How Disney Parks Affect How We View Fairy Tales

I'm back! The trip was fantastic. Exhausting, as I expected, but totally worth it!

After some days of performance we spent a very anticipated day in Disney World's Magic Kingdom. If you think about it, the experience of Disney Parks-from the rides to the shows and characters-are really just a different way of storytelling. In high school I watched Disney's "Snow White" and realized that, if I had ever seen it before, it was so long ago I barely remembered it. But I thought I had seen it-I was familiar with the characters, music, and basic plot. Such is the effect of riding the ride, seeing the characters march by in parades, looking at the merchandise, etc.-viewers are still familiar with the Disney versions of fairy tales even if they've never seen the movie. The rides are such a short, truncated version of the Disney movies-they remind you of the major scenes of the movie in five minutes or less, keeping that specific version prominent in your mind, especially if visitors to the park aren't regularly reading/watching other versions.

The last time I was in Disney World was five years ago so I got to see the new Fantasyland addition for the first time. And as a lifelong Beauty and the Beast fan, it was incredible to see scenes from the movie in life size.

We got to eat in the Be Our Guest restaurant, which allows you to dine in either the library (which looked nothing like the library in the movie, didn't even have any books), the West Wing, or the ballroom. We also walked through the hall of armor and got to take pictures by the stained glass window.

I was thrilled that my buddy for the week was my very good friend Christy, a 17-year old young woman with Down Syndrome, who was actually the junior bridesmaid in our wedding. Long time readers may remember some of her fairy tale artwork or when I blogged about the experience of watching Disney's Sleeping Beauty with her and her reactions. 

Two Beauty and the Beast illustrations done by Christy for me in years past

One thing that was new to me this trip was the whole experience of meeting characters. It was never something my family was really into (the picture of me with Belle and the Beast is an exception). They train each actor with knowledge of the movie they are in, having them mention trivia about their character during your visit, so it  really enhances the feeling that they are real characters with a life even beyond their Disney movie.

Meeting the princesses and heroes was fun for the students in our group, but I really enjoyed visiting Gaston. First of all, we weren't actually in the line, his shift was almost over, so we were just watching. But he saw two adorable girls with Down Syndrome, one in a wheelchair, and when he was done with the people in the line, he came over to us and brought our students over to him! In general the cast members at Disney seem to have a soft heart for people with disablities, but a special thank you to Gaston!

Christy asked him why he was so mean to the Beast. Gaston replied that he wasn't mean; he was the nice one (because he had a nice face). He also had this whole theory-which is actually something that fans and critics of the movie have brought up before-that the Beast was really an imposter, because where did he come from? If he was the Prince, where were his parents, i.e. the reigning King and Queen? How is he a Prince if he apparently has no kingdom? He also called the Beast Belle's dog, and twice insulted my shirt, saying it was horrible:

I was wearing this tank top from Hot Topic last year, no longer available

Hearing Gaston's point of view was interesting for me, and really made Christy think. The rest of the day she kept asking questions, "Why did he say he didn't like your shirt? I don't understand" (even after repeated attempts at explanation) and "Why did he call the Beast a dog? Is the Beast a dog?" She struggles a bit with abstract thinking, but that's what's so great about exposing kids to the fact that, while he might be lying, Gaston would have a different point of view than Belle or the Beast. Christy was great though, continued to challenge him, and when Gaston was showing off his muscles she whipped out her own biceps:

Then, the highlight of the trip: meeting Elsa and Anna. So, Christy has loved Sleeping Beauty for years, but like most other young girls has become OBSESSED with Frozen lately. She knows all the words to all the songs and will tell the plot of the movie, in depth, to anyone who will listen (as well as those who are tired of listening...). So we knew we had to use our fastpasses to skip the three hour line (!!!) to see the characters. 

Now I'm pretty sure Christy doesn't think the characters are actually real, she will ask which people do the voices for some of her favorite cartoon characters and she's seen different plays so she's aware of the concept of actors playing parts. But even if she logically knows, partly, the characters aren't the ones from the movie, she takes them very seriously. All day long she was practicing what things to say to Elsa-she was going to tell her she was her favorite Queen because she has powers, she loves snow, and all her favorite parts of the movie. When it was finally her turn, she excitedly greeted them each by name like they were long lost friends, and ran up to Elsa and gave her a hug. It was so precious I was actually crying as I was snapping pictures...

Here is Elsa noticing her own face on Christy's shirt:

 Anna noticed that Christy also happens to have a gray streak of hair, and was very excited, jumped up and down and said, "we're twins!" Christy LOVED it, the rest of the evening when we saw people from our group she would tell them, "Guess WHAT!! We saw Elsa and Anna, and she saw my HAIR!! We're TWINS!!!"

 I can only imagine what effect this kind of meeting has on a child afterwards. If they were already fans of the character, now he or she will go home and be even more connected to the movie. Christy now has a personal connection with her heroes, who called her by name and noticed similarities between them. She also got a souvenir Frozen storybook from the gift shop and was showing it to everyone, and the next day poring over it in the airport.

And unfortunately for us, meeting the characters in a believable way makes it even harder for kids to accept that the Disney version of a fairy tale is NOT definitive. I didn't bother trying to tell older versions of the fairy tales on this trip; with this audience of mostly concrete thinkers it would be more confusing than anything else, and I didn't want to ruin their special day. Although another day of the trip we were on a lake that had several swans swimming, and Christy was very excited, saying, "It's Swan Lake!" (she's really into ballet too) and we named all the white swans Odette and the black ones Odile.

I'd love to hear from other people-how have your experiences in the Disney parks affected you/young people of your acquaintance, especially in how you thought of fairy tales?

Fairy Tale Apps for Kids

StoryToys has a whole series of fairy tale-themed 3-D pop up apps. These seem like a fun way to get younger kids (and possibly bored adults) discovering traditional, non-Disney versions of fairy tales. (Although...many of the characters' wardrobes/hairstyles are definitely influenced by Disney. But sometimes kids can be deterred when they see a character that looks nothing like the one they are familiar with, so it could help draw kids in)

Grimm's Red Riding Hood

Beauty and the Beast

The Little Mermaid

Puss in Boots

Grimm's Snow White

Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

Grimm's Hansel and Gretel

Grimm's Rapunzel

Grimm's Bookshelf (looks like this one allows you to play one game from each book in the fairy tale series)

Thumbelina

Each link will lead you to a video trailer for the app, with story pages and games. The series has gotten good reviews, but keep in mind it does seem geared for pretty young kids. Over the past years, Heidi of Surlalune shared links to a Hans Christian Andersen app and a different Red Riding Hood app; Gypsy from Once Upon a Blog has featured a Goldilocks story app and recently a Maleficent ibook and that seem geared towards slightly older children.

In addition, a simple google search will lead you to many more fairy tale apps-I really had no idea there were so many since I'm usually a good ten years behind when it comes to technology, and besides have no children and therefore am not looking for apps for kids. Here is a post featuring Four Fantastic Fairy Tale Apps (Including one from the StoryToys featured above, and one for Snow Queen!), and here's a list of fairy tale stories available on Itunes, by Lazy Bird, Inc. Any other discoveries or recommendations?

Piano Adventures: Jack and the Beanstalk

The piano series I usually teach from, Piano Adventures, has a song in the Level 1 Performance book entitled "Jack and the Beanstalk."

I hadn't thought anything about it was especially blog-worthy; musically I like how it uses a step-wise ascending pattern to portray Jack climbing up the beanstalk, and at the end the student gets to portray Jack "falling" down through falling not clusters that they enjoy playing. But I did realize recently that in the words, this song omits the giant entirely.

I'm sure it has to do mostly with finding words that fit in a short little song, but I also wouldn't be surprised if the creators of the series wanted to avoid hinting that Jack caused a violent death. We in the fairy tale world lament how these stories become so sanitized and made family friendly, but I do understand how you'd want to avoid being sued by the three upset parents out of the thousands of happy parents and teachers. Being Level 1, this book is generally played by fairly young students anyway.

Also-their bio in Amazon says that the creators of this series, Nancy and Randall Faber, have been commissioned to write a version of "Snow Queen" for narrator and orchestra. This could be a great way to introduce young kids to that fairy tale, especially those who have so recently been exposed to/obsessed with  "Frozen"! I can't find any other information on it though, if anyone else knows any details please chime in via the comments...

Little Red Writing Hood

This would really fit as a part of my recent post "Fairy Tale Lesson Plans," but one of my students was just telling me about the play her class is putting on. When I heard it was a fairy tale mashup I was of course fascinated.

The play (which may be this one? I don't think so though) begins with Little Red Writing Hood, who has the script to her own story and others, and she uses her pencil to make changes to the script. When the wolf comes, she doesn't want to be eaten, so she changes him into a ballerina to make him harmless (although, ballet dancers are STRONG and have incredible endurance, so I wouldn't necessarily choose that but, you know, fourth grade play). When Goldilocks is being chased by the bears, Writing Hood changes her into a bear cub and the family adopts her. Writing Hood introduces Prince Charming to Little Miss Muffett, etc.

Harry Clarke

At first I was thinking, all right, a play that encourages empowerment and learning from other people's mistakes, and hopefully inspires a love of writing and the ability to create your own stories, that's great. But then in the second half, Writing Hood's changes have begun to get out of hand. Goldilocks doesn't want to be a bear any more, Charming wants to take Miss Muffett to the ball so now Cinderella is all alone, and none of the solutions were as simple as she thought-and now she's run out of eraser. Enter the FBI-the Fairy tale Believers Incorporated (haha). They take over and change the script back to what it was supposed to be, because "fairy tales shouldn't be changed." When Writing Hood protests that she doesn't want to be eaten by the wolf, the FBI reminds her that she knows she'll get rescued.

Does this ending possibly contradict the empowerment/learning from mistakes that I thought at the beginning? Maybe. Whenever there's a story that involves magic or supernatural abilities, I think it is important to address the possibility of such powerful forces getting out of our control. The world of Faerie is dark and the creatures there are known for being tricksters and not bending to the will of humans easily. And there is definitely truth to the concept that we can't just avoid all unpleasant experiences in life-sometimes we just have to endure things, although I don't blame anyone for wanting to avoid being eaten alive by a wolf.

*Fairy Tale Mashups-Christian Lindemann

I just think the conclusion is very telling. Many people have this idea that fairy tales are sacred and don't realize that the versions we now know as "traditional" underwent many, many changes to become that way. With all of these new versions of fairy tales coming out, it can be so tricky to  reinterpret the tales in a way that isn't ignorant of the tale's history or other modern versions. People grew up with traditional tales (whether Grimm or Disney or probably a combination thereof) and some people are resistant to the idea of changing these stories that resonated with us so much in childhood.

Being an elementary school play we shouldn't read into it too much, but it still reflects how people interact with fairy tales, and to any kid who is ever in that play, the story will probably stick with them for a while.

Fairy Tale Lesson Plans

Jessie Wilcox Smith

A friend of mine is an elementary school teacher, and she mentioned that when she taught second grade, they did a unit on fairy tales. Naturally my curiosity was piqued and I asked her more about how and what they taught. It seems the primary source of knowledge children have about fairy tales these days is Disney movies. Children may be exposed through books they have at home, and what they learn at school, but that's up to each parent and school district.

So a school curriculum that includes education on fairy tales can be a vital way of exposing children to fairy tales, but I wonder what kids are actually being taught. Which versions are teachers using? Which tales do they choose? And what are kids being told to take away from the lessons? Many versions are very didactic already and I would hope lessons on Little Red Riding Hood went beyond "and that's why it's important to listen to your parents, kids, otherwise something horrible might happen to you like it happened in the story!"

I did a simple google search to look into some of the fairy tale lesson plans that were out there. The good news is there's plenty of materials for anyone hoping to teach on fairy tales. I was pleasantly surprised to see some lists of resources recommending lesser known fairy tales, as well as alternate versions of tales. In addition to basic comprehension/reading skills, teachers can use fairy tales to help their kids notice patterns and then make predictions about what might happen in an unknown tale; they expose their students to fractured fairy tales, and they can compare and contrast different versions of tales, such as this chart from abcteach.com comparing Cinderella to Yeh Shen:

What a great learning tool! One thing my friend and I had both noticed when interacting with kids about non-Disney versions is this idea that the version they are familiar with is "right." Kids will interrupt a story with "that's not what happens!" or see a picture of a non-Disney princess and claim, "that's not Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella/etc.!" So it requires education just to convince them that there is a world of fairy tales outside of what they are familiar with, and the very concept of different versions.

Some lesson plans I came across that I didn't like as much. They tended to reinforce stereotypical/not even accurate ideas of fairy tales. These are from Pinterest:

Fairy tales were not actually originally written for children...They were mainly told for other adults, often to pass the time as they worked in the fields and homes.

I like that whoever made this chart recognized the pattern of 3 and 7 (a great way to use fairy tales to cross over to math), but the happy endings are not necessarily always there. Fairies and godmothers are actually most often NOT part of fairy tales. And illustrations are pretty much just in children's book versions of fairy tales, they are not integral to the genre.

But, does an elementary teacher have to be an absolute expert in everything they teach? It's good that kids are being exposed to different kinds of fairy tales at all, right? And although some ideas about fairy tales may not always be true, like the happy endings, in general that is the case.

I'm curious to hear from you-do you remember being taught fairy tales in school? How were you taught? And any other teachers out there? Have you taught on the topic, and what resources and teaching tools did you use? As a music teacher I love teaching Prokofiev's "Cinderella" to kindergarteners or first graders and talking about how he uses an orchestra to make the sound of the clock striking midnight. I have them count each bell toll to see if it's too late for Cinderella to be at the ball, and they get really excited as they get close to twelve! I've also used ballet scores to Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Nutcracker either in Russian music units, or to weave in the storytelling.