Spell Bound

Zipes breaks down the history of the fairy tale, from its oral beginnings to the animated stories we are exposed to in contemporary entertainment. It's really interesting to read about the descriptions of the transitions of the fairy tale, as it was written down and eventually made into film. I agreed with most of what Zipes said about the exclusiveness of the written tale, as most poorer folk were not literate, but I disagree with how terrible he depicts Disney as. Zipes complains about the writing down of the tales, and how they changed the nature of the tale and the communal aspect of telling them, but he seems to make Disney out as a monster, when he only did the same thing as those who wrote the fairy tales down. But when people wrote the tales down, and they became exclusive to the elite, the same did not happen with Disney. When he took the written tales, he made modifications, just like those who wrote them down in the first place. He made modifications and put them on the screen for all to see, and it did not make the tales more exclusive, but instead made them more available because more children would rather see the animated movie version than read the tale. Disney made them more enjoyable and friendlier to children, thus he made them more acceptable. Disney did not do anything that hadn't been done before, but only moved the tales to a different medium to satisfy changing times and preferences. Zipes does make a great argument about the damaging effects and the gender stereotypes in Disney films and the tales themselves though. By animating those films, Disney perpetuated the gender stereotypes in the films, like the domestication of women and the dependence upon men. Most Disney films in the past like Snow White and Cinderella depict the heroines as dependent upon men to rescue them from their perilous situation, and can never independently get themselves out of the predicament. While the perpetuation of the tales can be blamed on Disney, the transformation of the tales into film was nothing revolutionary, but was only a different form of transition, like those who decided to write down the oral tales.