Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Online Event: "Women Who Run with the Wolves" by The Henry Moore Institute (Wed 18 Nov - Free!)

"Princess Furball" (Allerleirauh, a Grimms Fairy Tale) 2016 by Timea Tallian

The offerings on fairy tale studies online during the pandemic have been one of the very few bright spots of the pandemic. If you're serious about learning more on fairy tales and folktales, there are affordably priced events, programs, and courses happening almost every week at this point, as well as the occasional free one - like this event we're posting today. (The most difficult issue is having to choose which ones to go to and which to skip, while juggling full-time work and full-time homeschool all in one day!)

While this isn't focused on "the fairy tale", the talk will be of interest if you're at all familiar with Dr. Clariss Pinkola Estes, who uses a wide variety of fairy tales and folktales in her discussions, but it will be especially interesting to those who are drawn to the group of fairy tales that include Donkeyskin, All-Fur, Thousand Furs, Catskin and Allerleirauh.

As the information for the Women Who Run With the Wolves event is quite detailed we will just add the information below:

Women Who Run with the Wolves

by The Henry Moore Institute

Rachel Goodyear - Hoard (2020)
 A discussion about Paloma Varga Weisz's sculpture in relation to Clarissa Pinkola Estés' feminist study, Women Who Run with the Wolves. 

We are delighted to introduce a new online format for our rescheduled research events. You can now attend our series of lectures, symposia and discussions online. We invite you to watch recorded talks, submit your questions and attend a later live discussion.

"Dr Estes defined wildness as not uncontrolled behavior but a kind of savage creativity, the instinctual ability to know what tool to use and when to use it." - Dirk Johnson, The New York Times

This event brings together a diverse range of speakers to discuss the Henry Moore Institute's current exhibition, Paloma Varga Weisz: Bumped Body, in dialogue with Clarissa Pinkola Estés' renowned cult classic and revisionary feminist study, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman (1992).

Central to the research questions of the event is the place of feminism in contemporary art, as explored through the creative interpretation of its many methodologies.

Pre-recorded talks will cover psychoanalysis, metamorphosis, embodied storytelling, fairy tales and gender. Speakers are artists, choreographers, curators and literary scholars working both internationally and locally, offering a range of viewpoints and new interdisciplinary approaches to the interpretation of narrative sculpture.

We would like to thank Dr Catriona McAra of Leeds Arts University for convening the speakers and leading the event.

Programme
From 11 November
by Madchen Photography Studios

These talks are available to watch after registering for this event. You can watch them on our website, henry-moore.org/wolves, or here on Eventbrite by accessing the event portal (click the 'Access the event' button). You will need a password to watch them, which will be sent to you upon registering for the event (scroll down your confirmation email to the 'Additional Information' section).

Introduction: The Fur of the Fairy Tale - Dr Catriona McAra (Curator, Leeds Arts University)

Clothed (in) Animals: Contemporary Women Artists Reimagining Fairy-Tale Creatures - Dr Mayako Murai (Writer, Kanagawa University)

Beneath the Surface, A Vibration Through the Bones - Rachel Goodyear (Artist, Manchester)

The Shapeshifting Woman and Other Tales of Becoming - Hannah Buckley (Choreographer, Leeds)

by Katie Ponder
Wednesday 18 November, 6pm (please check the website to calculate the starting time for your timezone.)


A live discussion with speakers Dr Catriona McAra, Rachel Goodyear and Hannah Buckley. They will be answering any questions you might have once you've watched their individual talks. You can submit your questions live during the event or in advance. This session will take place on Zoom.

For much more additional information about the speakers, please check the event page HERE, where you can also REGISTER FOR FREE.

Sunday, November 15, 2020

TODAY at 7pm EST and 4pm PST: Profs And Pints Online Presents: "Fairy Tales of French Salons" (& A Note on the 2020 Revival of the Literary and Fairy Tale Salon)

Our apologies for not posting this well ahead of time!

But... I Will Miss/Have Missed the Live Lecture!

Don't fret! We know a lot of our readers won't see it until tomorrow morning after the live lecture has happened BUT, like all Profs and Pints lectures, this one will be recorded and available to view afterward for all current ticket holders, as well as for those who purchase access after the event (only $12). The Profs and Pints events are aimed at adults and college-level learning, so these lectures are one of the most affordable, yet high-quality self-education tools online today. While viewing the recording after the event means you won't be able to live chat with the other attendees or the lecturer and can't propose questions for the Q&A at the end, the entire chat and Q&A portion remain part of the recording so you can see the community involvement and responses as it was happening. Once you have purchased a ticket, the event is available to view at any time after the lecture, and as many times as you wish! 

Fairy's Banquet - John Anster Fitzgerald

The Rise of the Fairy Tale Salon, 2020 Style

Today's lecture is exceptionally timely. With the pandemic showing no signs of ending soon, people are starting to figure out ways to connect digitally and literary salons are once again on the rise. Though they can never be the same as the intimate gatherings fueling conversations, encouraging ideas, and getting feedback on everything from writing to art, it does make the events more accessible to people from different locations across countries and around the world, and is proving to be a new way to build communities of like-minded people and providing support during an isolating time. Fairy tale salons, especially, are beginning to pop up here and there around the world, all-digital, all experimental, and all eager to connect folks who love to study tales and reference them in their own writing and other works. 

It's a brave new world and, as will be discussed today, reflects the desire people had, and still have, to push against established ideas and systems and find new ways to move forward both in thinking and expression - something especially prevalent in 2020. Salons are primarily fun, of course, but at the heart of the movement is a desire to make the world a better place, and to do that with other like-minded people. The Fairy Tale Salons of France in the late C17th (and the lesser-known German Fairy Tale Salons during the Romantic movement in the C19th) were revolutionary in form and function and, in true subversive style, enabled conversations of resistance and the exploration of revolutionary ideas, all coded within the deceptively simple form of the fairy tale. These people, mainly women, are considered the Fairy Godmothers, or Fairy Godparents, of the Fairy Tale (the literary form of the oral folktale and wonder tale), and their stories have survived and remained popular to this day. 

Fairy Banquet - Arthur Rackham

Seeing Beyond the Magic While Still Reveling In The Wonder

What's lesser-known is that we can still see and access the rest of the work done in Salons, via the vehicle of those surviving stories, despite that it's usually hidden under the magical clothing of the contes des fées - a term coined by the French Salon, which is where we get the term "fairy tale". 

It's high time we saw beyond the sparkly exterior of these fanciful stories and take a look at the serious - and invigorating - work of the literary fairy tale. The revival of the fairy tale salon in 2020, albeit digital and online, is no coincidence!

That doesn't mean we can't continue to enjoy fairy tales or revel in (or escape into) their magical possibilities. If anything, this gives more reasons to embrace them in all their Once Upon A Times. Fairy tales aren't just for children; they are for everyone and understanding how literary versions of fairy tales came to be, helps explain why. It also gives us every reason to celebrate their wonder and to enjoy them. 

So come along with your notebook and extra glitter on your hands or just sneak in the back to listen - there's room for all here to play and to connect as we make the world a better, more wonder-full place.

The Fairy Girls Make the Carpet (Polish Fairy Tales)
by Cecile Walton

What's Being Talked About Today? (summary info from Profs and Pints Online below):

Profs and Pints Online presents: “Fairy Tales of French Salons,” with Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman, former instructors at Ohio State University and co-founders of the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic.

[This talk will remain available in recorded form at the link used for tickets and access.]

It’s easy to think of fairy tales as light-hearted, simple, even frivolous tales for children. But that’s only a small part of the story.  Fairy tales can be serious business. They can be subtle messages that convey warnings under the noses of the powerful—or even poke fun at them--especially if written by women.

Modern Fairy Godmother Styling
by Camilla (Very pricey, as would have suited
the social station of the original Salonnieres!
Thankfully, the Salon revival isn't as dependent
on privilege; in fact, that's one of the
institutions it rebels against.
Vive la 2020 Revolution!)

Such was the case in the fairy-tale salons of seventeenth-century Paris, where ladies (and some men) gathered to tell each other stories that definitely were not for children. 

Designed to be a space where people could break free of strict aristocratic confines in the service of art, the salons let creators discuss anything so long as it was couched in the form of a fairy tale. The stories that resulted tackled everything from actual love in a marriage, to the importance of education, to the enormous social inequalities faced by the women of the age.

As the air gets crisp, fix yourself a warm drink and join Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman, two favorites of Profs and Pints audiences, for a look at the beautiful and bizarre fairy tales that emerged from the literary salons of France during his period.

We’ll swim with a great green wyrm, a terrifying sea serpent. You’ll travel with a woman who dresses as a man in order to save her family, and converse with a witty princess forced to wear the skin of a bear.

These fairy-tale salons were the first of many great literary groups, from the Bloomsbury circle in London to the meetings of the Beat writers of San Francisco.


This online discussion of them might end up feeling like a similar gathering of the curious and subversive. 

Matteo Garrone's "Pinocchio" May Be The Movie Collodi Fans Have Been Waiting For

 

Matteo Garrone (Tale of Tales, Gomorrah, Dogman) has long said he wished to bring Pinocchio to the screen.

“’Pinocchio’ is a dream of mine that goes back to when I was a child,” says Garrone. “On my desk I still have my own personal ‘Pinocchio’ story-board that I drew and colored in when I was a kid, and which is one of my most cherished mementos.”  (Variety)

That storyboard reportedly accompanied Garrone to many of his development and production meetings during the creation of his movie to help remind him of the boyhood vision and heart he was trying to put on screen, and many reviews indicate he may have achieved exactly that. Not only has Garrone intended to make this film for most of his life but his intent was always to make it very faithful to the book - or more correctly, the serially-released stories which were essentially strung together (pun intended) and eventually collected into a book (in 1883). Having captured his own imagination as a child we suspected Garrone's Pinocchio, would be a family film, which it is, unlike his other works, though perhaps caution should be taken if the family has little children. It is likely to be rated PG in the US when it's released here, as it has been in other countries.

Take a look at the trailer (in English): 

The Lure & Challenge of Pinocchio To Filmmakers

Many filmmakers - more than one might think, confess to an obsession with Pinocchio and it's not unusual to see those themes running through seemingly unrelated movies. Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, and many others have been fairly overt about their love of the story and created deliberate homages in their films, (A.I., Frankenweenie, Edward Scissorhands, and many more), even if the story hasn't quite been the same. At the time of writing Disney is crafting a new live-action version (based on their own classic, not Collodi's book, with director Robert Zemeckis. Being a Disney recycling, it's likely to have even less relation to the Collodi classic than the 1940 version did, but, unless Zemeckis good terribly in his judgment, it's likely to still find a wide audience. Fan-favorite director and master of the fantasy-horror genre, Guillermo del Toro is working on a completely different (and highly anticipated) stop-motion version, in collaboration with Jim Henson's Muppet Workshop veteran artists, due to be released next year. It's set in fascist Italy and has a stellar cast of voices including Tilda Swinton as the Fairy with the Turquoise Hair, Ewan McGregor as the Talking Cricket, and Ron Pearlman as the fearsome puppet master, Mangiafuoco (literally "Fire-Eater"). 

 

If searching for film incarnations worldwide, it becomes apparent that a LOT of directors have tried to bring their vision of Pinocchio to the screen. It also becomes apparent that more often than not, these attempts, despite a love for the source material and access to talented cast and crew, have failed - both with audiences and critics.

Pinocchio is quite a challenge to take on - one that many directors have known and been determined to take on, but success has been largely elusive, especially when trying to keep the same spirit as the classic. Only Disney's animated version (1940) was, and remains loved and has become a new family touchstone, but the truth is, Disney's version bears little resemblance to The Adventures of Pinocchio and the character Collodi created. To put it bluntly, Collodi's Pinocchio is less likely to wish on a star as he is to moon it (pun intended), and "Jimminy Cricket" (the cricket's name given by Disney), is killed almost immediately on appearing and can only follow along in the story as a ghost. While that may sound dark and dastardly to many Western audiences, the book remains a classic and is still read fondly both in Europe and in the UK and the US; there is something about Collodi's classic Disney's version did not capture, which still attracts people today.

 

Concept art (Garrone)

Why Is Pinocchio Still A Story People Want to Tell (And See?)

Pinocchio is not only Euro-centric in its humor and storytelling approach (something which folks in the US and UK sometimes find too dark, too irreverent, randomly nonsensical and too non-linear*) but, being originally released serially, the flow of the overall story tends to be episodic, erratic and doesn't always appear to know where it's going. In some ways, this organic approach actually works better than a lot of large-work storytelling because of the subject of "becoming real" (often summarized as "growing up", though that is actually a limited parallel when looking at Collodi's work here). As a result, people have found it relates very well to the awkward spurts during childhood and adolescence as people try to discover who they are, complicated by discovering the combined beauty and harshness of the world at large at the same time as they, themselves, are changing. 

*NOTE: We mention randomly nonsensical and non-linear as having traditionally been a problem for UK and US audiences but we have noticed a rising increase in acceptance of the bizarre and ridiculous this last year in particular. The crazier real life gets, the more those "fevered dream"-type animations and films of Soviet and European origin seem to, not only make a strange sort of sense, expressing the nonsensical is almost cathartic. In this sense, perhaps grownups are beginning to understand why these sorts of bizarre episodic-type storytelling vignettes are so impressionable and beloved by children (see the paragraph below which touches on this). It also shows just how much we - as humans - need art to express our discomfort and process our world when things are topsy-turvy. Art is our way to finding our feet, our purpose, and our return to hope again. But back to the film.

But there's another aspect to Pinocchio too - one that warns children about the darkness of the world, in a metaphor even kids tend to intuitively understand, and it's not just about trying to find who you are in the world either. It looks at the imbalances in morality and justice and explores them very frankly in a way kids "get".

 

Garrone spoke a little bit about this to inew.co.uk:

Why, though, does a fable almost a century-and-a-half old feel so contemporary?

“It’s always talking about us, about our fear,” Garrone answers. “It’s also giving a warning to kids – how life can be violent and dangerous. Don’t make wrong decisions! I think this is the lesson Collodi gives. I think there is some dark – it’s necessary for the kids to grow up, to learn – but by the end there’s the light.”

Set in a head-spinning rustic 19th-century world where animals take human form, Garrone’s Pinocchio points to the more “anarchic” qualities of Collodi’s book, and its musings on justice, when the gorilla judge sends Pinocchio, and not the scheming Cat and Fox, to jail.

“The meaning, it’s very modern,” says Garrone, “where, in many countries, the innocent go to prison and the guilty, especially the rich and powerful, are out.”

 

So What Are People Really Saying About Garrone's Pinocchio?

Pinocchio remains resonant and loved, but capturing its soul on film has been largely elusive, especially with regard to remaining true to the tone of Collodi's book, but reviews seem to indicate that Garrone has done just that, or if not, he's come the closest of any filmmaker yet.

From IndieWire:

“Pinocchio” gets better as it gets weirder, and taking cues from its Homeric origins, it gets very weird.

 

...Once the movie enters its loony collage-like trajectory, the hits keep coming. Pinocchio endures a range of imaginative horrors, from that terrifying whale to the eventual donkey transformation that in this version includes a hat-tip to Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar.” Of course, no “Pinocchio” is complete without a few white lies and a growing schnozzle, though this one seems like a pretty blatant metaphor for puberty (if it wasn’t already baked into the material from the start). Garrone’s penchant for juggling eerie soul-searching with ebullient storybook visuals matches Terry Gilliam in his prime, and the whole thing has been laced together by Dario Marianelli’s inspired cosmic score.

Above all, “Pinocchio” imbues its circumstances with a surprising degree of naturalism, thanks to the filmmaker’s careful handling of practical effects that suit the unusual tone. Unlike recent effects travesties of the “Cats” variety, “Pinocchio” understands the inherent disturbing quality of human faces melded to non-human bodies — from gastropods to a very funny tuna fish — and exploits that disconnect at every turn.
Concept art (Garrone)
...This story can only end one way, and when it does, “Pinocchio” tops off the silly-strange rhythm with a poignant finish. By the time it gets there, however, the movie has accrued many layers. Garrone doesn’t dig deep into the material as much as he revels in its surfaces, though the director of zany sociopolitical dramas like “Reality” and “Dogman” can’t help but inject a few contemporary zingers. Sitting in front of an ape judge, Pinocchio proclaims his innocence. “In this country, the innocent go to prison!” he’s told.

Such is the nature of Pinocchio’s plight, and no matter its otherworldly nature, Garrone’s version shows how the premise has grown more relatable with time. Pinocchio’s an innocent creature at the mercy of ever-changing surroundings who learns to take charge, which is enough to make him a walking zeitgeist. More than that, however, he embodies the endless frustrations of a cruel world, as well as the emotional charge that comes from learning to roll with its merciless twists and hope for a happy ending.

Regarding the approach to effects (and avoiding the "Cats curse") there is a shortish article and video overview showing the steps taken for the effects work in Garrone's Pinocchio HERE. It turns out that the boy Pinocchio is not a CG creation but instead largely prosthetics (at least until his nose grows) and these are what make him look wooden yet still manage to convey the acting nuances of ten-year-old (Federico Ielapi) playing the character. For folks interested in the creative visualization process, and the effect of blending live-action with puppets, prosthetics, and more, especially in fantasy films, this is a recommended side trip.

From The Guardian, who titles their review "Garrone Crafts a Satisfyingly Bizarre Remake":

Drawing on the original children’s story for his new live-action version, the Gomorrah director combines sentimentality and the grotesque in a unique way

There is something rich and strange and generous in Matteo Garrone’s new live-action version of the Pinocchio story, for which the director and his co-screenwriter Massimo Ceccherini have gone right back to the original 1883 children’s tale by Carlo Collodi. They have given us a story that combines sentimentality and grotesqueness in a really startling way. 

 

...There is so much that Garrone’s Pinocchio appears to resemble: there’s a bit of Tod Browning’s Freaks (and a bit of Frankenstein), echoes of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and the Old and New Testament. The moment when Pinocchio’s nose grows because he is lying is still fascinating. It’s a parable that has taught generations of little Disney fans never to fib. Audiences for this film, however, will notice that Pinocchio’s nose does not grow when he lies to the gorilla judge. The point is that the normalisation of lying is part of the humanising process. Pinocchio’s wooden face really is very strange. It does not look like that of any sort of boy, but rather a man or woman or cyborg in early middle age. There’s more than a touch of R2D2 about him, or even a lost figure from George Franju’s Eyes Without a Face. 

...In the end, Pinocchio is a parable of parenthood: when we have a child, there is something uncanny and strange about him or her, like a doll brought to life. In our hearts, perhaps, we can’t quite believe that this is a human being like us, who will come to have thoughts and feelings independently of us – become “real”, in fact.

Whatever is to come in the anticipated versions from Zemeckis and Del Toro (and the many filmmakers after who can't resist it), Garrone has set a new bar for filmmakers to achieve and that is a good thing. It's already a hit in Italy - a much bigger hit than Benigni's ever was, and critic reviews there and elsewhere in the world it has been released, are averaging four stars out of five - a vast improvement in critical rating as well.

Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio is only the second live-action movie version of this classic book to actually be made in Italy (as far as we can find), the same country the story was born in. While Roberto Benigni directed the first one (2002) and captured the Italian flavor in many ways he, unfortunately, not only had himself star as Pinocchio (a 49-year-old man at the time), he also attempted to bring a touch of Fellini to the movie, (you can read about the Benigni-Fellini-Pinocchio connection HERE), moves which didn't sit well with audiences anywhere, and essentially killed the rest of the interesting approach to the story. Garrone appears to have successfully hurdled this issue and the resulting audience skittishness about a live-action Pinocchio from an Italian director, even while embracing Benigni in this legacy in the much-more suited role of Gepetto. We are looking forward to seeing it when it becomes available to see safely!

Where Can I See It?

This is a tricky question to answer, entirely complicated by the pandemic.

Garrone's Pinocchio was released in Europe in December 2019 but coronavirus (COVID-19) has complicated the sales and theater release deals and contracts all over the world since, disrupting the usual roll-out of films intended to eventually reach English speaking audiences. Even in France, the release went directly to French Amazon Prime, rather than having the planned theatrical release. 

The film was released in theaters in the UK and Ireland from mid-August 2020 but other theatrical releases have been canceled due to lockdowns and theaters closing. 

In the US, Netflix has bought streaming rights (and currently has a blank placeholder page) but the streaming launch date is still undetermined, though likely to be in 2021.  Otherwise, it would appear that the film is still seeking a US release partner for any possibility of ever achieving theatrical release here, including for DVD and Blu-ray. 

We hope this is resolved in the near future!

Saturday, November 14, 2020

The New "Fairy Tale TV" Website & Searchable Database Has Launched!

There is now a brand NEW online resource for fairy tales used in television and streaming media programming!

The site is called 
and looks like this:
(the FTTV letters standing for Fairy Tale TV) 

It's based on (but will be continually expanded from) the teleography of the wonderful 2014 scholarship book, Channeling Wonder, edited by Pauline Greenhill and Jill Terry Rudy, printed by Wayne State University Press. 
The book is not just an excellent study, it is also very accessible to read and useful for all types of educators. This is both a fun read and educational! We highly recommend this book, as we do with anything Pauline Greenhill and Jill Terry Rudy are involved with. These folks make it their job to keep up with shows and media from all over the world, to keep track of how people are using fairy tale narratives and motifs. (A pretty awesome job, if you ask us!)

And yes, the aim is to make the website as currently useful as possible, so you will be able to find shows that appeared after 2014, and are airing now, too. 

We also want to be sure to point out that this website includes an excellent blog too, carrying over from the original Visualizing Wonder blog, with interesting articles and musings on how fairy tales are being used in TV and media. We'll return to this shortly. First let's explain what the main website is for.

The new FTTV website gives this brief description on the front page, so that people looking to use the database, have an idea of how to use it in their own work and studies:
Database of Fairy Tales in TV Shows, Movies & Other Media
The Fairy Tale TV database is our collection of TV shows, movies, and other media that fit the description of both fairy tale and television. It is a searchable database that categorizes the media by series and episode title, genre, broadcast date, and tale type.
 
It can be used to see all instances of a single tale type, sort through different series’ use of fairy tale and genre, visualize the relative distribution throughout the decades of tale types and fairy tale television, and provide data for many other research questions. The database is most useful when analyzing FTTV across time and tale type in pursuit of either a broad view or in looking at specific examples of FTTV in certain genres or tale types. 

Jill Terry Rudy reading her co-authored book - check out how that book came to be HERE. The article simply explains how this area of study began and has revealed just how widely fairy tales are used in TV

It also gives a brief summary of the Data Visualization used on the site (interactive and accessible graphics! charts! correlating data points with fairy tale types!) as well as the Teleography of the project, which is still under construction.

If you're studying tales in the media, or trying to hunt down those shows that have influenced your own fairy tale work, then you're probably already excited to dive in. 

If you're an artist, writer, or other creative (instead of, or in addition to being a scholar) and wondering if it might be useful to you too, the answer is also YES! (The awesome illustration t the head of the post, used on the cover of Channeling Wonder, is a gigantic hint of the treasures available here.)

Let's tease you a bit with some of the current articles available to read on the blog, to give you an idea of how this information is, and can be, used, as well as why it's important to pay attention to how fairy tales are being used in media today:

Halle Bailey as Disney's new Little Mermaid & Yara Shahidi as the new Tinkerbell
The site gives a great example of how the database can be used, and we're adding it below:
Say, for example, you’re interested in looking at every episode that has to do with the tale type “Cinderella.” Click “filter by tale type” from the drop-down menu next to the search box at the top, type the query into the box, and hit search. Alternatively, type directly into the box next to the heading title above the “Tale Type” column. Both return the same 10 pages of Cinderella-related tv shows. That’s a lot of Cinderellas! Maybe too many. Let’s try narrowing the search by filtering by genre. Type “animation” into the little box next to the “Genre” heading. Now you only have the Cinderellas that have been animated. You can further refine your search with the “Show Date,” “Episode,” and “Series” columns in the same way.

Let’s try searching for something a bit broader. Clear your search preferences with the red “Clear” button on the top right. We’ll use the “Refine Search” box on the left to search for both Cinderellas OR Little Red Riding Hoods. Click “show more” under “Tale Types” in the box, and select all tale types you are interested in. The search will return all episodes that are tagged with either fairy tale. That’s a pretty big list. Filter the search to only shows produced in the 60s and 70s by typing “1960” and “1979” in the “Date Range” box. You can further refine the search with any of the filters for genre or series. Try searching for a specific episode or series within the filtered results by using the large search bar. Clicking “Clear Filters” will clear filters from the left box but will keep results from any search bars.
Hansel & Gretel in "The Simpsons" (TV series) and "Disenchantment" (Netflix series), both created by Matt Groening
You can start your search with any of the tagged categories—episode, series, genre, date of production, or tale type. Don’t be afraid to get specific or go exploring for more obscure series or tale types.
If you're thinking this would be great to explore for fun, you'd be right! This database, because it is working with fairy tales and tale types, is like an idea generator and connector, and a great way to find those shows and episodes you know you've seen but can't remember which series they came from or when. 

(Note: Don't be like us when you do a search and immediately start trying to type in the search box. Nothing will happen - and you'll look as silly as we did! When you click on the database link and a new search page comes up, click on the FILTER button FIRST and select it to ALL, or a different preference to get started, otherwise, it will seem like it's not working, even though it is. We don't want you to feel as foolish as we did when we finally figured it out...)

One note we want to address, as the question came up in a special online launch on Friday this week, of the newest book in the series, Fairy-Tale TV (also by Jill Terry Rudy and Pauline Greenhill, published by Routledge): 

The term "television" or "TV" might not seem relevant or correct in these streaming platform days, but in reality, people still talk about "what we're watching on TV tonight" so the term has stuck. 

Since the term "TV" is also attached to the series of books published so far under this specialized area of fairy tales studies, it helps to underscore this is an established, and developing area of study as well, and, as media becomes ever-more integrated into our daily lives, a very important subject for ongoing fairy tale study.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Old Tales In New Clothes: Once Upon the Internet

The sorts of wolves Perrault warned about still exist today.
Beware of chat and friend-requests from people you don't know... We're all susceptible to being preyed upon by strangers pretending to be something they're not. The internet and the woods have a lot in common these days.

There is this idea that fairy tales are old and irrelevant. If you're reading this blog, we're thinking you might not believe that. If you're a regular reader here, you know we don't believe that either. In fact, the whole reason for this blog is to show how very actively people are using and re-using fairy tales today. Fairy tales have this magical ability to stay recognizable, even as they adapt to be relevant to the person, society, or culture making use of them. (It's something we love to track!) 

For most people, however, it can be difficult to see how such old (ancient, really), tales could have any use today. We have a tendency to believe our predecessors were less evolved - or at least less enlightened - than we are, so how could such old things possibly have any relevance now? Turns out, people haven't really changed at all.

Did you know you can actually ask your Amazon Echo (Alexa) or Apple's Siri this question in real life and get a real answer? (Try it!) There are even actual "smart mirrors" you can talk to and get information from while you are getting ready. And yes, they give beauty tips...

One company, GoCompare, wanted to see if these tales would still be recognizable if reframed in today:

"Hidden amongst magical imagery, mystery and wonder, fairy tales offer an allegory for real life. Mapping the transition from childhood to adulthood, a young hero or heroine is often faced with obstacles they must overcome to achieve their heart's desires, while learning right from wrong. They're tales as old as time, but what do they look like in the modern world?" - From the Title page of GoCompare's Once Upon the Internet campaign. *

*Sadly, the campaign was in 2018 and the page is no longer active. We got additional information from the illustrator and designer, Elizabeth Howlett (also known as Beth Creates) who was hired to create scenes showing how different fairy tales might "adapt to the modern world". We think she did a FABULOUS job!

No need for making the best of a pumpkin; thanks to companies like Uber and Lyft, you can order your own carriage to go with your ball outfit. (Apparently, the Prince got tired of dating apps and decided to try an old-fashioned party - though these days a masked party might add some twists to that story too.)

Unfortunately, it looks like the "tale retelling" story portion of the campaign has been lost to the internet void, but even if you only vaguely know these tales, you immediately get what's going on.

There's something in these tales that shows us, even when we're told "old versions", that we recognize ourselves in them. This campaign goes a long way to showing why that is. These are the same old tales; they just use different tech. These are still our stories.

Enjoy.

Puss in Boots as Social Media Influencer and promoter of "cancel culture" on Ogres of all kinds. And he's a cat - so of course he would go viral on Instagram.
Got wi-fi? You can figure out how to do almost anything yourself these days with Instructables, or get collated advice from the enthusiastic Reddit community! (The only question here, is "which sub-reddit" to ask?) (Illustrator Howlett warns of Rumplestiltskin sliding into your DMs...)
Bitcoin has made millionaires out of ordinary Jacks, but there are definitely risks; at least as much risk as magic beans
Shopping online can be hazardous, especially when it comes to fashion. "BNWT" stands for Brand New With Tags but sometimes the online promise (and picture) is too good to be true. Until you put it on, you have no idea that you've just been swindled by some clever, lying tailors.
Poor Three Bears; looks like their AirBNB income just took a hot with a bad review from an unfair customer.
Ah the Snapchat filter: creating glimpses of your possible future. Thanks to the selfie filter obsession that makes so many different transformations possible, we don't even know what most people really look like anymore!

You can check out more of Elizabeth Howlett's work on her Behance portfolio HERE.