Tags
adam hoffman, Barra the Bard, Erran Sharpe, fairy tale lobby, fairy tales, Jane Dorfman, mary grace ketner, megan hicks, national storytelling network, sagacia, storytelling
Helen Stratton was illustrating “The Robber Bridegroom” here. What could be more contemporary than an image of human trafficking and date rape drugs? It would appear the human race has not evolved since these stories sprang forth like mushrooms from the primordial compost of human nature. Maybe there’s something to that doctrine of original sin.
Simplia had just finished reading another letter responding to Skeptical in Skye, with whom she shared misgivings about depictions of brutality and depravity in fairy tales.
Sagacia tore open an envelope the mailmouse had just delivered, scanned it quickly, and said, “Well, here. Maybe you have a kindred spirit in Adam Hoffman.”
Personally, I do think the “dreadfulness” of the tales can often be overplayed in the world of internet fairy tale news (if I read one more piece playing up how dark the Grimm collection is I’ll go batty.)
“Yes!” Simplia agreed. “As if there weren’t already enough gratuitous violence in this world.”
Sagacia held up a finger to forestall another tirade. “But he goes on to say…”
However, in other cases, these things are necessary in order to set the right stakes. Also, they are often … necessary to set up the plot without running headfirst into a different fairy tale trope. Let’s take the “Donkeyskin” or “Allerleiraugh” type tales. They generally start with a princess having to run away because somehow her father is convinced that he needs to marry her. The threat of incest is quite icky, but there needs to be something so bad that it’s an affront to God and decency to make her run away from her comfortable palace.
Simplia pursed her lips lopsidedly, which her friend recognized as a signal that, much as she hated to admit it, the point was valid.
“Oh look!” Sagacia exclaimed. From the stack of today’s mail she shuffled out a postcard. “It’s Jane Dorfman in response to something Barra the Bard said on the topic.”
Barra is right, Mr. Fox is a great cautionary tale. Where do young women meet young men unknown to their family these days–on the internet.
Sagacia said, “It seems as though both you and Skeptical fear these old stories might put notions in people’s heads that wouldn’t otherwise occur to them.”
Simplia nodded, and her friend continued.
“But those notions are as old as human nature. It’s by letting them play out in our imaginations that we can experience, vicariously and harmlessly, some of the consequences of acting on those notions.”
Simplia squinched one eye and said, “Huh?”
“Here. Read this paper airplane from Mary Grace Ketner.”
Recently when I told this regional haunting tale at a Girl’s Summer Camp, the director told me, “Hm-m. I never thought of “La Llorona” as an anti-teen pregnancy story before.”
Funny; I always thought of it that way. Secretly. Yes, as a cautionary tale it keeps small children from going down to the river alone at night, but, more importantly to life, it warns of the risks of entering into a relationship for reasons other than love.
Evidently, Megan Hicks had been looking over Mary Grace’s shoulder, because in the margins she had scribbled:
Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote about a version of La Llorona a ten year old child of migrant workers told her. His Weeping Woman haunted irrigation ditches and mourned the babies she drowned after the hidalgo who got her pregnant rejected her for the deformities caused by his pesticides.
Simplia said, “Same bones. Different themes. Adaptable to circumstance and shifting paradigms.” She sighed and said, “All right. I concede. This ghoulishness does have a constructive side…”
When the sentence went unfinished for longer than a long beat, Sagacia leaned in and said, “But…?”
“But: What Adam Hoffman said. What Erran Sharpe said. Yes — within the private confines of one’s imagination, one can ramp the grisly factor up or down. But it seems that by the time all the kids I know are twelve years old, they’ve seen — with their eyeballs — and heard — with their ears — some lurid movie director’s worst case scenario depicted in IMAX 3-d with Full-Tilt-Vibrational-Surround-Sound. Is the conveniently accessible gruesomeness found in fairy tales just stoking that furnace?”
Fairy Tale Lobby 
I should probably explain what I was trying to say in my last message. While I often understand the gruesome bits in fairy tales to be necessary, I don’t necessarily see them to be a good “selling point” like so many other people seem to. What draws me to fairy tales are the elements of the fantastical, surreal and absurd that are often part of them.
Also, I’m not entirely sure I agree about hearing a told story is such a big thing in comparison to seeing a cinematic version. Human beings are very visual and react really strongly to things that are viewed. I hear from librarian friends that DVDs get challenged more than books these days. Of course, it might be because I very rarely hear others tell fairy tales these days (I’m the only one in my storytelling group that does it regularly). Also, it could be that I’m usually more interested in being the teller than being the listener (perhaps I’m a glutton for attention).
Adam, you got me thinking about what might be a cinematic version of gruesome bits to compare with a traditional tale’s description, but my movie experience may be too limited. All I’m coming up with right now is “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” vs. “Mr. Fox.” In Mr. Fox, we don’t really see any details of the torture itself or of the women before or after their demise; only our imaginations can take us there—and then only by choice, as the story itself moves on and carries our attention with it. In Dragon Tattoo, on the other hand, we pan the room; we see the tools of destruction; we see blood–and we can’t ignore them. In the case of the girl’s revenge on her own attacker, we even sit through the real time (well-deserved) infliction. Outside the theatre, those scenes have real sticking power, even returning power, even returning-when-you-will-them-not-to power. In fact, they stick around longer than the story; in Mr. Fox, the story endures longer than the visual.
Or does it? Perhaps it’s just that I didn’t personally venture into the detailed imaginings.
I agree with you that the gruesome bits aren’t the selling points of the tale, and not MERE necessities, but VERY necessary. I’m thinking of the young woman who has been assaulted or molested; will she not find in Lady Mary a companion? a confidant where none may have existed for her in her real life? a fellow traveller on the journey through the unspeakable? I hope so!
There. Mary Grace said it better than Simplia or I ever hope to.
Screen images, especially of horror — large screen, small screen, alone, or in company of others — often become “too much information, too soon, too intense” for some individuals’ gore thresholds. Me personally, I cannot watch slasher movies; I can’t distance myself from the victims — their characters come to my imagination with back stories, and I can’t banish my empathy for their suffering and their soon-to-be grief-stricken, devastated families and circles of friends. At the same time, a screen treatment of “unvarnished” fairy tales is unbalanced and not at all realistic, since all we get is audio and video. Where’s the stench? The grit and slime and stickiness of drying blood and guts? Where’s the tickle of flies and cramps of hunger? Where’s the damp or the heat or the cutting cold?
This is a tangential rant. It’s not about fairy tales per se. But everybody’s comments got me thinking…
I’m beginning to wonder if maybe this discussion is a bit beyond my expertise. I actually tend to steer away from the more gruesome tales. I very rarely tell tales like “Mr. Fox” or “Fitcher’s Bird” or “The Singing Bone”. I tend to steer more towards stories that have fantasy concepts I like or ones that I think are funny. And when gruesome bits do make their way into the stories, I tend to downplay them or make my way through them quickly. I usually care a lot less about people sympathizing with the pain in the story than with amazing people or making them laugh.
In response to Charles and Sharon — I’m pretty well acquainted with Simplia Simpleton, so I think I speak for her when I say that’s exactly what she’s talking about! Yes. Co-creating the universe of the story in your head, neurologically, you can tailor the intensity to your unique, particular needs. BUT…once you’ve sat in a big dark room and seen, for example, evisceration enacted larger than life on the silver screen, once you’ve heard the accompanying screams of agony, once you’ve seen sadistic pleasure portrayed by a competent actor, lit and shot and directed by professionals, with a heart-thumping soundtrack playing in the background — you can’t “un-see” it. Forever after, whenever you encounter in print or in spoken word the act of disembowelment, those larger than life images will “enrich” (as uranium is enriched) your imaginary vision. I’m pretty sure Simplia wonders whether or not these stories, fraught with danger and evil and violence, are being exploited because of their enduring plots and ready-to-air violence and their potential for special effects. She wonders if such stories are best left unstaged. And she’ll say so. I wouldn’t be so bold. But I will say, just because the First Amendment gives us the right to do it, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.
To Fran (and indirectly, Elizabeth Ellis) — Amen!
What a twelve years seeing on the screen can scare them, but it is external, outside their bodies. With fairy tales, they helped out by co-creating the story in their imaginations, in their heads. Neurological, I bet there is a difference.
cjkiernan said exactly what I was thinking after I read this post. Listening to a teller is so much more personal and connected than a screen is.
And therefore a “heard” story can cut deeper than a screenful of FXS and fake blood, esp because listeners can elaborate with personally meaningful (and most scary) details.
But a live teller, with a small enough audience, can monitor listeners’ reactions and scale back if necessary. Furthermore the presence of a live teller may allow the option of discussion after the story, perhaps emphasizing how the story protagonist found helpers and triumphed over the scary thing. As Elizabeth Ellis has said, the teller serves as tour guide into “dark and snaky places” — and is responsible for leading the group back out again.