18
Fairy Tale and Film
Memento
(2000) and
Inception
(2010), and considers their relationship to
Gothic romantic figures. Why female writers and directors have been so
drawn to ‘Bluebeard’ is considered towards the end. Are such projects
intended to warn women about the hazards of
a potentially fatal attrac-
tion, extolling female self-sufficiency as the only means of survival,
much like the folk tales they emulate? And do they suggest, quite cyni-
cally perhaps, that we have not progressed much, given the apparent
inevitability of violent men, as well as the failures of a social system that
women cannot rely on for protection?
Chapter 5 takes us into the murky world of horror, and specifically
the dangers located in the family home – a theme popularised in tales
such as ‘Snow White’ and ‘Donkeyskin’.
The opportunity is used to
question psychoanalytic readings of abusive parents in fairy tales (typi-
cally viewed as Oedipal dramas transferring the child’s animosity onto
mothers and incestuous desire to fathers), evaluating the ‘knowing’
redeployment of such theories in films like
A Tale of Two Sisters
(Ji Woon
Kim, 2003) and its US remake
The Uninvited
(The Guard Brothers, 2009).
Examples are cited that seem to invert Freudian interpretations of fam-
ily discord (often repeated in the fairy tale), including the tendency
to reprieve abusive fathers from blame while falsely accusing mothers.
Asian horror seems especially astute at such debunking and is admira-
bly unafraid to approach conventional tropes from a new perspective.
Dumplings
(Fruit Chan, 2004) presents its ogre-ish women as man-made
monsters who simply
fulfil patriarchal demands, just as the monstrous
children in films like
Rungu
and
Ju-on
are a reflection of their ‘damaged’
upbringing. The motif of child victims of abuse, reborn as supernatural
avengers, is found in tales from many cultures, including ‘The Juniper
Tree’, yet far from offering any sense of assurance, the appeasement of
unhappy spirits is often tentative, with a number of examples discussed
in which the supernaturally reconstructed
family is shown to be far
from ideal, suggesting continued conflicts and uncertainties that deny
easy resolution.
The final chapter looks at the array of postmodern devices used in
adapting fairy tales for a modern, more cynical, audience, asking if
tactics once used as a means of dismantling classic tales – including
dramatic role reversals and extensive rewrites – have genuine grounds
for being considered experimental or innovative, particularly given a
tendency to be used in questionable ways. The
fact that fairy tales have
long been subject to revision is noted, with reference made to various
literary examples, including experimentation by the seventeenth-
century French writers of the
Contes de Feés
and subsequent innovations
Introduction
19
by figures such as Angela Carter and Gregory Maguire. Films discussed
include revised versions of ‘Snow White’, ‘Rapunzel’, ‘Hansel and
Gretel’, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, question-
ing the extent to which parody and playfulness have superseded the
ability to take anything seriously, and contrasting
positive and negative
evaluations to ask what constitutes a radical rewrite today.
The genres have been chosen because of their thematic resonance
with fairy tale tropes, demonstrating the persistence of identifiable
motifs and their engagement with contemporary concerns. As is appar-
ent from this overview, I have tried to avoid simply including films that
I ‘approve of’ in some way, including examples that may contradict a
point in order to make clear the underlying ambiguities of any group
of films. Restrictions of space have required me to be fairly selective in
terms of the number discussed and
the degree of detail provided, yet
all are assumed to be familiar films (or are otherwise easily available)
with the accompanying aim of encouraging the reader to contribute
their own awareness and understanding to the critical evaluation made.
Although I have endeavoured to marshal a convincing argument I don’t
expect my views to be unquestioningly accepted but hope instead to
fuel further discussion and consideration of key ideas. I have also opted
to assess popular well-known examples simply because I feel many such
films merit attention yet appear to have been critically overlooked,
seemingly on the basis of their popularity, with the attendant assump-
tion that crowd-pleasers are inherently conformist vehicles, without
any other aim than making money. Sadly, snobbery and elitism are as
prevalent among
folklorists as film critics, which is particularly surpris-
ing given an oft-voiced interest in uncovering progressive potential in
tales. This kind of criticism is regrettably quite common, appearing to
lose sight of the fact that a major incentive in relating films to fairy
tales is their applicability as barometers of widespread concerns. Marina
Warner puts the point eloquently in reminding us that ‘cinema desires
the audience’s pleasure and consciously observes its possible constitu-
ency, its tastes and interests, as a storyteller in the bazaar responds to
its audience’ – negating popular cinema
thus precludes our ability
to denote prevailing attitudes, as well as significant changes.
11
The intersection of films and fairy tales is a subject that has long been
a fairly exclusive preserve (limited to contributions to specialist jour-
nals such as
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