Disney Vs Traditional

We all grew up with Disney fairy tales and stories but how much do they differ from the original tale and which is better?

The Happy Ending...
Many Disney stories have the “happily Ever after’ or at least end with a whole bunch or mushy hope, But in today’s reality is that what children need? NO! In a recession, what we need is advice on how to save money, not assurances that we won't have to. A recession won't magically get better again and neither will any other life situation. Many original versions of fairy tales were designed to teach important life lessons, like 'don't go out in the woods alone at night' or 'don't trust strangers'. The consequences are bad because the characters made stupid decisions that should be punished, or because they were in situations where life wasn't ever going to go perfectly for them. Making the consequences to the actions positive instead of negative ruins the entire point of the tale. Disney Glorified the fact that you can do pretty stupid things and still get away with them and live “happily ever after’.

Disney has made icons out of their princess and virtually stopped little girl’s imagination on how a particular princess should look;
Cinderella- Blonde
Sleeping Beauty- Blonde
Rapunzel-Blonde... I’m sensing a theme.

A Traditional version of Sleeping Beauty
http://www.scottgustafson.com/WN_FT_painting.html

Disney Version of Sleeping Beauty found at
http://www.fanpop.com/spots/classic-disney/images/

They do seem to have placed the female gender with a decided helpless attitude. Henry A. Giroux in the Socialist Review says  ‘The construction of gender identity for girls and women represents one of the most controversial issues in Disney's animated films. In The Little Mermaid, the female characters are constructed within narrowly defined gender roles. All of the female characters in these films are ultimately subordinate to males, and define their sense of power and desire almost exclusively in terms of dominant male narratives. The Little Mermaid, Ariel in this film becomes a metaphor for the traditional housewife-in-the-making narrative. When the sea-witch Ursula tells Ariel that taking away her voice is not so bad because men don't like women who talk, the message is dramatized when the Prince attempts to bestow the kiss of true love on Ariel even though she has never spoken to him. Within this rigidly defined narrative, womanhood offers Ariel the reward of marrying the right man and renouncing her former life under the sea as a telling cultural model for the universe of female choices and decision-making in Disney's world view.’



I’m the biggest ‘the little mermaid’ fan out their but is this the story I want future little girls to hear. In the traditional Mermaid comes to the party too late and the Prince marries another. She becomes one with the sea again as she is transformed into sea foam... while this ending isn’t all happy is teaches a lesson about being true to yourself and thinking about your actions before you jump straight into something.
So in conclusion while I’m glad this long ago tale are getting out to the future generations of children, I am saddened that many good aspects of them are lost after the tales have been Disney-fied.

References:

Giroux, Henry A. Animating Youth: the Disnification of Children's Culture. Socialist Review 24:3 (1995), pp. 23-55. Reprinted as "A Disneyzacao Da Cultura Infantil," in Tomaz Tadeu Da Silva and Antonio Flavio Moreira, eds. Territorios Contestados (Brazil: Vozes, 1995), pp. 49-81. Viewed on 30 October 2011. http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_articles/animating_youth.htm

 'traditional sleeping beauty' Viewed 30th October 2011 http://www.scottgustafson.com/WN_FT_painting.html

'Disney Sleeping Beauty' Viewed 30th October 2011
 http://www.fanpop.com/spots/classic-disney/images

Children's Books In Print

To being my research in the revolution of the children stories, I look to the Encyclopaedia Britannica; I was fascinated about the pages and pages of information about children’s stories. It may have actually given me too much information and overloaded me a bit and having to troll through that information could confuse people rather than inform them. I love the idea that people didn’t think that children need to be entertained by books and now it’s one of the highest priorities to get children to read.

As outline in my research brief, before the mid-eighteenth century books rarely were created for children and they were a high income item as they were all individually handmade. Children's reading was generally limited to literature intended for their education and moral lessons rather than for their enjoyment. Such books were religious books, grammar books, and "courtesy books" (which offered instruction on proper behaviour) they were the only early books directed at children. Many authors in the 15th and 16th centuries who wrote 'manuals of good conduct' for children, called 'Books of Courtesy' - but I don't think many boys or girls curled up with them to read them for a laugh. It was during the Renaissance that 'popular literature' was first produced - for adults.

The Ballads of Robin Hood started in the 14th century. The Arthurian Legend was described in the 12th and 13th centuries, retold verbally through generations to follow, written by Mallory in the late 15th Century and then by Tennyson in Victorian times and although these books were aimed at adults,  abbreviated versions were created and children ate them up.
People thought this idea of providing children with books for enjoyment was crazy, but the dawn of writing for children was about to break. Writing for the entertainment of children first appears to have occurred in France, where Charles Perrault wrote 'Mother Goose' for his own children. In it were simple versions of 'Little Red Riding Hood,' 'The Sleeping Beauty' and 'Puss in Boots'. These stories, however, were not his original creations, and had been handed down orally over previous generations.

The early 1800's saw the traditional fairy stories and more rhymes popularised in Henry Cole's 'Home Treasury' series.  In other countries, Grimm’s' Fairy Tales were written in 1823 -26 and those of Andersen in 1846, but, for the most part, stories were the retelling of old sagas and folklore.

Hahaha! I found this Disney movie on YouTube about the truth on Mother Goose about how stories were turned into songs and they were all influenced on actually historic events, Each segment begins with an upbeat performance of the song, follows with a depiction of the historical inspiration, and concludes with a somehow less jolly rendition of the tune. It covers "Little Jack Horner", "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary", with a clever contrast of amusing animation and serious narration.

References:
Children’s literature. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/111289/childrens-literature>.

lpmangas 2008, Walt Disney - The Truth About Mother Goose (1/2) - 1957, viewed 19 October 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeURETLKf68&feature=related

Children’s Stories In Voice

C. M Hewins wrote in the ‘The History of Children’s Books’ for the Atlantic magazine ‘there have been children's stories and folk-tales ever since man first learned to speak. Children's books, however, are a late growth of literature"

Oral Story Telling
Books were not affordable for everyone so a lot of stories got passed around orally. People told stories for centuries before writing was invented. Children's books, like adult books, emerged from these oral traditions. Every culture has used storytelling to pass on traditions and beliefs to future generations, as well as to explain the mysteries of nature, convey history, influence values, and entertain. Tales had to be told in such a way that they would be remembered. In the middle Ages storytellers could be seen in the market places and were honoured members of in royal courts. A Medieval storyteller, also called a troubadour or a minstrel, was expected to know all the current tales because that’s how they earned their living and needed to be able to conjure up an interesting and amusing story upon request. These stories were meant for adults but children also captured the amazing happenings and daring feats that happened in these stories. Travelling storytellers journeyed from land to land, gathering news and learning the favourite stories of various regions. Storytellers exchanged stories and changed stories so that it is difficult to trace the origins of many stories. Many of these stories were the staples of our well known stories we loved when we growing up.

This is a introduction to children’s literature I found while researching and it brought up some interesting points that I had discovered and some other I would like to explore further. Although the bear itself is a little odd in its movements and sporadic dancing and jumping the information it imparts orally is fascinating.

Nursury Rhymes
Nursery rhymes have also played a part in literature for children; it began to be printed in England as early as 1570. Printing allowed the production of books and cheap pamphlets, or Chapbooks-a small book or pamphlet containing poems, stories. More people during this time were learning to read but the chapbooks were also popular with people who could not read as they contained pictures A Middle Ages version of a Children's comic. So the Nursery Rhyme was then passed from one generation to the next by word of mouth and in a printed format and many had hidden meaning but were adopted by children because of easy to understand language. Their first real appearence in print was in John Newberry Mother Goose's Melody, this book of poems for childrenwas published in England in 1781, and the name "Mother Goose" has been associated with children's poetry ever since.
 

Mother Goose's Melody
http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/is/enroom/chapbooks/172.htm

Research Process:
When I started this research I thought to begin at the begining, the begining of stories were all told orally and they have been past down through the genrations. All we have left today are watered down versions of these great and epic tales. I thought that if they captured the hearts of so many people adults and children alike they must have been something spectacular. I started of my research on this topic as general children literature and discovered that in comparison with other literature it developed quite late. These oral stories and Rhymes weren’t even first published for children, but now they are thought of as children’s tales. So I went about looking for information about  them not related specifically to children, but as genral tales and I found it interesting how they have been adapted to the stories and songs we have nowadays.

References:
Hewins. C.M 2010, The History of Children’s Books,  The Atlantic Issue 1888, Viewed 30 September 2011, < http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1888/01/the-history-of-children-apos-s-books/6098/1/>.

The Secret History of the Nursery Rhyme, n.d, Veiwed 30 Steptember 2011  http://www.rhymes.org.uk/nursery-rhyme.htm

Dal6 2009, A Sketch of the History of Children's Literature, Viewed 1st October 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9le18qWScA

University of Pittsburgh, Mother Goose's Melody : or, Sonnets for the Cradle in Two Parts. Viewed 1st October 2011, < http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/is/enroom/chapbooks/172.htm>