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Comment
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Aer
Unregistered User
(4/10/05 6:22 am)
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Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince...
I was just thinking of some pop culture misconceptions of Fairy Tales (the quote that I used as the subject being one of them, really it should be "Sometime you have to throw a few frogs violently against a wall in order to find a prince" but I have a felling that phrase wouldn't catch on, hehe).
But what are some other things that are sort of accepted about fairy tales by the general public, which are just... well wrong?
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(4/10/05 8:26 am)
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Re: Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince.
And yet, the true version of the phrase is so much more satisfying and accurate. If you don't get rid of the frogs as decisively as possible, you won't have time to find a prince.
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avalondeb
Registered User
(4/10/05 10:20 am)
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Re: Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince.
Are you talking about misconceptions the general public has or are you talking about misconceptions created by Disney?
By the public in general:
- I'm always surprised that so many people have no idea that Rapunzel had twins out of wedlock and that the prince is blinded at one point
- That Cinderella's step-sisters cut off parts of their feet to try to fit into the glass slipper
Because of Disney:
- The Little Mermaid dies at the end of the story, she doesn't get the prince although she sacrificed everything to be with him
- That the Little Mermaid's sisters tried to get her to kill the prince on his wedding night to save her life, pretty bloodthirsty to try to get their sister to kill the man she loves...
- That the hunter/woodsman in Beauty and the Beast was NOT after the Beast out of revenge because of Beauty
Those are the ones off the top of my head.
Edited by: avalondeb at: 4/10/05 10:21 am
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DerekJ
Unregistered User
(4/10/05 12:53 pm)
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Re: Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince.
>>Because of Disney:
- The Little Mermaid dies at the end of the story, she doesn't get the prince although she sacrificed everything to be with him<<
(She does, however, become an "angel" of sorts to watch over the couple, which is indirectly the non-sea-foam "immortality of the soul" she was searching for in the first place.)
>>- That the Little Mermaid's sisters tried to get her to kill the prince on his wedding night to save her life, pretty bloodthirsty to try to get their sister to kill the man she loves...<<
(Actually, we're meant to be impressed that it was a condition of their making a fatal deal with the Sea Witch too to save her, and nobody who does business there ends up clean without some Faustian sacrifice...)
>>- That the hunter/woodsman in Beauty and the Beast was NOT after the Beast out of revenge because of Beauty<<
Or that there's even a "hunter/woodsman" or named romantic rival for Beauty in the original story at all. (?)
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Crceres
Registered User
(4/10/05 7:18 pm)
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Re: Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince.
I don't think all the blame can be laid on Disney for the idea of the hunter going after the Beast. Didn't Cocteau's film version introduce the 'jealous suitor/hunter' first?
I would think 'misconceptions' would be more serious when they show up in mythology or when attributed to a specific author. Rapunzel is just a folktale. The story is flexible and will change over time if it is to remain popular.
On the other hand, there are now thousands of children who think Hercules had a winged horse...
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(4/14/05 12:44 am)
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Re: Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince.
Wasn't there at least one version where she did turn the frog into a prince by kissing him? Iirc C. S. Lewis mentioned it.
I recall a story about a boy who married a frog; surely she turned human at the end? Anyway, frog or other animal, it's the motif of 'animal bridegroom' - she accepts him and he turns into a human secretly every night.
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Aer
Unregistered User
(4/14/05 8:35 am)
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Re: Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince.
There is one where she burns the frog skin (sometimes another type of animal), and because of that she has to go off and find him again because by burning the skin she lengthened the curse (it is one of the stories originally influenced by Cupid and Psyche I believe).
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DawnReiser
Registered User
(4/14/05 12:55 pm)
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misconception
Because of Disney...'Someday my prince will come.'
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cwfaerie
Registered User
(4/15/05 7:44 pm)
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Re: misconception
I think that one of the biggest misconceptions (at least in my opinion) is the idea general idea that fairy tales are just children's stories and don't impact our ways of thinking.
Also - "happily ever after"
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DonnaQ
Registered User
(4/15/05 10:29 pm)
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Re: misconception
Gee, I can probably still sing most of the words to "Some Day My Prince Will Come." Should I blame Disney or just my mother for subjecting me to both the movie and the record? <grin>
Anyway, Susan Jane Gilman uses this quote (by Judy Carter)in - Kiss My Tiara -
"Cinderella lied to us. There should be a Betty Ford Center where they de-program you by putting you in an electric chair, play 'Some Day My Prince Will Come,' and hit you and go 'Nobody's coming...Nobody's coming... Nobody's coming...' "
In the chapter which follows this quote, Gilman debunks popular "fairy tale" notions. The entire book is bold, brash and wickedly witty. It is subtitled "How to Rule the World as a Smartass Goddess," though I might also be moved to call it Wisdom from Your Feminist Fairy Godmother.
As far as frog princes go, you can read my thoughts here:
hometown.aol.com/writeonq/page4.html
Oh, and here's one on happy endings...
hometown.aol.com/writeonq/page12.html
Edited by: DonnaQ at: 4/15/05 10:37 pm
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DerekJ
Unregistered User
(4/15/05 10:50 pm)
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Re: misconception
(...And the STORY'S to blame, right?
It's allllllways to blame--Nasty old story!)
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(4/15/05 11:33 pm)
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Re: Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince.
Well, you don't want to hit someone and tell them "No-one's coming," because then they'll associate being hit with "No-one's coming," and consequently be even more attached to "Someday My Prince Will Come"! I've never been able to take that song even a little bit seriously ever since I was a kid and my mother told me that when she was a little girl, she and her friends used to sing "Someday my prince will come, he'll be chewing bubble gum..." I used to fill in the remaining blanks with lines ending in "rum" and suchlike, and resulting picture (of some bland guy walking around chewing on a hank of bubble gum while swigging rum straight out of the bottle) was pretty unappealing.
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LostBoyTootles
Registered User
(4/16/05 9:23 am)
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Re: Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince.
Just a random observation... "Someday My Prince Will Come" is from Disney's Snow White, not Cinderella.
Tootles~~If I can't be anything important, would you like to see me do a trick? |
Aer
Unregistered User
(4/16/05 11:20 am)
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Re: Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince.
Add the fact that Snow White sounds like Shirley Temple on helium, and I think most people can't take "Someday my Prince Will Come" very seriously.
But I don't think that Disney's the only guity party in giving off misconceptions.
I hate the term "Fairy Tale Romance" seeing as in many fairy tales the romance is extremely difficult, and usually the prince gets engaged to someone else before he ends up with the heroine.
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beautifulstars
Unregistered User
(4/17/05 10:48 pm)
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story...
The whole issue can easily be written off as 'simply stories' but as matter of fact, there's so much evidence that we tend to believe what we are told/inundated with so that stories become a part of our everyday belief system. Look at religion--based on stories--and yet has the power to bring down countries.
I think, as a writer, the misconception that fairy tales are pretty and nice and for children is the most irritating. And that they can't deal with gruesome subjects.
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DawnReiser
Registered User
(4/19/05 9:43 am)
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story....
But this misconception as to children is historically recent. Up until this century, and really only in financially comfortable nations/homes, have children been able to enjoy a childhood. Romeo and Juliet were 14 & 13; the 13th Crusade was the Children's Crusade; Dark Ages and after a boy was a man when he could lift a sword; boys as young as 5 were apprenticed on to ships in the British Navy during the Napoleonic Period; and, Mary (the Virgin Mary) was probably no more a child of 12/13 when she gave birth to Jesus. For most of existence childhood didn't exist. Children worked the farm, in the factory or on the streets to feed themselves or help their families. Children can handle more than the PG-13 sensors would like to believe.
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Jess
Unregistered User
(4/19/05 4:24 pm)
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Which leads conveniently back to another thread
about fairy tales endings....
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phouka
Registered User
(4/19/05 4:33 pm)
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Re: misconceptions
Blame Disney marketing techinques...
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snigglefaerie
Unregistered User
(4/27/05 2:47 pm)
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Not Just Dinsney...
We can't just blame Disney for sweetening up the fairy tales. The censorship began when the Grimms were getting flak from literary critics that their books were not to be put in the hands of children. After that, the Grimms started removing some of the violence and sex from their tales...
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