Finally, a book written by a scholar of film studies, concerned with the influence of fairy tales on popular films. Mind you, I did not write "concerned with fairy-tale films," because Sue Short’s focus is mainly on how and why certain tale types have been reshaped in popular and commercial films by filmmakers with new if not original spins that lend the films a certain virtuosity that we should appreciate more than we do. Though I have certain misgivings about Short’s contentions, especially her critique of folklore scholars, her study is highly commendable especially because film studies critics have been lamentably negligent in giving folktales and fairy tales their due respect when it comes to understanding their influence on themes, structures, characters, landscapes, and every nitty-gritty part of conventional films, even the trashy and spectacle films that flood the media market. Short gives respect and more.
Relying heavily on the short descriptions of folktales and fairy tales in Hans-Jörg Uther’s The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography (2004) to determine the substance of these narratives, Short divides her book into six chapters with an introduction and epilogue. The chapters deal with romantic comedies, horror films, thrillers, and postmodern revisions, not strictly speaking with fairy-tale films, although Short would argue that folklorists and other critics have been too narrow if not elitist, jaded, and snobby in their determination of what makes for a fairy-tale film and its reception. Therefore, one of her key aims is “to situate fairy tale motifs and their cinematic examples within the different genres that are conventionally used to make and market films, and the analysis is structured accordingly: separating films discussed into recognisable groups such as romcoms, crime dramas, thrillers and horror. This approach endeavours to widen our expectations about where fairy tale references are likely to be found and also makes their breadth of influence on film clear” (7).
In chapter 1, “Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams: Aspiring Underdogs and Humbled Heroines,” Short focuses on how contemporary romantic comedies do a splendid job of reworking hackneyed sexist tropes of “Cinderella” and “King Thrushbeard.” For example, she teases out the feminist tendencies of A Cinderella Story (2004), Never Been Kissed (1999), and My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), and she discusses the fraught tensions when assertive females are humiliated in such films as Monster-in-Law (2005), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), and My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997). In chapter 2, “Curses, Wishes and Amazing Transformations: Male Maturation Tales,” Short demonstrates how the beast-bridegroom tales have been given a makeover in contemporary films that show how male identity is mutable and how men can mature to become better partners and fathers. Here her focus is on such films as Beastly (2011) and Bruce Almighty (2003). At the same time she also reflects upon the immaturity of male protagonists in Edward Scissorhands (1990), AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001), and Sling Blade (1996) with reference to “Pinocchio” and “Peter Pan.”
In chapter 3, “Wealth through Stealth: Evening the Odds, or Flirting with Disaster?” Short turns to crime films and their relationship to “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “Ali Baba.” Here she raises the ethical question as to whether the pursuit of fortune at any cost is laudable, and she draws examples from Shallow Grave (1994), A Simple Plan (1999), and No Country for Old Men (1999). In chapter 4, “Dangerous Liaisons: Demon Lovers and Defiant Damsels,” Short turns to a discussion of serial killers in gothic melodramas and thrillers that reflect an ambivalent attitude toward self-sufficient women who sometimes use violent means to defend themselves. Here films such as In the Cut (2003), Memento (2000), and Inception (2010) provide examples for analysis.
In chapter 5, “Houses of Horror: Domestic Dangers and Man-made Monsters,” Short continues her study of horror films by focusing on child abuse, citing “Hansel and Gretel” and “Goldilocks” as source texts in which homes become houses of horror instead of sanctuaries. Here she explores how films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), and Wrong Turn (1977) serve as warning tales. In this long chapter, Short examines other films such as Ringu (1998), Audition (2000), Orphan (2009), The Daisy Chain (2007), The Dark (2005), A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), and Dumplings (2004) to show how horror films are not “afraid” to expose some of the more devastating effects of child abuse that take place in families and at home so that we might better be able to deal with this problem. In chapter 6, “Postmodern Revisions: New Tales for Old?” Short reviews a wide array of contemporary films that use post-modern techniques and stem from a long tradition of parodying fairy tales. From her perspective many of these films such as Ever After (1998), Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), Mirror, Mirror (2012), Red Riding Hood (2011), The Village (2004), The Blair Witch Project (1999), and Tangled (2010) are nothing but “de-Grimmed fairy tales [that] have become the rule, rather than the exception, yet far from necessarily providing rewrites that expose and challenge inequalities, they seem more likely to reiterate tropes we might have rightly considered outmoded today, with ‘irony’ an evident pitfall of postmodern parody, granting the politically incorrect carte blanche” (157).
Throughout her book, Short demonstrates an adroit ability to draw out fairy-tale motifs in films that few would ever associate with folktales or fairy tales. She has a comprehensive knowledge of popular genres such as horror, thriller, gothic, comic, and soap films and a keen eye for discerning aspects in popular films that address controversial issues pertaining to sexism, racism, child abuse, and social injustice that critics might overlook. In short, her book is a vital contribution to the discussion of why fairy-tale films and their offshoots are so important.
That being said, I feel I must conclude with my strong misgivings about Short’s approach and style, and unfortunately, due to the allotment of space, I shall not be able to develop my critique in full. So, I shall make three general points: 1) Several folklorists including myself have argued, long before Short’s book, that almost all the cinematic genres that have been developed throughout the world ever since Georges Méliès began directing and producing films are rooted in folktales and fairy-tale traditions. This means that each and every film since the 1890s will bear a trace or motif of folk and fairy tales. Consequently, if one were to use Short’s approach to popular and commercial films, one would have to become a “critic without borders,” for there is not a film under the sun that does not contain a fairy-tale or folktale element. It also means that one should perhaps endeavor to make subtle distinctions between films that are explicitly based on folktales and fairy tales and the thousands that simply borrow from them. It definitely means that one should always approach the hypes and trailers of the film industry with critical rigor. Yet, according to her, critics who criticize spectacular popular films as trash are mere snobs and pessimists. However, she does not examine how and why “authentic” popular motifs, that is, stimulants from common people, are appropriated and exploited by a very strong film and cultural industry. The successful popular reception of so-called popular films is not a free and “natural” response but one produced and controlled by capitalist media.
2) Folklorists and literary critics have not been blind to nor have they wanted to denigrate popular and commercial films. Scholars such as Pauline Greenhill, Cristina Bacchilega, Anne Duggan, Don Haase, Karen Lury, Kristian Moen, Jessica Tiffin, and some others (not mentioned in Short’s book) have broadened our notion of fairy-tale films to include almost any kind of film produced. Moreover, their works and my own have taken and continue to take all forms of popular art seriously. Short does not give due recognition and justice to the excellent groundbreaking work of folklorists and literary critics by calling these scholars snobs and elitists when they created the basis for her own work.
3) Despite the fact that Short seems to speak for the freedom of film-goers and her readers whom she wants to liberate so that they can make up their own minds as to what constitutes a “progressive” fairy-tale film, she is somewhat ingenuous when she poses as a non-ideological liberator of viewers and challenger to folklorists and others who set standards and boundaries with regard to the definition of a fairy-tale film. Her own agenda, which does not include a careful examination of the production and reception process of popular films or marginalized fairy-tale films from beyond the North American and English-speaking world—strange to say she does not mention the films of great directors such as Hayao Miyazaki, Michel Ocelot, Garri Bardin, and more recently, Timm Moore—displays a simplistic selection of films, many of them trivial, that have some positive tendencies in the general discourse about the effects of fairy-tale films. Nothing against triviality, but it is important to develop a critical perspective in dealing with trivial films. The great German philosopher of hope, Ernst Bloch, loved to experience and study all forms of “trivial” and popular art, but he argued that we should look for “traces” of hope that illuminate our human struggles and shed light on how we might resolve them. In this respect, Short’s book is certainly significant, but it seems to me that she might do better by sharpening her perspective and joining more with critics who share her views rather than falsely set them up as targets.
--------
[Review length: 1595 words • Review posted on March 25, 2015]