Friday, March 9, 2012

Am I Under a Spell or Do I Just Believe in Magic?

In preparation for the essay I need to write this week on Jack Zipes' essay, "Breaking the Disney Spell", I have re-read it.  I still fail to see the harm in some of the things Mr. Zipes found fault with Disney over.  One of the first criticisms broached is probably the one I have the most trouble with.  Mr. Zipes appears to resent that the stories were altered to give people hope and make them want to believe in good and happily ever after.

"Of course it would be a great exaggeration to maintain that Disney's spell totally divested the classical fairy tales of their meaning and invested them with his own.  But it would not be an exaggeration to assert that Disney was a radical filmmaker who changed our way of viewing fairy tales, and that his revolutionary technical means capitalized on American innocence and utopianism to reinforce the social and political status quo.  His radicalism was of the right and righteous.  The great "magic" of the Disney spell is that he animated the fairy tale only to transfix audiences and divert their potential utopian dreams and hopes through the false promises of the images he cast upon the screen." 

See, "Breaking the Disney Spell", by Jack Zipes, page 333.

Back in the 1930's, when we were in the middle of the Depression, people wanted to believe there was something good to look forward to.  Today, in the midst of terrorist attacks, wars and deadly diseases that are ravaging our loved ones, I think we still want something good to look forward to.  Is it so terrible that Disney's animated fairy tales do that?  The bad people in the stories still get punished, (perhaps not as harshly as in the original tales, although I think I would be a bit disturbed watching the Evil Queen be forced to wear shoes that were ablaze and dance until she dropped dead - it sounds like something I would expect to see in one of the "Saw" movies), and the good people get rewarded (isn't that what we all hope will happen to us one way or another, that if we do good, we will be rewarded in kind whether it is a raise or a promotion at work for doing well there, or riches, or marriage and family if that is what we wish for).

I'm something of a visual person.  I do dream and imagine but I love to see images laid out before me that depict the very things I dream and imagine about.  It makes me feel good to see I am not the only one who believes in something, which in turn, gives me hope because then it seems a greater possibility of being achieveable if more than one person sees it as well.

People need to dream and hope and believe.  Without these ideals, our country would not be what it is today.  Maybe some of the Disney fairy tales are a little too sun-shiney sometimes, but I would rather have too much than not enough.

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