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Comment
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(6/25/05 10:03 am)
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Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Fairly recently become very interested in fairy tales/folk tales and am slowly working my way through the literature. Or at least the tip of the iceberg.
Couple of questions to get myself on this board...
First... Any ideas about how the fairy tale might have evolved?
It seems that one of the defining characteristics of a fairy tale is that the characters have no particular characteristics. They simply the embody the general characteristics of their archetypal role - hero, witch, etc.
Immediate thought is of Hollywood rom-coms and action adventures. Tempted to reject this though, as most of these stories are driven by formulae and market research and are relatively weak on unconscious imagery.
What I'd like to believe is that folk tales have evolved as our culture has evolved. Just as primitive tales are apparently different in character from those of the 17th+ centuries, isn't it reasonable for modern folk tales to have mutated in an age where story telling hits world audiences of billions?
It's been suggested that the "empty vessel" nature of fairy tale characters is a function of the tales' mobility. Too much particularity in a story will reduce its appeal to different cultures.
This is far less a factor in modern culture - at least in American dominated culture. (We all have MacDonalds, the Simpsons, and we all know who Indiana Jones is.) So more particularity is possible - except presumably in cultures where America is anathema.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to suppose then that, if contemporary folk tales exist, they might well contain the sort of psychological particularity that we're more used to in film. (I think film is probably the place where folk tales would gravitate as the most widespread form of story telling.)
With respect to stories in film (or tv), I'd say most would be disqualified as folk tales because either (a) they are too simplistic - they have an agenda that has nothing to do with dealing with half-conscious inconsistencies/conflicts in a culture and are essentially rollercoaster rides to bring in the bucks... or (b) they are too complex - subtle works of art, that may contain folk tale motifs, but whose symbols do not work on such a clear and direct level.
Two possibilities that just come to mind as I write - (1) Soap opera, which I'm not sure about. Certainly different to what one would normally think of as a folk story. Maybe closer to myth, or cycles of interlinked folk story, in which a hero of one can become a villain or helper in another etc. Don't know... (2) Horror film. Three that immediately spring to mind (two of which - re mobility - were non-English and remade in America): The Ring, The Vanishing, and Silence of the Lambs. These are all simple stories which use symbols incredibly clearly and directly. They are all profoundly psychological in content. Interestingly, the main characters don't have much in the way of particular traits. Their personalities are largely defined by their circumstances.
Anyway... enough... I'll post the second question separately...
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Writerpatrick
Registered User
(6/25/05 10:33 am)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Folk tales are the basis of all modern storytelling. But I would say that the closest equivalent is found in animation, both cartoons and the more sophisticated ones. Some, like Winx Club with it's use of fairies, are obvious. Pokemon has elements found in The Twin Brothers. Batman is the modern equivalent of a knight. And Myasaki has used variations of Baba Yaga's name on more than one character.
Furthermore, the ages fit. Most folk stories involve young characters, often teenagers, as do folk tales.
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(6/25/05 12:20 pm)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Well I almost thought of adding comic books as another descendent, but I suspect the audience for these has (so far) been too narrow. Same goes for the cartoons you mention.
I'm going on the assumption that a folk tale has (for a significant length of time) to have enjoyed enough widespread popularity to have become part of the currency of meaning within and between cultures.
Yes, agree that folk tales are the basis for all story telling - analytically at any rate - can't vouch for the history. But what I'm talking about is the literal contemporary equivalents. What fairy tales have metamorphosed into now. (Because it seems highly unlikely to me that something so culturally/psychologically deep rooted would just die out.)
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DerekJ
Unregistered User
(6/25/05 1:49 pm)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
>>Yes, agree that folk tales are the basis for all story telling - analytically at any rate - can't vouch for the history. But what I'm talking about is the literal contemporary equivalents. What fairy tales have metamorphosed into now. (Because it seems highly unlikely to me that something so culturally/psychologically deep rooted would just die out.)<<
And unfortunately, that now crosses over into the territory of modern Urban Legend study...Which immediately drags down the whole level of conversation.
(And why the "absolutely true!" stories invariably involve gory "shock" surprise endings, embarrassment of the overconfident, "fate" punishment of the greedy/overindulgent, warnings of good common people misused by rich corrupt authority, "out of the blue" chances at riches-for-nothing, and, in general, people wishing real life was as neatly scripted as a cheap B-movie.)
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cmoore0013
Unregistered User
(6/25/05 3:22 pm)
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Modern
I think The Ring definatly has some good fairy tale imagery. The sequal has a sequence wherew Rachel has just closed the well, for good and she's walking away through what many would veiw as a fairy tale forest. Both films have the child, who IMO, looks a lot like the character Snow White. Think about it, long black hair and pale skin. The only difference is that she is the one doing the killing.
Two other films that come to mind are the films of Dario Argento. Suspiria and Inferno are both highly rich in colors and look extreemly surreal and beautiful. Suspiria has to have one of the longest, most painful, and gory/violent death scens of all time, but the way it's shot is almost beautiful.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the newest remake of House of Wax are both very mch Hansel and Gretel stories. A grop of young adults coming across a weird place in the forest, where they have to fight to survive.
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(6/25/05 4:00 pm)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
No - don't agree at all that "urban myths" have anything to do with myths or fairy tales except the word "myth" - used presumably to convey "a story which is untrue". These stories, which aren't actually stories so much as sort-of-jokes - distinguished by the joke existing on several levels. But they contain none of the strong symbolism, no strong narrative, no meaningful identification with any participant, nothing of psychology except in terms of cheap moralising.
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(6/25/05 4:35 pm)
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Re: Modern
Not all horror films though... Most splatter movies, I'd say probably not.
Another key element of fairy tales seems to be that the stories are about the hero reaching a state where he/she is able to "live happily ever after" - in other words, achieving the goal, finding the treasure, solving the problem means something more than the thing itself. It's symbolic of a state of rightness being achieved in the kingdom, the psyche or wherever. Slash movies are usually morality tales (which fairy tales mostly aren't). In the slash movie, the hero/heroine (usually) survives - but there's no sense of growth. On the contrary, you feel they're at the beginning of an ordeal of post-traumatic stress. In other words these films leave at the point at which most fairy tales begin.
Hmm, so maybe have to rethink the films I mentioned. (Especially the original version of The Vanishing.)
A beautiful film I do think of as having very strong fairy tale elements - though firmly set in a "naturalistic" world - is Paris, Texas. It's a simple story about a man who's been wondering for years in the unconscious of the desert and how he returns to conscious life. However, this would hardly count as a folk tale - because it's only remembered as an art film, not as any kind of popular phenomenon.
Unless fairy tales don't have to enjoy popularity... Maybe they've become a minority interest and western collective psychology has become neglected at the expense of rollercoaster morality tales...
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(6/25/05 5:52 pm)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
I disagree with you, DividedSelf, that urban legends contain "none of the strong symbolism, no strong narrative, no meaningful identification with any participant, nothing of psychology except in terms of cheap moralising."
First, because several fairy tales are nothing more than cheap jokes, if you look at the short, less popular ones in Grimm. But second, because I think urban legends can be as meaningful as any other kind of folklore, meaning that some are stupid and crappy, and some have layers of meaning. Two of my favorites are the one about the vanishing hitchhiker, and the one about the babysitter receiving calls from inside the house. The first deals with interrupted lives and a desire to return home that is so strong it reaches out from the grave, elements that characterize many fairy tales. The second takes a look at the assumed safety of the home and its ability to contain threat, as well as what it means to be in a caretaker role before you're ready for it. As far as meaning identification, traditional fairy tales don't provide more identification, to my mind, than do these stories about "a babysitter" or "a girl and her boyfriend" or whatever.
Personally, I think fairy tales are the contemporary equivalent of fairy tales, if you see what I mean. They haven't gone anywhere. They've also fulfilled many functions over the years, so different kinds of art can take on different aspects of their roles. For instance, they provide a kind of common cultural reference point, and that role can be fulfilled by TV shows. They also have served moralistic purposes, and some horror movies have done the same. And so on.
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(6/27/05 8:31 am)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Veronica - don't know the stories you mention and don't know enough on urban myths in general. I'm not convinced though. I imagine there'll probably a lot of disagreement on grey areas of this kind, and lot depends on your definition of fairy tale.
I should disclose something of an agenda here. I believe story telling is an encapsulation of wisdom and one of the most important forces of cultural change. (It can be a force of personal change, but obviously not one of the most important.) A good story depicts a number of characters in relationship, and at least one character moving through a number of changes until achieving the final state needed for equilibrium. It takes a reader through a process of change in the mind as a sort of practice run. If a story's wisdom is relevant to a culture - i.e. if it depicts the sort of changes which, on a cultural level, might resolve submerged conflicts and generally lead to "cultural health" - then its power will really be felt. In such a powerful story, these characters are always archetypes (by which I mean characters who embody in their actions/role certain universal patterns of psychological/cultural development).
For me the key aspects of fairy tale are: (1) characters as archetype. (2) the depiction of a process of change (at a psychological level) necessary for the age and culture in which the tale arose. (3) Clear psychological imagery. (4) Acceptance (at least in its own time and culture) - widespread enough to be part of the general currency of meaning.
I realise there are a lot of technical definitions of fairy tales, but some of them, such as the generality of the characters, may have evolved in a different story telling mass culture. Anyway, these are just what's important for me in fairy tales, and are more or less off the top of my head, but let's suppose for now they have some sort of validity.
Urban myths certainly have (4). Perhaps some have (3), though in my limited knowledge I've come across plenty that don't. I don't think they have (1) or (2). The characters in these stories seem chiefly to be victims, and react simply as such. There is no sense of personal development so far as I know.
I disagree about fairy tales being the contemporary fairy tales - with the possible exception of the twenty or so stock tales from nursery and pantomime. A story like Dapplegrim might or might not have something to teach us, but it is not popularly known let alone widely accepted and chances are its wisdom may not be immediately relevant to modern western culture.
Paris, Texas... For me, it satisfies (3). The psychological imagery doesn't have to be literally otherworldly, but it does have to be clear - and it does have to have an "otherworldy feel". It was only as I wrote that last post that I consciously understood that the desert was a symbol of the unconscious, but I did know it, even before I "knew" it... I think it satisfies also (1) and (2), or at least partially. I don't know, but I suspect it was (consciously or unconsciously) concerned with psychological changes in 70s culture as a result of the Women's Movement. What had been a stable if inequitable gender divide was undermined, provoking a temporary imbalance. I believe this story is on this psychological territory at least, but was probably ahead of its time. Western culture has barely begun to assimilate the "new" status of women even now. The mainstream efforts on similar territory in the 80s (Three Men and a Baby comes to mind) demonstrate this only too painfully. It's never achieved the sort of widespread acceptance of (4) though, possibly for this reason.
The Simpsons are another contender, because they do have this widespread acceptance - across boundaries and ages, pretty much unprecedented in tv. Arguably the series format undermines the presence of archetypes, but for me there is something healing about the formula of chaotic cynicism being repeatedly resolved in the relative solidity of half-assed love. And if (2) applies then (1) also applies. (3) is debatable... There are lots of surreal images, and lots of explicit fairy tale references. Without rewatching an episode before writing this, I'm inclined to think there are a lot of psychological symbols. However, in no way do these ever become "otherworldly" - no matter how surreal it becomes, we always seem to be in a state of consciousness. This may be something to do with it's knowingness or irony, which in a sense is part of the central predicament of Simpsons-world (our world). In which case, The Simpsons would be my (very circumspect) nomination for fairy tale of modern times.
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Judith Berman
Registered User
(6/27/05 8:39 am)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
I'm going to put on my academic hat and distinguish between some of the various kinds of stories people have been talking about in this thread: folk narratives ("traditional" (another sticky word) stories transmitted face to face), narratives, traditional or not, that are part of a larger body of cultural knowledge and transmitted in various ways outside of formal institutional settings, and what you might call root cultural narratives that inform a lot of other cultural expressions and individual experience--transmitted by, well, that seems to depend.
Urban legends can be folk narratives and the Grimm stories were in their day as well, though now they are largely propagated through print and other media. Goldilocks is an example of a story that started out in the folk realm and is now transmitted both that way, I think, and through media--my 5 year old is well enough acquainted with the story to find Calvin and Hobbes' 3 tiger version hilarious, though I don't konw where he learned it (preschool?).
In small-scale societies where myth is still the primary way of talking about the world, root cultural narratives are usually the central myths that are explicitly told and known by everybody to some degree. I'm talking about myths in the sense of dealing with origins, divine beings, etc. The central myths usually have deep resonance throughout culture, society, and personal experience of the universe.
I'd be open to the argument that fairytales serve some of the functions of myth in our society, or that they have embedded in them some of our root cultural narratives. I'm not sure anyone's really done the ethnography, the descriptive study, of what our root cultural narratives are. Years ago I read part of a very interesting psych dissertation thesis that was a sort of Levi-Straussian / symbolic anthropology analysis of psychotherapeutic narratives. Dang if the woman's experience of her menstrual disorders wasn't a kind of Fisher King narrative. A handsome blond doctor healed her...
BTW, about the evolution of fairy tales, there is an article dating from maybe the late 70s or early 80s by Gene Hamel (sp?) on the evolution over many years of Goldilocks into an ever more symbolically rich and tightly structured story. As far as I know it was published and available only in the Addison Wesley anthropology module series.
Judith
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(6/27/05 9:04 am)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
DividedSelf--I'm having trouble with your definition of fairy tales because I find it overbroad and underinclusive. It's overbroad because it includes a huge number of novels that do not fit the fairy tale genre. For example, it would include Gaiman's American Gods, a popular novel with archetypal characters who have strong psychological components and who undergo change. But the book doesn't strike me as a fairy tale. It's a novel, in the fantasy genre, that explores many myths but doesn't have the arc of a fairy tale. This can be said of any number of science fiction novels, mainstream novels, mysteries, historical novels, and on and on.
On the flip side, many fairy tales are very simple. They are meant as entertainment--and yes the jokes Veronica suggests would fit because they have an element of folklore and the fantastic of fairy tales. Fairy tales, after all, were meant to amuse the listeners. A recent example might be "The Enchanted Pumpkin", found in Little Lit: Folklore & Fairy Tale Funnies, which is essentially a joke about fairies and pumpkins.
I don't claim to have a good definition of fairy tales, but I think the elements you suggest, although interesting and useful, shouldn't be used exclusively.
Best,
Alice
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 6/27/05 9:07 am
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(6/27/05 9:12 am)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Judith, I must have been typing when you posted. Your points reminded me of an earlier thread discussing myths vs. fairy tales that can be found here: www.surlalunefairytales.com/boardarchives/2005/mar2005/mythvsft1.html
If I recall, some posts gave useful ways of looking at the difference between myths, legends, folklore and fairy tales.
Food for thought.
Alice
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(6/27/05 9:24 am)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Judith - thanks, that helps a lot.
It'd also be useful to have a definition of what a fairy tale is, since many collections include what I'd call classic fairy tales along with animal fables and Christian morality tales.
But I think what's important to me is the *function* of fairy tales, which is prior to what I think you mean by root cultural narratives, which is the reflection and influence of patterns of psychological development - which is not about being from this or that particular culture, but something about just being conscious and more or less social animals.
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(6/27/05 9:35 am)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Alice - No, I agree. I wouldn't dare attempt a proper definition yet. I was just trying to clarify the key aspects of fairy tale that are important for me. I acknowledge there are technical/structural definitions of classic fairy tales which would easily preclude the examples you mention.
I'm still sceptical about the urban myths though. Clearly they're folk tales, but I don't believe they function as fairy tales.
(I'm aware I'm probably describing a personally chosen category of folk tale here, but I think it's a categorisation that can be made. Tales which influence and are influenced by universal patterns of consciousness.)
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(6/27/05 10:26 am)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Alice, thanks for the link to that thread.
I guess I'm talking about something very specific after all, which includes most (but not all) prince-witch-princess-three brothers-houses of sun, moon and wind type stories, and excludes most (but not all) fable and morality tale.
Also - although they fall into another category - I might also include some creation myths.
Like I say, I wouldn't attempt a proper definition. (Come back to me in a year or so...) But it has something to do with the structural mirroring of phenomenological patterns of development.
May start another thread... :evil
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Judith Berman
Registered User
(6/27/05 9:01 pm)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Someone who actually specializes in fairy tales studies can doubtless provide better commentary here. I myself would distinguish between at least the following categories of narrative before attempting a definition:
1. One of a number of ethnogeneric categories, each specific to a particular oral-narrative tradition and possessing its own literary conventions, like the Russian volshebniye skazki (wonder tale). Here "fairy tale" is a broad analytic grouping used by the folklorist or whoever that shouldn't be confused with the specific categories that have cultural meaning to the traditional teller and audience.
2. Written renditions of such tales, like the literary French contes de fees of Perrault and co. that often involve a fair amount of conscious re-working.
3. Modern written narratives that in one way or another seem like the other kinds of stories, oral or written, in the first two categories, that you're already termed "fairy tales."
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(6/28/05 10:42 am)
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Re: Contemporary equivalents of fairy tales
Judith - thanks again.
Although I'm wondering - given the ease and viability of internet publishing and self-publishing, and the fact that one can hardly move for short film makers these days - if we haven't gone almost full circle to an age where story telling fulfils much of the form/function of the oral tradition, albeit rather slower and on a global scale.
What do you think about the possibilities of a comparative analysis of narrative structure and the structures of consciousness? Maybe something like the structuralist analysis of the psychotherapeutic narrative you mentioned, but concerning phenomenological models? Do you know of (or can you point me in the direction of) anything like this?
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