Thread: Favourite childhood movie?

Originally Posted by coqauvin

sycld you know that the real precedent was hans christian anderson and the brothers grimm, yes?

true, but there still seems to be a difference. watching these movies as a child actually made me feel sad because things don't start getting better to the main characters until everything they've loved in the world is destroyed and they are left in alone in dark, dangerous places. it's not even the sense of danger that makes these movies so dark, but rather the sense of abandonment and having everything you loved in the world destroyed, including other characters with whom the audience has also established an emotional connection.

in the fairy tales you mention (all or at least many of which were NOT written by either anderson or the grimms but were merely collected or adapted from folk sources), the darkness isn't so existential. i think it's because there really isn't as strong of an emotional connection made with the characters, and anyway the characters to whom most of the REALLY bad stuff happens are the bad guys. it's the evil witch in the original snow white that has to dance in the red hot iron shoes.

Originally Posted by sycld

true, but there still seems to be a difference. watching these movies as a child actually made me feel sad because things don't start getting better to the main characters until everything they've loved in the world is destroyed and they are left in alone in dark, dangerous places. it's not even the sense of danger that makes these movies so dark, but rather the sense of abandonment and having everything you loved in the world destroyed, including other characters with whom the audience has also established an emotional connection.

You say that like it's a bad thing, though. I mean, the major theme with that is people losing what isn't important when they thought it was, then discovering true value (friendship etc.), or it's a temporary loss of someone important who then shows up again later to save the day. I see value in them, because loss on that scale is a part of life, and coping with it, rebuilding from the aftermath isn't a bad thing to show children. Of course, they have to lose something of value (or perceived value) in order for the sacrifice to have any meaning, but it's always made up for by the end of it.

Originally Posted by sycld

in the fairy tales you mention (all or at least many of which were NOT written by either anderson or the grimms but were merely collected or adapted from folk sources), the darkness isn't so existential. i think it's because there really isn't as strong of an emotional connection made with the characters, and anyway the characters to whom most of the REALLY bad stuff happens are the bad guys. it's the evil witch in the original snow white that has to dance in the red hot iron shoes.

I'm aware that the Brothers Grimm and Mr. Anderson lifted most of their storys from folklore (again you say it like it's a bad thing... merely collected. It is a good thing to compile folk stories because it tells you of the people who knew them, and since the stories are part of an oral tradition, they can easily be lost), but the creepiness of the stories isn't just horrible fates for the bad people, it's horrible things happen to the good people too.

The Little Mermaid, in Anderson's original telling (it was an original story that drew on existing mythological archetypes, not a traditional folk-tale), was dark. It begins essentially like the Disney movie, (with the exception of the explanation that merfolk are long-lived, but have no immortal soul like Man) where the youngest mermaid daughter of the Sea King wishes to see the world, is eventually allowed, comes across a ship being wrecked in a storm and saves and falls in love with the captain (who turned out to be a Prince). The Prince sees her briefly as he gets carried away to shore while the mermaid returns to sea, where she can't stop thinking about the prince. So she goes to the Sea Witch and asks to go to land. This is where the darkness comes in. The Sea Witch offers her legs, at the cost of her voice (cutting out her tongue in the process) and with the price that every step on land would be like walking on knives and if the Prince didn't fall in love with her (thereby granting her a piece of his immortal soul) and instead married another, she would turn to ocean foam instantly as merfolk do when they die. She fails to win the heart of the Prince, who marries another princess (who he ironically believes to be the mermaid who saved his life in the storm, which he says in front of our voiceless heroine). The night of his wedding, the mermaids sisters appear, all looking grotesque without their hair (which they gave to the witch that they might help their sister), giving her a knife and telling her to kill the Prince that she may not be turned into foam when he gets married and can return to the sea as a mermaid. She goes to kill the Prince, but cannot bring herself to do so and casts the knife into the sea as the sun rises and she dissolves into mist. In a bit of a nice ending, she becomes a "Daughter of the Air" due to her self-sacrifice and can, in 300 years time (give or take some years depending on whether or not she comes into contact with good children or bad children) attain an immortal soul

Here is an excerpt:

The Little Mermaid [url

http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_merma.html]...“You[/url] are but just in time,” said the witch; “for after sunrise to-morrow I should not be able to help you till the end of another year. I will prepare a draught for you, with which you must swim to land tomorrow before sunrise, and sit down on the shore and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow. If you will bear all this, I will help you.”

“Yes, I will,” said the little princess in a trembling voice, as she thought of the prince and the immortal soul.

“But think again,” said the witch; “for when once your shape has become like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You will never return through the water to your sisters, or to your father’s palace again; and if you do not win the love of the prince, so that he is willing to forget his father and mother for your sake, and to love you with his whole soul, and allow the priest to join your hands that you may be man and wife, then you will never have an immortal soul. The first morning after he marries another your heart will break, and you will become foam on the crest of the waves.”

“I will do it,” said the little mermaid, and she became pale as death.

“But I must be paid also,” said the witch, “and it is not a trifle that I ask. You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince with it also, but this voice you must give to me; the best thing you possess will I have for the price of my draught. My own blood must be mixed with it, that it may be as sharp as a two-edged sword.”

“But if you take away my voice,” said the little mermaid, “what is left for me?”

“Your beautiful form, your graceful walk, and your expressive eyes; surely with these you can enchain a man’s heart. Well, have you lost your courage? Put out your little tongue that I may cut it off as my payment; then you shall have the powerful draught.”

“It shall be,” said the little mermaid.

I won't lie, I've kind of forgotten what my point was, so I'll just finish up with this: darkness in kid's stories isn't really a bad thing and people who think it is are limp-wristed, bleeding heart pussies who shouldn't have children.

It might please you to note, sycld, that apparently Andersen's inspiration for the story was that it was an allegory for his unrequited homosexual love for an Edvard Collin (haha twilight) who was, apparently, the son of Andersen's first benefactor in Copenhagen.