUAT being basically a Disney property and using Disney versions of fairy tales makes sense, from a production point of view (and an intellectual property point of view). That excuse doesn't apply for when they go outside the canon though. For them to use, for example, Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, which Disney do not have popular versions of, says that they're willing to step outside the Disney canon if they think it's worth they're while (read, ratings).
             


With regard to the fact that Horowitz and Kitsis are extremely unlikely to consider using cultural variations of stories, what I would like to see is: They decide, yes, they'll bring Tiana on board and yes, they'll bow to popular demand and offer Oscar Winner Lupita Nyong'o the role. She says "yes, on one condition". They say "anything!" and she demands that they bring some fairy tales from her cultural background to the show...

I can dream.

When Fairy Tales Stray Beyond Their "Borders"...

This is a funny (as in a little skewed and strange) thing that people have latched onto: that a certain tale belongs in a certain cultural context only. As such, people get very territorial when it comes to certain tales. To me, it's means they're missing one of the best things about fairy tales - that they belong to everyone. Fairy tales show us our differences and our similarities across the world and I think it's one of the reasons they're so important for children to learn when they're young. People everywhere - in every place, culture and society - are just like you, but also unique.

As fairy tale people, you're very likely aware that there are, for example, versions of Cinderella in almost every culture in the world, meaning that the tale type is - by and large - the same, but the context and details are different. Cinderella doesn't "belong" to any ones place or peoples. only the versions of them do (and that could be debated as well, considering how those tales came to be).

There has been a lot (a LOT) of "gender-bending" illustration of Disney characters (and non-Disney fairy tale characters too, but less so) and recently I came across a "race-bending" set of illustrations by an illustration student who hosts a Tumblr titled Let There Be Doodles. While I like imagining what the stories would be like set in a different cultural context, it was the questions and responses that followed the posting of these illustrations that caught my attention.

And I was delighted to find SurLaLune being linked to as a resource for the many versions of different stories as well (Heidi - your work is so very, VERY important and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. xx)

People really are concerned and curious and I'm grateful that this exchange, at least, was done with respect and courtesy! (I left all typos and phrasing intact to keep the original spirit of the exchange):

Anonymous asked: So I want to appologise before I ask if this sounds mean spirited, I'm trying really hard not to be. But WHY would you do race bent disney characters? Like, I get wanting more POCs and that's hella. I'm all for it. But fairy tales don't make since out of their cultural context(i.e. Meg as an Egyptian, Cinderella as a Geisha, even Jasmine as African instead of Middle Eastern). So why that change? Sorry again if this sounds mean, I'm just really confused here.

(( No, you’re fine, no worries! :)
Before anything else, I’d like to point something out. Fairy tales are constantly being taken out of their cultural context. Most of the fairy tales that we know now were taken out of their original cultural context and altered. Aladdin was originally set in China. The Frog Prince was Latin, and was altered over and over again in several countries. The stories have been and can be altered in many ways. *shrugs*

Anyway, I’m not necessarily trying to alter an entire story (although it would be fun) I’m just working with character design. I create racebent characters simply for fun and because I’d love to see more diversity in our media. :) ))

To the anon who said fairy tales don’t make sense outside their cultural context…

There are actually many variations of the Cinderella story. 

As well as Sleeping Beauty. 

The Little Mermaid is a story by Hans Christian Andersen, but there are a fewvariations on that theme as well (though not nearly as many as the previous two, but I’m sure there are more.) 

There’s like a bunch of them for Snow White. 

I’m not gonna touch Hercules (or, as he’s more properly called since the movie takes place in Greece, Heracles) or any of the Hans Christian Andersen based stories like The Snow Queen/Frozen (except, of course, for The Little Mermaid.)
Fairy tales don’t have to make sense. It’s all about the story, or the message contained within it (like with Aesop’s Fables.)

And, in case you're wondering, there were people that had a problem that it wasn't just white princesses that were getting "race bent", but that's actually the point. The tales belong to the world. The variations of the tales can crop up anywhere and the tales will still be "the tales".

I don't think I really need to add much more commentary to this. I'm just really glad the conversation is happening out in social media (and going viral as a result). It's another way people are learning that there are many, many tale variations all over the world and that we share more with each other globally than many people realize.

What are your thoughts on this?