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Author
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Comment
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Hannah
Inglis
Registered User
(3/28/03 8:17:16 am)
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Shrek and fairytales-paroding Disney and fairytales.
I am working on a project about Shrek and fairy tales, about how it parodies Disney and uses traditional conventions of fairy tales. I am also looking into how literary theories relate to shrek! Please add your thoughts, ideas and any theorists that you are aware of- your help is greatly appreciated.
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Kevin
Smith
Registered User
(3/28/03 12:08:00 pm)
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theorists ahoy
Theorists (these are first thoughts and therefore hugely random):
Linda Hutcheon on parody, or her poetics of postmodernism.
Mikhail Bakhtin on the chronotope of Greek Adventure Time, but his writings on Rabelais or even Apuleius will also be helpful.
Jack Zipes on Disney and subversive fairy tales generally.
Marina Warner's Reith lectures (Managing Monsters), has got a great first chapter on female monsters, particularly relevant for the transformations of the Cameron Diaz character.
Vladimir Propp for the "traditional fairy tale themes" and Joseph Campbell on the "hero archetype"
As for Shrek itself, Michael Eisner is rumoured to be the prototype for the "bad guy" (my memory isn't working, so names are escaping me) due to his homoncular stature.
I thought Shrek, though a good film, wasn't as subversive as I'd want it to be. The "Princess" was a little too pliant (except for when kidnapped by Robin Hood) for my tastes, and the moral not too dissimilar from a Disney tale. In fact, it's not all that different from Disney's Beauty & The Beast, except of course it's the princess who undergoes the transformation in this version.
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Hannah
Inglis
Registered User
(3/29/03 4:44:35 am)
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Re: theorists ahoy
Thanks 4 ur help- i have been looking at Warner, Zipes and Propp, but i will definatly look in2 the others- thanks again- been a great help.
Hannah. (han_tigger7@hotmail.com).
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Don
Registered User
(3/29/03 5:27:07 am)
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Shrek!
Zipes writes specifically on Shrek! in the revised and expanded edition of Breaking the Magic Spell (2002).
Edited by: Don at: 3/29/03 5:28:22 am
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Hannah
Inglis
Registered User
(3/29/03 6:24:59 am)
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Re: Shrek!
Thanks that sounds great i will try 2 get hold of it!
Hannah.
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Kevin
Smith
Registered User
(3/30/03 9:04:58 am)
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further
Thinking further about it, you could do a good essay with concepts drawn from Bakhtin's "Discourse in the Novel", part of the essay collection _The Dialogic Imagination_.
There's a definite monologic feature to the way the disney-land ish corporation attempts to supress carnivalesque discourses (the fairy tale creatures). That sentence sounds like utter gobledegook, but it does make sense. Honest.
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Hannah
Inglis
Registered User
(3/30/03 9:10:03 am)
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Re: further
I am a little confused by that statement! But if you have any extracts from the people you named above that would be very helpful- as i am finding it very hard to get hold of any of these books within the time limit i have, if you know any good websites that would also be great!
Thank you for your help.
Hannah.
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Kevin
Smith
Registered User
(3/31/03 2:38:07 am)
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more books
Yes, the terminology seems a little opaque until you read more about it. Put simply, Bakhtin identifies two types of discourse: monologic discourse, which attempts to be the "only" type of speech and dialogic which is more like the language of the marketplace, where parody and pluralism abound. Monologism is the speech used by repressive governments and other vested power, and it is in constant battle with natural speech, attempting to control the way people use language to change the way they think. Good examples of attempts at a monologic society can be found in 1984 and The Handmaid's tale.
Disney's use of copyright laws suggest them as a model corporation for monologic discourse, especially concerning the corporation's iron rule over how images are used, and the continuing protection of Mickey Mouse under US copyright laws (also: the reason they didn't film Roald Dahl's Gremlins was because uncle Walt realised they couldn't copyright the term). There's also the way that the Disney versions have displaced traditional fairy tales: most kids nowadays think that Disney is the "original" and preceding versions are, well, just "other versions". You can see a similar thing happening in Shrek, where the multiplicity of fairy tale races are kicked into the swamp in favour of a hideously fake theme park aimed (it seems) solely at humans.
Oh damn it, i've just remembered another book that you might want to look at. It's by Jean Baudrillard and called Simulations. It talks at length about Disneyland, and how it is a typical example of "third order simulation". Try Richard J Lanes _Jean Baudrillard_ for a good summary. Baudrillard is a key theorist of postmodernism or what he calls the "hyperreal", there's loads of stuff on the web about (and by) him, but again I'd recommend getting the books. Here's a taster though:
www.transparencynow.com/disney2.htm
Back to Bakhtin. There's a highly edited version of "Discourse in the Novel" in Rivkin & Ryan's anthology of criticism _Literary Theory: An Anthology_ that might help, or Sue Vice's _Introducing Bakhtin_ is a good explainer of how the terms have been used in literary criticism.
All these books are fairly standard fare at university libraries though. I'd be surprised if they don't have _The Dialogic Imagination_ it's a seminal work.
I can't recommend websites for this, because books are better. Websites are great for quick referencing, but your work will look far more reputable if your bibliography is packed with books, rather than websites.
Sorry to throw so much at you, its just that your studies appear to intersect a little with mine.
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Hannah
Inglis
Registered User
(3/31/03 3:45:01 am)
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Re:
Thank you so much for your help- I have been looking into the people you have spoken about and it really has helped inform my work, i'm off to look into Baudillard next, as well as the website you mentioned. Thanks again!
Hannah.
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