Fairy Tale and Film

AI: Artifi cial Intelligence 
(Steven Spielberg, 2001) acquires additional sig-
nificance as this relates a similar tale about an artificial boy who longs 
to be ‘real’, preserving an idealised view of humanity that is in marked 
contrast to those encountered. While the source text, Brian Aldiss’ 
short story ‘Supertoys Last All Summer Long’, hinges on the idea of 
an artificial boy who longs to attain his mother’s love, overt Pinocchio 
allusions are added to the film. It is because he hears Collodi’s story, and 
takes it to heart, that David (Haley Joel Osment) tries to find the blue 
fairy. His creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt), tells him this belief 
(ultimately, in a fairy tale) is where his humanity lies. A happy end-
ing, notably devoid from Aldiss’ poignant tale, grants David a perfect 
day with a loving facsimile of his mother. Advanced clone technology 
resurrects her image in patently idealised fashion, providing David with 
an infinitely more loving mother than he ever experienced in reality. 
Unlike Pinocchio, David has no real faults he must overcome; his loving 
nature is imprinted onto his personality from the outset. He learns that 
the world is perilous, and that humans are largely cruel, yet nothing 
can deter his seemingly unshakable faith in mankind, or his desire to 
become human, whether it be the cruelty inflicted on ‘Mechas’ at the 
Flesh Fair, or learning he is mass-produced. His programming overrides 
any of his experiences, and as the sole memory of an obsolete human 
race it is with due irony that an artificial boy offers an equally artificial 
reflection of his makers. Unlike the genuine love that binds Pinocchio 
and Gepetto, David’s love for his mother is manufactured and unde-
served, their reunion a wish-come-true that fails to reflect reality. 
Ironically, David’s innocence is preserved until the end. He will never 
be ‘real’ (that is, mortal) and never succumb to the flaws or frailties 
flesh is air to. In this sense he resembles another boy hero of children’s 
literature, J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.
15
In marked contrast to 
Pinocchio
’s coming-of-age tale, 
Peter Pan
tells 
the story of the ‘boy who never grew up’. An elemental figure dressed 
in green with elfin features, he still has all his milk teeth and lives with-
out the strictures of grown-ups in fantastic Never Land. Peter has no 
parents, and considers mothers to be ‘very silly things’, yet is keen to 
entice Wendy to his domain, largely to mother the Lost Boys who live 

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Transformations and Male Maturation 
65
with him on the island. Forgetful and selfish, often failing to discern 
the difference between reality and make-believe, he reveals himself to 
be an irresponsible leader whose charm has its sinister side. When he 
eventually conquers his enemy, Captain Hook, Peter instructs Wendy 
to make him an outfit from Hook’s costume and starts impersonating 
his nemesis, hinting that he seeks to emulate him. It is shortly after this 
that Wendy decides to leave, taking the Lost Boys and her brothers with 
her. Peter’s emotional reticence denies her the relationship she seeks, 
and the extreme sexism of his attitude – taking her daughter to Never 
Land each year to spring-clean his house – affirms not only a boy who 
refuses to grow up but a hopelessly unreconstructed male. Seemingly 
attracted to Wendy, yet unable to show her the affection she craves, it 
is suggested he will never mature because of his reluctance to express 
emotions and failure to consider others. A figure who enjoys enviable 
freedom in children’s eyes thus acquires a very different reading from an 
adult perspective, as it is Peter who is truly, and perhaps tragically, lost.
16
Cinema has given us a number of figures who are similarly beyond any 
kind of romantic redemption, and often excluded from this world. The 
hero of