Saturday, February 3, 2007
Zipes pgs. 81-98
Zipes discusses the Americanization of the Grimm fairy tales by Wanda Gag and compares that to Disney. The Americanization of Grimm’s’ fairy tales happened during the great depression. Since fairy tales tend to be Utopian and everyone at the time was looking for hope, this is very logical. Gag wanted to bring something from her childhood to the world. Gag’s style was more American then other people who had rewritten Grimm’s fairy tales. Americanizing the stories however did show how the times and cultures differed. She wrote them in much the style of a storyteller to a child. Zipes states that Disney and Gag cared more about their own concerns in creating their stories then that of the children. Gag’s tales showed Americas concerns and her own personal needs. This makes sense since everyone who tells a story, fairy tale or other have no choice but to tell it in a way that they relate to. If they can not relate to it then they can not pass on the moral or message behind the story. If you don’t understand what you are writing then it’s hard to express the how different the American culture had become and how different the world is.
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4 comments:
I agree, it is very important to realite to something in order to enhance your story. As humans we do it everyday. Even when we make friends we make them because we can relait the them. I am a social work major and I have discovered that alot of people in social work practice in a feild they have experience with. I want to practice in hospis or helping people who have lost loved ones because I can relait. It seems also that people try to make things to be more American because it fits American ethics. Old fariy tales are not politically correct to Americans nor children of today. Even movies become rewritten to form what new cultures develop.
I think it is wonderful that the Grimm tales have been translated so passionately, and with such detail. Like Gág, I am somewhat of a purist, and was upset to find out Disney had altered the original Grimm tales to such a degree. My view was changed by a passage in Sticks and Stones,
"Gág was enraged virtually to counter the Disney version by her friends to show what poetic license he had taken, and how he contaminated the Grimm's true version. Though she sticks close to the Grimm text, she is unaware that there is no one authentic Grimm text, because the Grimm's themselves rewrote their tales several times and contaminated some other texts" (Zipes, 93.)
It is wonderful to read the original Grimm tales, and appreciate them in their own right, but I agree that contamination is necessary to make the story accessible to children and people of different cultures. Like Zipes says, "Nobody knows what a genuine, authentic, or correct fairy tale is" (92.) As long as the story entertains, teaches, or brings joy to the person reading or writing it, then it is correct.
I agree with Nicole about Gag's tales relating with Americas concerns and her own personal needs. It is nice to be able to relate as an author to what you are writing about and it is also nice for a child to relate to the story to learn morals. I like how Gag didn't change too much of the Grimms fairy tales, she tried to recapture the spirit of the tales. I liked Gags idea of simplifying some sections so that younger aged children can understand the story just as much as a 14 year old would understand it. The fact that Gag and Disney cared more about their own concerns in creating their stories than of children doesnt seem bad to me. Children enjoy them either way, it doesn't take much to get a child interesting in a fairy tale. I can remember as a child liking pretty much everything. So having Disney or Gag write something that were of their own concerns doesn't seem like it should have a negative effect. I disagree with Disney using Grimms ideas but not having any concern in producing an authentic version of a Grimm fairy tale. I think disney contaminated the stories too much. A little bit of contamination is good but not too much to change a certain fairytale presviously written so drastically.
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