Zack Zipes begins his essay by boldly stating that "Walt Disney cast a spell on the fairy tale, and he has held it captive ever since." Seeing as the casting of spells and the holding of something captive are generally associated with the work of witches, I think it is safe to say that he is skeptical about Disney's strong role in the modernization of the timeless fairy tale. In introducing the fairy tale to a new kind of audience through the use of mass media and modern technology, Disney succeeded in wrestling the fairy tale away from its German ancestry and transforming it into an American genre that "reinforces the social and political status quo."
Zipes proceeds through his argument with a history of the transformation of the fairy tale from an oral tradition meant for the common man to a literary tradition geared towards the elite and literate. If this shift from oral to literary can be called a "violation" of the fairy tale genre, then the production of animated fairy tales can only be viewed as something worse, or perhaps just utterly revolutionary. Once Disney's film industry took hold of the fairy tale and further violated its ancient innocence, Zipes argues that the notion of "self-figuration" offered another dynamic to the changing genre.
Even though Disney kept some key aspects of the Grimms' original tales (i.e. struggles of women in patriarchal society, etc.), Zipes argues that "there is something sad in the manner in which Disney 'violated' the literary genre of the fairy tale and packaged his verions... he employed animators to stop thinking about change, to return to his films, and to long nostalgically for nearly ordered patriarchal realms." In short, Zipes deeply questions whether what Disney did to make fairy tales one of the leading American film genres had a positive or negative effect on this ageold tradition. But fairy tales were changing and evolving (perhaps not for the best) long before Disney grabbed them and ran into a studio. Why was his course of action so much different than that of the elite and the printing press in the 15th - 18th centuries?
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I agree with much of what you have written. In addition to some of the questions you pose, I also wonder if Disney is getting so much criticism because of the way in which he presented his fairy tales through film, or if he is getting so much criticism because he was the most successful with his fairytale films? In other words, are his versions of the fairy tales the problem, or is the issue rather that they are presented on film, further transforming the way in which the traditional fairy tales were communicated?
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand where you are coming from, I think saying animated fairytales have more then violated the genre very aggressive. I think that both oral and animated fairytales have pros and cons to them. I also find it hard to definitively say that Disney evolved fairytales poorly. Yes, the genre was evolving, however we cannot predict what direction it was going in. It is entirely possible that the genre could have fallen out hearts and minds everywhere without Disney.
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