Fairy Tale MOOC Highlights - Wk 1 Cinderella (Pt 1)

Disney's Cinderella by lettiebobettie

It's over. After four weeks of chatting with people all over the world, at all times of day on all aspects of fairy tales, the first fairy tale MOOC has officially reached the end. (Cue sobbing.)

It was so much fun to chat with people from all walks of life, some fairy tale and folklore students, others being first timers, some young adults, some seniors, some Americans and many not - I thought I'd share some discussion highlights. There was also the surprise of optional "tech challenges" designed to stretch people out of their comfort zones a little by trying a range of (free) technology for different presentations (like learning how to upload a video to YouTube). While this aspect did take a lot more time than the basic time estimation it seems that everyone who attempted them felt it time well spent and got a lot out of trying something different. Apart from being able to be part of ongoing semi-live discussions on various aspects of fairy tales, seeing how people tackled the tech challenges was my favorite part of the course.

First let me give you the title and premise we began with:

Fairy Tales: The Origin and Evolution of Princess Stories

(Edit FTNH: What was meant by this was actually the main Disney princess stories, where they came from and how things changed from early literature recording these tales to when Disney put his/their version on screen, so no Iron Stove, Dancing Princesses or Goose Girl. I was pleased to see this didn't limit the conversation at all, especially since so many participants hadn't grown up with Disney so the discussion remained fresher than it might have been otherwise.)

by Ruth Sanderson

Overview:

Princess stories have been popular for centuries and remain so today around the world; we’ll dive into what these fairy tales mean, and trace the history of these narratives back to their source material, examining contexts all along the way. We’ll borrow tools from cultural studies, literature studies, and film studies to help us analyze these phenomena and what they mean to our society.  Many of us may associate princess stories with modern-day products (much of it marketed to small children) or with Disney movies and theme parks. We’ll examine these current versions of fairy tale mythology as well, using our new interpretive tools to uncover not just what’s been changed in the moral and message of the narrative, but what the stories mean as told now.

The first "princess" was Cinderella and we read Grimm's, Perrault's and Basile's versions of the story as well as had a couple of short video lectures. We were asked to give our impressions of what the name "Cinderella" meant to us, if the narratives matched out memories/impressions and what we thought after reading one version after the other and then to use various interpretative "lenses" (historical, authorial, feminist, Freudian and also queer).

Then people got chatty... :)
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Don't Open the Door To Anyone!

"I am not allowed to let anyone in. The dwarfs have forbidden me to do so."

Note: It's SO VERY HOT HERE! I'm afraid I was out of prescheduled blog posts the past few days to cover for me while I couldn't get to writing but I have lots of fairy tale news to catch up on! Bear with me while I juggle all the crazy and the health-challenges - there will be news a-plenty to read very shortly. In the meantime... 

While I was searching for images to use for the Snow White slideshow/retelling I found this amazing lock I have to share. Note it took SEVEN YEARS to complete. There's that number again.

The lock was made by an German-born, American ironworker (I would say artist), who worked his way into the Arts & Crafts Society of Boston. This was prior to Disney's Snow White (which was 1937) so the combination of German heritage, minus any strongly influential media representations of Snow White makes for a Germanic representation - with an American Arts and Crafts twist.

In the (very) old book Art and Progress Vol 4 (from 1913), the text refers to the lock, stating: "...Koralewsky's great wrought-iron lock, designed to illustrate the fairy tale of "Snow-White and Rose-Red", is one of the features of display of ironwork." Oops. Clearly the lock is Little Snow White, not Snow White and Rose Red, but even the official museum information today has a small print caveat under the information saying that information is constantly being updated on this piece. I'd love to know why it was made (beyond "it was a gift"). Why so intricate, why a fairy tale and why this fairy tale?)

If Snow White had such a metal-worked lock, care of her little guardians, it may have effectively stopped her from lifting that latch... It would certainly stop me in my tracks every time I approached the door! (Though Snow White doesn't actually open the door, doing as she was told, to receive the apple at the last in the Grimm's telling. Instead she reaches through the window. Apparently we'd need a complementary window latch...)

There's very little information available (that my google-fu can find anyway), except for what the museum has posted next to the artifact itself:

(Designed/created by) Frank L. KoralewskyAmerican, born Germany, 1872-1941Lock, 1911Iron with inlays of gold, silver, bronze, and copper on wood base50.8 x 50.8 x 20.3 cm (20 x 20 x 8 in.)"Fkoralewsky" on iron surface; "FK" inlaid in copper
Gift of Mr. Richard T. Crane, 1926.521 

Frank L. Koralewsky served as a traditional ironworker’s apprentice in his native north-German town of Stralsund. After obtaining journeyman status, he worked in various German shops before immigrating to Boston in the mid- 1890s. By 1906 he was a member of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts, specializing in locksmithing and hardware. This extremely intricate lock, which took seven years to complete, exemplifies the early-20th-century taste for sentimental medievalism and represents the pinnacle of the metalworking tradition at the turn of the 20th century. Exhibited at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, where it won a gold medal, the lock illustrates Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”— Permanent collection label

Here is the handle (which you can see at the top in the straight-on views), depicting a dragon. I'm also curious as to why the artist chose a dragon...

By the way, can you find the seven dwarfs? They're all there but there's a trick to it...*

I believe the lock is currently on display at the Art Institute in Chicago (the last information I could find was posted in December 2012 but it's in the current artifact/information for this museum so I will have to assume this is here it's currently on exhibit).

I found one other carving by Koralewsky (called a "steel carving", though it appears to be wood) from an old museum catalog but apparently this is not on display anywhere. You can see a similar style to the characters and scene. There's no title, no information, other than that it's by Koralewsky and that it has the tags "metal work" and "craftsman". It looks very much like a tale - with a horse and a King and possibly a mouse (see bottom of the tree) as well as some blacksmiths but I don't know what tale it is.

You can see a selection of amazing and intricate locks by various artists HERE, though the Snow White lock by Koralewsky is the only fairy tale themed one. (Other examples of his work can be found HERE.)

Amazing, yes?

*The seventh dwarf is hidden inside the lock. Now wouldn't that make for an interesting twist to the story?

Ask Baba Yaga: I Am My Own Worst Enemy

Baba Jaga by ~iphigen

This week is AWESOME! (Like pretty much every other week has been, but for a fairy tale person, it may be even more so this week...)

This week's question and answer (via poet and oracle Taisia Kitaiskaia* of The Hairpin):

(Originally posted at The Hairpin HERE)

The discussion among commenters are my top picks this week:

• Such great advice! Uncanny! (adorable-eggplant)
• Out-tricksied! (insert heart here) (fabel)
• I feel I would try so much harder to follow advice that was given cryptically. Straightforward advice, all lies. THAT's the problem. Clearly. (Linette)
• @Linette yes! another point for oracles over advice columnists. (harebell)

I think Linette is on to something! Gosh I love this one: thorned and starving paths, enchanted balls of yarn taking them to SECRET GRAVEYARDS. Yes! Clearly I need to lead my other self down other paths than the garden one. I think I have been too nice to date. :/ (Thanks Baba!)

What do you think of Baba Yaga's advice?

Want to ask Baba Yaga a question of your own?

You can!

There's now an email address where you can send your questions

directly to Baba Yaga herself.

AskBabaYaga AT gmail DOT com

To encourage Baba Yaga to continue imparting her no-bones-about-it wisdom (ok, there may be some gristle in there... bones too), I suggest we not to leave her box empty... 

Thank you Baba Yaga (& Taisia).

* Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet, writer, and Michener Center for Writers fellow. Born in Russia and raised in America, she's had her poems and translations published in Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, and others.

"The Mirror: A Snow White Tale" (MOOC challenge)

I'm planning to do a highlights post on some of the fairy tale MOOC classes and discussions we've been busy with the past four weeks but thought I'd start with this.

Each week, we studied a different tale or tales, discussed, analyzed, compared and contrasted them and also had an optional "tech challenge"on the theme.

Although I'm late in uploading my "slideshow retelling", after having a few technical issues with the free online software, I really wanted to finish what I started and ended up reconstructing the slideshow offline. It's not perfect but I wanted to keep to the limits of the software we were supposed to use [which I did. Mostly. :) ] and was more pleased than I expected to be with how it turned out overall.

You'll notice my retelling has no male figures at all - not even dwarfs... (I'll leave you to consider what light that throws on the tale.)

The Mirror: A Snow White Tale

by Gypsy Thornton

(MOOC tech challenge: slideshow retelling of a fairy tale)

Running time: 2:19

Music: "Gone" by Ioanna Gika

Enjoy.

(Note: the movie file is pretty big. If it's not running properly, let it load first then watch.)

Snow White Hearts Art

From the Facebook page Artspiradora  - a very creative and inspirational page-project - in which they provide many examples of art, including unconventional methods of reproduction to educate kids about Art and the Masters. One example is a bento-box-like presentation of Magritte's The Son of Man, or a parody of Hopper's famous painting Nighthawks "rebuilt" in Lego.

A little while back they posted the image above which is a homage to both Disney and Frida (originally on display at the not-for-kids Disasterland* show by Mexican artist José Rodolfo Loaiza Ontiveros at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Feliz, Los Angeles CA, in August last year (important note regarding this show at end of post - please read before clicking on links).

The point in the case of Artpiradora's Facebook page, however, was/is to use Disney and Snow White to teach kids about art, surrealism and Frida (and heartache). You have to admit, in matters of the heart, Snow White is a perfect Disney example to use...

The description from Facebook, translated from Spanish, is below:

BETRAYAL vs LOVEThe painting done by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, called "The Two Fridas" (1939) depicts how she felt after the divorce of the painter Diego Rivera: her only companion, was herself. See two facets in this table: Frida was loved by Diego, and one that was betrayed, the traditional versus the cosmopolitan, the strong and the weak. Symbolic objects as we see a photograph of Diego, scissors, blood ... they are easy to interpret. Some Frida Kahlo pigeonhole surreal, but she defends the title saying: "They thought I was a Surrealist, but I was not. I never painted my dreams. I painted my own reality "

Frida painting her two selves

If you're on Facebook, love art, creativity and being inspired by different (and generally family friendly) thinking, I recommend liking Artspiradora. You'll find yourself thinking and feeling out of the box - like hearts are meant to. ;)

Important Note: The show Disasterland depicts Disney characters in very adult situations (including some NSFW). The content is NOT meant for children (eg one of the pieces shows Bambi lying next to his obviously dead mother in the snow) but is supposed to be “a tribute to pop culture, fashion, animation, horror films and the undeniable attraction of celebrity.” While many of the pieces show a twisted sense of humor, they are NOT suitable for young eyes. Artspiradora chose to post the piece shown above out of this context, to good effect (and for which I a grateful).

Article: Red Riding Hood vs The Assault Weapon

No doubt you've seen this poster. With kids everywhere going back to school this week and last it's a topic on the minds of many parents (including me) and, frankly, this does a great job of pushing all my buttons.

It's designed to be provocative, hoping to get people to more seriously consider supporting gun control laws against assault weapons but the question is, will it help?

I've seen this surface periodically after one of the most recent tragic school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut ("most recent tragic school shootings" is an awful phrase to have to write).

This, however, is the first article I've seen discussing whether or not the banning of Little Red Riding Hood is a fair comparison to banning assault weapons and both subjects go under the microscope.

From PolitiFact:

The Little Red Riding Hood shown in the image has indeed been banned before. The version of the 17th century fairy tale was adapted by the late, Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Trina Schart Hyman and was originally published in 1987. According to media accounts, the volume became a target because one image showed a bottle of wine in the girl’s basket, a detail that had been included in the original version of the fairy tale. 

An Associated Press article quoted Culver City, Calif., assistant superintendent for instruction Vera Jashni saying that the inclusion of wine in the book "gives the younger ones the wrong impression about alcohol. If they should refrain, why give them a story saying it's okay?'' Jashni told the AP that she was worried about lines in the book that said, "The grandmother drank some of the wine, and ... after a while, the grandmother felt quite strong and healthy, and began to clean up the mess that the wolf had left in the cottage.''

The article goes on to further explain the objections to Red Riding Hood's basket contents, summarize a little more of her history in schools and then scrutinizes assault weapon bans as well.

The conclusions are surprising in that this (ad) is actually a shaky use of a comparison regarding "ban for ban" in the whole of the USA.

But the point has been made and the Sandy Hook Elementary parents have been heard. After a sullied reputation there for a few years it's nice to see Little Red working to keep our kids safe again, even if it's not the way she was originally intended to.

(I realize there's probably a lot more I could consider and analyze here regarding Red Riding Hood appearing in conjunction with these issues right now but this is too close to home for me so I'll leave you to do that yourself.)

A Real Life Glimpse Into Snow White's Revenge

From Camille Rose Garcia's Snow White

Warning:

This post is NOT for everyone.

It discusses historical torture methods.

Skip this if you have a sensitive stomach.

At first she did not want to go to the wedding, but she found no peace. She had to go and see the young queen. When she arrived she recognized Snow-White, and terrorized, she could only stand there without moving.Then they put a pair of iron shoes into burning coals. They were brought forth with tongs and placed before her. She was forced to step into the red-hot shoes and dance until she fell down dead. (Grimms Household Tales 1857)

Although I've yet to finish this (and am late in getting it done), I'm working on putting together a slideshow retelling of Snow White for one of the tech challenges in the fairy tale MOOC. Since I'm focusing on how the Queen and Snow White affect each other, I did a little digging into history to see if I could make a little more sense of the "red hot iron shoes" the Queen was forced to dance in at Snow's wedding.

Dance to death - Kelly Mccracken
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Fairy Tale Beauties by Charlie Bowater

Looks like British concept artist Ms. Bowater has started a fairy tale series... (and we heart it!)

This is her second fairy tale piece and latest work from just over a week ago. (Check all the patterns and lace!)

Her previous work, which you've seen on many Tumblrs and Pinterest boards was her more-Grimms-than-Disney version of Snow White:

You can currently purchase a signed limited edition print of Sleeping Beauty (size A3/11.7" x 16.5") HERE.

If you like these you may also like her Fool's Gold, though it's limited color (black and white with gold).

We sincerely hope she stays inspired in the fairy tale way and we see more from her soon!

Charlie Bowater's website is HERE, her blog is HERE and her deviantArt gallery is HERE.

OUAT in Oz?

Looks like it. It's either going to be one of those "down the rabbit hole" places they cross over to or, more likely, a whole second spin-off (if Wonderland goes over well). It comes as no surprise, really, especially since the OUAT gospel (aka Henry's Once Upon A Time storybook) showed a picture of flying monkeys on a page back in the first season.

From one half of the OUAT creator-team, Adam Horowitz:

"We’ve always loved Oz — we’ve talked about it, we’ve hinted at it, and if and when we get to it, we have the way we want to do it. And if we’re lucky enough to be able to do it, we’ll just go our way. It just goes to our approach to all these things, which is about honoring the source material and trying to do something new to it without reinventing the wheel." (via Examiner)

An enthusiastic fan made note of all the visible doors from the episode in Hat Trick (see image below), which begs the question: where do they all open to? (My guess is Horowitz and Kitsis haven't decided yet, although they have ideas.)

By the way, fan hype and expectation is high for OUAT in Wonderland but critic preview-reviews are overall warning not to expect too much At the very least they're hoping that the preview they saw was unfinished, would be re-edited and the effects would be "fixed" so we'll see. From the fan buzz, though, Wonderland would have to be truly, incredibly terrible to bomb at this point.

So, trending right now in development are Peter Pan and/or Neverland (which includes OUAT), Jack and the Beanstalk (which doesn't) and Oz.

The OZ projects on the horizon now include:

• ABC's Once Upon A Time - either an incorporated story line OR a completely new spin off
• Syfy with its Warriors Of Oz
• CBS' Oz-themed medical drama
• Supernatural will feature Dorothy on an episode this coming season as well

If you had a choice, what other realms would you like to see behind door numbers one through sixteen? What other realms in popular fairy tale and fantasy (especially Disney-related fantasy are there? (If you'd like to follow some speculation you can read a discussion thread on it HERE.)

Ask Baba Yaga: All I Want Is So Desperately to Be Good

Baba Yaga Bookplate by Ukranian printmaker Konstantin Kalinovich

"I'm in the middle of a muddle, in the middle of a riddle..." how does that go? Baba Yaga will tell you. And then some. Though, I'm pretty sure, this is not the fairy tale answer the person was looking for...

This week's question and answer (via poet and oracle Taisia Kitaiskaia* of The Hairpin):

(Originally posted at The Hairpin HERE)

The discussion among commenters are my top picks this week:

• How is this always so perfect (Gulf of Finland)
•    - (@Gulf of Finland) Witchcraft. (I'm Right on Top of that, Rose)
• I AM AFRAID OF THE OCEAN AND THIS DID NOT HELP. (MEGASUS)
•    - @Megasus Ocean no getchu! (The ocean won't get you - Bergy Bits) Those dark longings though, sucking at the glass... *shivers* (iceberg)
•    - - @iceberg Yr eyes do not shut! O.M.G. (SarahP)

The way "though" typed out, with the "h" somewhat transparent, definitely had me swallowing a big lump of trepidation right then. *shudder* Good luck with that Siren love you have there!

What do you think of Baba Yaga's advice?

Want to ask Baba Yaga a question of your own?

You can!

There's now an email address where you can send your questions

directly to Baba Yaga herself.

AskBabaYaga AT gmail DOT com

To encourage Baba Yaga to continue imparting her no-bones-about-it wisdom (ok, there may be some gristle in there... bones too), I suggest we not to leave her box empty... 

Thank you Baba Yaga (& Taisia).

* Taisia Kitaiskaia is a poet, writer, and Michener Center for Writers fellow. Born in Russia and raised in America, she's had her poems and translations published in Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, and others.