ART: The Tragedy of the Three Little Pigs

Fun small post while everything is crazy. There is a consistently clever blog on Tumblr called Tragedy Series who comes up with very unique tragedies to mourn. This is one of my favorite:



Heed the warning of this tale.

Fairy Tale Roundup: Disney's The Beast, New Frozen Trailer and Culturally Diverse Fan Art, NEW FABLES VIDEO GAME, and Fairy Tale Scholarship

by Anne Lebovitz

Disney's The Beast Movie
Yes, folks. ANOTHER Beauty and the Beast movie. Once Upon a Blog is amazing as always, catching us up to the 3 Beauty and the Beast adaptations either currently running or in the works. This version focuses on the Beast (obviously). It is live-action, and supposedly a "darker" retelling, but honestly, how dark will Disney go? But it apparently has a few good things going on for it! Click the link to find out! I honestly hope that they try something new, rather than create a live action version of the animated feature from a different POV. No yellow dress, no talking furniture, no inventor father. I'd love it if they did an adaptation of Donna Jo Napoli's book Beast, but it doesn't look like that is happening.

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By weepingrockrock

REAL Frozen trailer
Well, an international Frozen trailer is here, and it looks slightly better than the Moose and Snowman Comedy Hour. I am a little disappointed with the Rapunzel look-alike, though I LOVE that the community is speaking out, creating their own ethnically diverse versions of the hero and heroine. Perhaps Disney will listen, and make better choices in the future. (Click the link for the pics Once Upon a Blog's aggregation of the controversy!)

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A Fables Prequel Video Game

Telltale Games (who brought us Monkey Island and The Walking Dead episodic animated games) brings us a Fables video game, called The Wolf Among Us, set before the Fables comic book series begins. Ichabod Crane is deputy mayor, and the story follows our beloved Bigby as sheriff investigating a murder. AND [SPOILERS] you get to see stirrings of his feelings for Snow White. It seems to be very character driven, and the choices that the player makes will lead you down different paths. The creators say the game is different each time you play it. There will be fights, but they will all be narratively motivated. And actions have consequences: if you take too many punches, you will be bloody and bruised. If you pick too many fights, it might effect your relationships with those you care about. The art is also stunning! The lead writer, Pierre Shorette, has immersed himself in the world of Fables, making the art his computer background, even digging into the original fairy tales that inspired the characters. SO EXCITED! (Also, Once Upon a Blog speculates about the Fables movie)

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The Different Ways to Analyse Fairy Tales

And now for a little meat and potatoes after the wonderful pop culture confectionery delights above. Tales of Faerie, a brilliant and scholarly mind as always, has compiled for us a list of different ways to examine fairy tales: Fairy tales as myth, psychoanalytical, gender politics, structural, collective unconscious (Jungian), etc. Though I am surprised that it did not include anthropological, the study of fairy tales as they related to the time and place they were told?

Fairy Tale Roundup: Mercer Meyer's Beauty and the Beast, an eclectic Fairy Tale Film collection, SWATH sequel, and Disney's Frozen

Oh, it makes me so sad that I don't have time for anything more than Fairy Tale Roundups right now! I am in the middle of rehearsing two plays, working my 9-5 and taking two classes for my master's degree, one of which requires me to read two (boo) YA books (yay) a week. I have many interesting ideas in the pipe, I just have to have the time to develop them and write them. In the mean time, I will point you in the direction of the genius of my fairy tale blogging colleagues:

Beauty and the Beast by Mercer Meyer
Tales of Faerie explores the beautiful illustrations of one of my favorite adaptations of Beauty and the Beast, by Mercer Meyer and Marianna Meyer. I love the sumptuous detail of the images! She riffs off of Jerry Griswald's analysis in The Meanings of Beauty and the Beast: A Handbook (which I now have to grab a copy of!)

Once Upon a Blog continues to be a never-ending font of awesome:

A New Journey into Fairy Tale Films from Fandor
Gypsy has discovered an online fairy tale film collection. Discerningly curated, the collection includes a 1902 Jack and the Beanstalk, Betty Boop's Poor Cinderella, the erotic film Cinderella 2000, a stop motion Pied Piper of Hamlin,  a Korean Hansel and Gretel, and Sita Sings the Blues. I know what I will be doing when I have more time!

Snow White Drifts To the Dark Side in SWATH Sequel?
She also tells us of the new Snow White and the Huntsman sequal, and confirms a theory I had when I saw the first one! The evil queen may be gone, but the mirror remains. Power corrupts.

The Snow Queen Cometh
Last, but certainly not least, Gypsy informs us that Frozen, the Disney movie looooooosely based on the Snow Queen, is nigh. She goes into a wonderful analysis of why it could be good, and why it could be bad. I am certainly not heartened by the character portraits. I am interested in the whole 'the Snow Queen is her sister" angle! And Disney's first female director....wha? Isn't it the 2000s? It seems like this should have happened before now. And the talking snowman.... Didn't we learn from Hunchback that you don't need to have the talking inanimate objects to make a good movie?

P.S. Oh god. The trailer is horrible. It is trying to be Ice Age, I guess? We don't get to see any of the characters that actually look interesting, and it tells us nothing about the story:

Fairy Tale Roundup: Cinderella Movie, Snow White and Rose Red, English Censorship, Werewolves vs. Little Red, and the OUAT Wonderland Trailer

Catching up in the fairy tale world, here are several highlights from the blogosphere!

1) Robb Stark is cast as Prince Charming in the Kenneth Branagh/ Cate Blanchett Cinderella
Intreguing. Very promicing that he is much more than just a pretty face. And Cate Blanchett as the stepmother is phenominal. Kenny directing? Not sure. There are few films he has directed recently that I have been thrilled with. Sure, Much Ado, Henry V and Midwinter's Tale are amazing! But after that, his movies seem to tip from passionate realism into melodrama. Love's Labor's Lost was charming and had some excellent moments, but a bit ridiculous, and Thor was interesting, but certainly not all that it could have been. Hopefully he will do what he does best: keep the camera rolling and let the amazing actors loose to do their thing.

Don't forget, this was the Cinderella Mark Romanek (dir. Never Let Me Go) was going to direct before his concept was deemed too dark for Disney. Let's hope Ken doesn't swing in the opposite direction. Or at least sticks to his artistic guns and does not pander to Disney execs.

2) Snow White and Rose Red by Kelly Vivanco
Kelly Vivanco, one of my favorite artists, has written and illustrated an adaptation of one of the strangest and most interesting fairy tales, Snow White and Rose Red. She has a way of capturing a question in a painting. You are always compelled to ask "Why?" There is a fox in a top hat. Why? There is a girl sitting in a field with flowers, but she doesn't look happy. Why? Click here for more of her beautiful work.

3) Tales of Faerie has recently come out with two excellent posts. The first one, When Grimms' Fairy Tales Came to England,  is about how the English, nostalgic for "authentic" old traditions and values in the throws of the industrial revolution, took the Grimm's fairy tales and adapted them for 19th century England, cleaning up the morals, making them appropriate for children, and emphasizing the often false idea that the tales were collected from folksy German peasants.

The second, Werewolves and Little Red Riding Hood, is an exploration of the relationship between werewolf legends and Little Red Riding Hood tales. She draws connections between tales of werewolf trials in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries and the folktales of the little child accosted by the wolf in the same towns a century or two later. She examines common elements of those tales and extrapolates on their meaning, free from any morals or edits Perrault may have imposed.

4) Lastly, we finally have a trailer for Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, and you know what? It looks pretty good!

It begins by embracing the darker traditions of the Alice in Wonderland story that have sprung up in popular culture and analysis, exploring the idea of Alice's madness. I love that it is taking a darker route. I am a bit confused by the genie, and how that fits into Wonderland, and the CGI looks mostly pretty sub-par as I feared, but overall, I'm excited!

Fairy Tale Catch Up: Bizarre Adaptations and Meryl Streep

Wow, guys. I have been in a black hole of putting up a play (come see The Pirate Laureate of Port Town if you are in the DC area!) We have finally opened, and now I can catch up on all the fairy tale news and ephemera that has been cropping up lately!


Hansel & Gretel Is the Platonic Form of “So Bad It’s Good”
Io9 thinks Hansel and Gretel: Witchhunters is silly and fun! "If you're looking for a serious reinterpretation of the Hansel and Gretel story, this movie isn't going to cut it. Even the "dark" bits where the siblings try to figure out why their father left them alone in the woods are plain ridiculous. But if you want to laugh your ass off and see some witchslapping, it's the perfect thing. Gemma Arterton as Gretel is particularly adept at chewing the scenery in the most awesome way possible. What I'm saying is that you should turn your brain off and mainline some fairytale this weekend." I have yet to see it, but I must admit, I love the idea that Hansel now has diabetes from the witch candy and needs insulin shots. Honestly, I will see it for the fairy tale ass-kicking alone!


10 of the Most Bizarre Fairy Tale Adaptations
Flavorwire gave us a facinating list of strange fairy tale adaptations: Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (set in the Wild West, and written by an amazing writer!), I Was A Rat!, Philip Pullman (about Cinderella's rat footman who didn't get turned back at midnight), The True Story of Hansel and Gretel: A Novel of War and Survival, Louise Murphy (Hansel and Gretel set in WWII), and more! Most of them seem pretty mainstream to avid fairy tale adaptation fans (like Anne Sexton's Transformations, and The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter), but as widely read as those are, yeah, they are weird.



Adorable Gender-Swapped Fairy Tale Princes by Yudi Chen
Flavorwire, yet again, gave us this beautiful series of gender-swapped fairy tale art: a long-bearded Rapunzel, a merman saving an Inuit princess from drowning, a beastly beauty, a king jealous of his stepson, and several others that display a fresh look at fairy tales with surprisingly unforced tenderness.



Meryl Streep is a huge Witch in the Into the Woods movie
WHAT? Amazing. She is simply in talks for the role, and this is by no means final, but Meryl Streep would play a fantastic witch in the Into the Woods movie. While I am still nervous about Disney doing my absolute favorite musical of all time, this seems to be a step in the right direction.

Poster: If Children Don't Read....

I don't entirely agree with the poster, as I think kids learn from experience, conversations, TV, games, and other people's example, but I do like the idea. We often just assume that our kids will grow up with the same things we grew up with. But if you don't read them or tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood, they won't know they story of Little Red Riding Hood and the lessons it teaches (whatever you interpret those to be). Same thing with Sesame Street, or Boy Meets World, or the Old Testament, or Peter Pan, or Greek Myths. 

Pass it on. 

Art: Edward Gorey's Three Classic Children's Stories

Hi everyone! Long time no see! Grad school does that to you, man.

Anyway, Io9, brilliant blog that it is, directed our attention to the fairy tale illustrations of Edward Gorey. The thing that I love most about Edward Gorey is his ability to depict something horrific without actually showing it to you. He shows you the before, or the after, or what is happening off screen, not the actual event itself.

Exhibit A:

From The Gilded Bat by Edward Gorey

In the book, Three Classic Children's Stories, Edward Gorey doesn't go quite as far as that, but he still has an fascinating way of choosing moments and framing. Of course you have the classing Little Red Riding Hood meeting the wolf picture: 

But then you also have this:

All you can see are the wolf's toes and Little Red Riding Hood's eyes. Somehow it is a little worse than your typical Wolf in Grandma's Clothing picture. It is a "just before" moment. You imagination conjures up the big eyes and the big teeth, and then the next scene where he eats her. 

For the Jack and the Beanstalk story, we have this picture:

It takes place either right before, or (a bit more disturbingly) right after Jack hits the trapped giant in the head with the shovel and kills him. Jack looks so jovial, and the giant looks so sad. It is a bit heart breaking. 

The Rumpelstiltskin images are what you would expect, until you get to this one:

This is after the queen has guessed Rumpelstiltskin's name, and he gets so angry that he stomps a hole in the floor and tears himself in two. The cloth disappearing down the hole is his sleeve, so it seems he just got swallowed up, but the peace on the queen's face and the oblivious king flavor the picture really well. 

There are lots more pictures over at Brainpickings if you want to check them out!

Tumblr Friday: Disney Princesses have Issues

 

(From Disney Princess Project on Tumblr)

 

 

 

(From Jerhovlive on Tumblr)

And, of course, the SNL sketch The Real Housewives of Disney:

Ignore Lindsay Lohan. Focus on Kristin Wiig and her flamboyant Prince Charming. 

Art: Minimalist Fairy Tale Art by Christian Jackson

From Strollerderby:

"Strip fairy tales of all their pomp, circumstance, princes and princesses and you have a very basic story. And each fairy tale has some kind of hook, some sort of iconic image, item or idea that is easily identifiable. The graphic artist Christian Jackson recognized this and distilled a collection of classic and famous tales and conveyed each one into a simple, very minimalist statement.

Of his children’s story series, Jackson stated: 'My life was thrown in very childish direction when I became a father a little over 2 1/2 years ago. I guess this series was my way of releasing some of that energy creatively. I can’t really say that I “decided on children’s stories” my lifestyle pretty much demanded it. When the idea for the posters came to me, the iconic images for each story just sort of poured out.'"

 

 
 

These are beautiful! I think my favorite are Little Red Riding Hood, Princess and the Pea, Ugly Duckling, Pied Piper, and the Wizard of Oz.

Art: Some Silly Friday Tumblr Goodness

From tragedyseries: 

Tragedy Series posts strange lamentable events, like this one: 

 

I always wondered this. Same thing with the beast. Did he like being a Beast better? 

From sarah531: 

 

 

Sarah531 has paired the companions of Doctor Who with fairy tale heroines. I think these are rather perfect, though Rose's is a bit obvious and kind of a stretch-plot and personality wise. What do you think? Would you have done them differently? Who would you choose for other companions?