particularly notable, clearly having grown up in a generation where gender
expectations were altering, although the film also affirms how easily retrench-
ment occurs. While the mother is alive in this case, Lesley Mann performs
her usual role as a goofy mother, somewhat frustrated with her lot, seeking to
establish a separate identity – offering another interesting role reversal.
14. Carlo Collodi’s
Pinocchio
was initially serialised in a newspaper and later
published as a book in 1883 due to its immense popularity. The story has an
obvious mythic quality in terms of the rite of passage undertaken by the pro-
tagonist. A wooden puppet is carved from a log, mysteriously imbued with a
180
Notes to Chapter 2
spark of life, and wishes to become a real boy. Initially making his adoptive
father’s life difficult through continual misbehaviour (running away, acting
without consideration, led astray by others and doing as he pleases), he
eventually matures as he discovers a sense of responsibility and conscience,
and ultimately has his wish granted.
15. Peter Pan first appeared in J.M. Barrie’s novel
The Little Bird
(1902) and his
adventures were reissued as
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
(1906). In 1904,
Barrie produced a play in which ‘the boy who wouldn’t grow up’ takes the
Darling children to Never Land. The play was such a success Barrie rewrote
it in book form, published as
Peter and Wendy
(1911). The book was revised
and shortened in 1915, with variations remaining in print ever since. While
little is revealed about his past, we are informed that Peter left home and
was not able to return, subsequently finding company in the form of Lost
Boys – who fell out of their prams as infants and have since gone to live with
Peter in Never Land. His reason for wanting Wendy is claimed to be for the
boys’ benefit, rather than his, but although they act as figurative parents she
eventually tires of mothering everyone and grows weary of Peter’s failure to
reciprocate her love. Much speculation has been attributed to the meaning
of the character and his reluctance to grow up, with many biographical fea-
tures awarded significance by critics. The most salient and undisputable of
these is that Barrie modelled Peter on his own brother, who died tragically
young. This lends a somewhat morbid factor behind Peter Pan’s failure to
mature: the idea that he is himself dead, believed by some, as is referenced
in the book, to accompany the spirits of dead children to heaven. He is thus
not simply a mischievous sprite, or even a ‘boy’ who refuses to acknowledge
the adult world, but a typically Victorian attempt to imbue the spirit world
with sentiment, with Never Land a child’s version of paradise. For more on
Peter Pan’s associations with the dead see Purkiss (2000).
16. While Spielberg has tended to romanticise Peter Pan (conspicuously refer-
enced in
ET
and
Hook
), and P.J. Hogan’s 2003 film is a thwarted love story,
he acquires more sinister meaning in recent appearances, depicted as a child-
snatcher in the TV series
Once Upon a Time
and upcoming film
Hooked
.
17. In interview Burton has commented on the links between
Edward Scissor-
hands
and ‘Beauty and the Beast’, collaborating with Caroline Thompson on
the theme (2006: 84–99).
18. There are parallels to be drawn here with
RoboCop
’s Alex Murphy, who is
taunted about his inability to offer his former wife ‘a man’s love’, and we
might note
Edward Scissorhands
’ appearance among a range of cyborg films
in the late 1980s and 1990s that similarly question masculinity itself. See my
book,
Cyborg Cinema
(Short, 2011a), for further discussion of this theme, eval-
uating the male cyborg in film as an example of ‘reconstructed masculinity’.
19. See Johns (2004), who explores Baby Yaga’s intense ambivalence, noting
that depictions of the character range from a monstrous figure, accused
of stealing the souls of dead unbaptised children, to a protective mother,
with links to Persephone. This contrariness is interestingly depicted in the
animated film
Spirited Away
(2000) in the form not only of Yu Baba (whose
fearsome appearance is offset by the devotion with which she coddles her
overgrown baby) but of her more amiable twin sister, who insists on being
called ‘granny’ and helps the heroine return home.
Notes to Chapter 3
181
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |