3 posts tagged “fairy tales”
I remember getting a Petition emailed to me last year demanding that Disney create a Black Princess. Well, apparently, they got enough signatures. Now, fifteen years after introducing it's first non-white Heroine (1992 - Aladdin's Middle Eastern Princess Jasmine), Disney has announced the creation of it's first Black Princess - Maddy, in its upcoming film "The Frog Princess" slated to be released in 2009.
The film also is the first hand-drawn film the company has committed to since pledging last month to return to the traditional animation form that made it a worldwide brand.
"The Frog Princess", a musical scored by composer Randy Newman, is "an American fairy tale" starring a girl named Maddy who lives in the French Quarter in New Orleans, said John Lasseter, chief creative director for Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.
Disney did not provide details of the plot, but the company showed shareholders preliminary drawings from the film and had Newman and a local jazz band play a song from the film's score.
“I can remember stories, those things my mother said
She told me fairy tales, before I went to bed
She spoke of happy endings, then tucked me in real tight
She turned my night light on, and kissed my face good night
My mind would fill with visions, of perfect paradise
She told me everything, she said he'd be so nice
He'd ride up on his horse and, take me away one night
I'd be so happy with him, we'd ride clean out of sight
She never said that we would, curse, cry and scream and lie
She never said that maybe, someday he'd say goodbye
The story ends, as stories do
Reality steps into view
No longer living life in paradise-or fairy tales”
- Anita Baker “Fairy Tales”
I don’t want my kids to ever look back on their childhood and feel like I’ve lied to them about the ways of the world. Sometimes that means being overly honest about Real Life situations (ie no money certain extra curricular activities, toys, candy because of the rent or light bills being due)…other times it just means Reading original Brother’s Grimm adaptations in lieu of the more Disneyfied versions of fairy tales.
I learned some of life’s greatest lessons from Aesop’s fables…early bird gets the worm, slow and steady wins the race, do not loose what you have to get what you think you want… Fairy tales have all these magnificent truths wrapped up in beautiful big bows of hope and love and happily ever afters.
My favorite Musical of all time (and I have a lot of them…lol) is Into the Woods. For the unfamiliar, it is a musical culmination of fairy tales, interlacing the stories of Cinderella, Jack and the Bean Stalk, The Baker and his Wife, and Little Red Riding Hood (interspersed with Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel) . No One is Alone (the former AIDS crusade theme) is taken from this musical. Written by the Fantabulous Stephen Sondheim…of whom I am also a HUGE HUGE fan! (how can you NOT Love Sunday in the Park with George??? “He needs me…I mean he kneads me…like Dough…..George…) Ah yes, and a Gloriously horrible Witch played by the Insanely talented (and somewhat Vain but who cares) Bernadette Peters.
One exceptional song, Moments in the Woods, is performed by the Baker’s Wife, after she’s had a brief ..ahem…affair with Prince Charming (already married to Cinderella at this point). She’d been feeling blah about her very safe life as a Baker’s wife….needed a little excitement...and found it in the Woods. When it is over, she can’t believe what she’s done, how she felt and how it has changed her perspective on love and life:
BAKER'S WIFE
What was that?
Was that me?
Was that him?
Did a Prince really kiss me?
And kiss me?
And kiss me?
And did I kiss him back?
Was it wrong?
Am I mad?
Is that all?
Does he miss me?
Was he suddenly
Getting bored with me?
Wake up! Stop dreaming.
Stop prancing about the woods.
It's not besseming.
What is it about the woods?
Back to life, back to sense,
Back to child, back to husband,
You can't live in the woods.
There are vows, there are ties,
There are needs, there are standards,
There are shouldn'ts and shoulds.
Why not both instead?
There's the answer, if you're clever:
have a child for warmth,
And a Baker for bread,
And a Prince for whatever-
Never!
It's these woods.
Face the facts, find the boy,
Join the group, stop the Giant-
Just get out of these woods.
Was that him? yes it was.
Was that me? No it wasn't,
Just a trick of the woods.
Just a moment,
One peculiar passing moment...
Must it all be either less or more,
Either plain or grand?
Is it always "or"?
Is it never "and"?
That's what woods are for:
For those moments in the woods...
Oh. if life were made of moments,
Even now and then a bad one-!
But if life were only moments,
Then you'd never know you had one.
First a Witch, then a child,
Then a Prince, then a moment-
Who can live in the woods?
And to get what you wish,
Only just for a moment-
These are dangerous woods...
Let the moment go...
Don't forget it for a moment, though.
Just remembering you've had and "and",
When you're back to "or",
Makes the "or" mean more
Than it did before.
Now I understand-
And it's time to leave the woods.
And then….she is crushed by Jack’s Giant and dies….and thus is the way of the world.
Everynight at 9:15 I pull warm blankets out of the dryer and tuck them around my two sons. We say our prayers (which I never thought Jeremiah would do as he is close friends with the Devil to hear him tell it.)
I curl up in the corner of my kids room, but a paper bag over a lamp light (setting the mood) and proceed to prepare their imaginations for a nighttime full of enchanting dreams and I read from either The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales or The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales.
My Mom used to read the Hans Christian Andersen tales to me when I was a kid. My favorite stories were the Traveling Companion and Little Claus and Big Claus. It's really interesting to read to your kids, tales that you heard in your youth. In reading the stories, of course, my old imaginations come to life and I see the old same scenes running through my head and wonder if they resemble the thoughts of my sons. Andersen fairy tales usually end happily ever after. Not so with the Brothers Grimm.
Last night, I read the story of The Fearless Prince. Man, the things this guy went through! Giants, Lions, multiple bouts of blindness, and 3 nights of endless torturing my demonic imps in an enchanted castle. After which he was awarded the hand of the princess, of course. But the interesting thing about the Grimm Tales is that there are some HORRIBLE actions inflicted upon the most noblest of characters, innocent children, honest men are constantly being tortured and tested on end, people die (grandmothers, mothers and children), evil is described in intricate detail and in the end, the Hero usually gets the prize, but the bad guy does not always suffer or get his just desserts. But those tales always end with ..."And that is the way of the world."
I can't wait to get the Aesop's Fables....
