Disney is not the only one

During this weeks reading, I found that Disney is not the only one who makes children go though life with only one parent. Being a child who grew up with a single dad ( and then step parent and siblings), I think that I find situations with other single parents very quickly. There are things that you learn from both parents, the reason that nature ( and God ) plans for all children to have one parent of each sex. I know that there are things I did not gather from the lack of woman influence in my life, I bet Red suffers from not learning outdoors smarts from a father. In the Grimm version of LRRH the mother tells the daughter to stay on the path to not break the bottle of wine she was being sent with, but the mother said no other warning. Since a story like this does not tell the whole life story, you do not know what LRRH knew from previous experience but that is any story, and any life- you learn with age and experience or a mom and a dad.

Grimm. "Little Red Cap." Little Red Riding Hood. Print.
Grimm. "Little Red Riding Hood." Little Red Riding Hood. Print.

Do I want to grow up?

The stories of Grimm allow a person to take a break from reality, and pretend. When a child wraps their head around the child plot and meaning, they begin to day dream and pretend this could be them. Where do we draw the line of letting a child have dreams and crushing things that can not happen? Maybe this is why I am not yet a mother, but I have worked in pre-school for two years now and I am actually the least likely candidate to crush any child dream. I knew when I was younger that I would end up in New York, some way some how, and look at me- I am going to school in New York ( online of course but who is really checking?)

Maybe Grimm ( and all the other writers/dreamers/ creators) were right, we need to take a break from the serious, let our minds wander, and see where our hearts really want to be. With that said, I have spent my entire afternoon contemplating this blog and applying to work for Conde Nast in New York City.

Irrelevant

From reading my awesome peer reviewers notes on the road it got me to thinking. I am very connected to fairy tales. I parallel each part of my life and story to fairy tales and that is alot of the reason that I chose to take this course. I had an evil step mom who made me Cinderella, I was locked in my tower (Repunzel esk) to do school work, and prince charming (husband) wisked me off my feet. I think that is why I am so excited to talk about these stories and I have so much to connect- its real life.

Make Believe Theory

Walt Disney knew what he was doing. He wanted stories to live on, and maybe he even knew that books would die to the later generations and that his movies would be the only thing that sparked interest into the once classic fairy tales. Now television shows are catching teenagers and adults alike that wanted to be princesses when they grew up and reliving the "princess" stories in adult form through Grimm and Once Upon a Time ( as I sit here watching OUAT!)

Bibbidi Bobbidi Booooo

I remember singing the song from Cinderella over and over again in elementary school. I even took time today to search for the lyrics of this song, and what I found brought a huge smile to my face. Even as a 23 year old woman I was singing the song with the wrong words, but it is not the words that I am getting at as much as the things going on during the words.

We all know that a pumpkin can not turn into a real carriage, maybe a carriage for a mouse but not for Cinderella. When I was 6 I would talk to my hamsters hoping that one day they would find their voices. When I would fall ( or be pushed) into a puddle, I would wonder where my new pair of clothes were going to pop up.

Magic. The church condemns that talk of words like that, and I have found a new reason why. Where did Disney get the idea that it was going to sell movies if we add magic to make everything better. I think that these movies should have encouraged hard work, dedication and the moral that we do not always get what we want. This is where my pessimism comes in again.

I think that the written ( and spoken) versions of these stories teach one lesson, and the Disney portrayals paint a totally different lesson. The problem is that the Disney story has magic, and the real world does not.

Disneys Spell

I think that many people see the good in things, and sometimes I choose to find the pessimistic side of things. Growing up Disney movies were the only thing that connected me to being a child. My parents were divorced, my first step dad abused me(pre-kinder), my mother moved to Arizona with my third step dad(4th grade), my mom then moved to Alaska with a forth husband(9th grade) then to another city getting married to husband number five about a month before my wedding which she did not attend. I will not go any further into my history because that is not nessesarily what this blogging assignment is about. What I am trying to get to is what Zipes speaks about on the closing page of our reading. Disney borrowed stories that were kind of gruesome and turned them into this beautiful images that to the viewer could be seen as how things should turn out in life.
I realized young that these stories were fake, but I would go back to them thinking that maybe there were scenes of horror and that things would turn out great after all. The problem with that thinking is that Disney doesn't show what happens after Happily Ever After, as I think we have touched on a little.
I also realized that not every little girl gets to be a princess. My dad is from England and in the midst of all my childhood drama we would escape to England to see family. When I was in England I was awestruck by the castles and jewels. One of the times I was in England I was able to see the whole family outside, it was the Queen Mums birthday and she came out and greeted people with birthday signs and while we were out there the young Princes and Princess Di came up in a town car. I was obsessed from that point on. Which didn't help my mind from thinking that there are true fairy tales because of Di, but I was old enough when she died to understand what was going on- and saw how real happily ever after was not.