Happy Birthday, Jacob Grimm

[filkertom]

On this date in 1785. He became famous for being transformed by cosmic rays into the Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed...






... Sorry. Wrong guy. This Grimm, and his brother Wilhelm, collected Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Different approach from normal: What fairy tales bug you the most? For me, trying to describe the plot of Rumplestiltskin is like trying to describe the plot of The Rocky Horror Show. It makes absolutely no frickin' sense at all.

Comments

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

First of all, I know that in the 1950's someone rewrote some nursery rhymes to make them more (what we would call today) politically correct. So the "three KIND mice" went to the farmer's wife, who "cut them some cheese with a carving knife."

There's always people who wanted to soften the original fairy tales.

That being said, I'm not terribly happy with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Even the original movie version had Willy Wonka as...well, a sadist and child-abuser. And the Oompa-Loompas were chanting his moral lessons, long after learning them would have done any good for the people involved. Like a domme saying, "You didn't call me mistress! You should have known you had to do that! Here's a hot soldering iron in your eye!"

A perfect story for a child suffering abuse; don't cause trouble and maybe someday Daddy will stop beating you and will love you.

If Roald Dahl were living today in the State of Florida, I get the feeling I'd see him on a newscast being taken away with a lot of deputies surrounding him, to prevent the bereaved parents from lynching him before the trial and inevitable execution. And the news cameras panning his back yard where the bodies were buried.

And before you ask, yes, his story makes me believe he WAS that bad.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the books since I was a child (my copies were destroyed when the basement flooded) and my memory isn't that clear, but I have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. My impression of Willy Wonka was not of a sadist; when he's mean to Charlie (the "You've broken the Rules" bit) it was a necessary test of Charlie's character which was painful to Willy.

As to the aspersions you cast on Dahl, if authors aren't allowed to have any character do anything the least bit objectionable without being condemned as if they'd done it themselves, books are going to be a complete waste of time.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

I'm referring to Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. What are these books of which you speak? No one reads any more! You can forget the Johnny Depp version of Willy Wonka (or the "Gay Willy Wonka" as the kids in the neighborhood called him) - I don't want to get into Wonka as a disciple of Michael Jackson.

And the idea of frightening and beating up children to "test their character" is something I would expect of, say, Ed Gein...or a fictional character like The Joker. (You HAVE seen "Batman Beyond: The Return of The Joker," right? His treatment of the Tim Drake Robin is perfectly in line with the Willy Wonka School of Beating the Crap Out Of Kids For Their Own Good.)

And as for your statement, when a person performs an immoral act - especially in a book for children, when the victims are children - there has to be some kind of moral redress. There wasn't. Were I a judge, I would have thrown Wonka into prison for fifteen years, to occupy a cell with Bubba - well, in Britain, I suppose it'd have to be Ronnie - where his outfit and attitude would make sure that HE was the one who would be forced to wear the dress.

But no, Wonka gets appreciated for his act of child abuse. Freddy "Wonka" Krueger wins. Makes me want to smack that purple top hat off his head and spray him with a man's cologne for a change.

[batyatoon]

If you're referring to the movie, you've got startlingly little basis on which to condemn Dahl. Read the book first, please?

Also, even in the film, Wonka doesn't actually do anything to the kids. He just fails to protect them from the consequences of their own actions, every one of which he warns them against taking.

You could get him on child endangerment, hell yeah, but you'd be hard put to it to get him on abuse. And endangering children to test their character is something fictional adult good guys do all the time. Adult good guys like, f'rinstance, Batman.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

Okay. On the one hand we have young kids who want to become crimefighters deliberately choosing to be trained by dangerous methods. And they know that The Batman is nobody's friend, especially not the friend of kids.

On the other we have kids expecting a nice factory tour, damn near killed by a guy who hates them and probably the whole human race. (How many kids died from diabetes and heart attacks from eating all those crappy Wonka bars to find those golden tickets, any way?) You seem to have mistaken Batman for the Frank Miller version of The Joker - another guy who poisoned a lot of kids with a sugary product.

And I tell you again, in caps, so maybe you'll get it this time, PRINT IS DEAD. The original Wonka books don't matter. What matters is that Dahl approved of the film with this top-hatted Ed Gein. Those books were never read by one hundreth of the kids who went to see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show for Kids," as one author called the film. The film is the only text that matters, because that's the only one people know about.

If you want to blame something for that situation, blame the incompetents who call themselves "America's finest teachers" for the inability of this generation to read, as well as their indifference to text. But don't blame me. I'm just introducing you to what's happening in reality.

[batyatoon]

And I tell you again, in caps, so maybe you'll get it this time, PRINT IS DEAD.

I do hope you appreciate the irony of telling me this in a text-based format.

The original Wonka books don't matter.... The film is the only text that matters, because that's the only one people know about.

That, of course, depends entirely on what you mean by "matters." Popularity is an important gauge for story power, of course, but hardly the only one.

And I've seen this generation's indifference to text firsthand, in the form of long long long lines to buy the next Harry Potter book -- much longer than the lines to see the next movie. I was working in a school when the third Potter movie came out, and polled the kids who'd seen it; every one of them had read the book first (multiple times!), and every one of them said the book was better.

Sorry to crush your cynicism, but print's alive and well.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Okay. Number One: Dahl *wrote the script for the Gene Wilder movie*, as well as the book on which it is based. So Dahl does bear some responsibility for the movie itself. That said, Number Two: Wilder's W.W. is much scarier than the character in the novel, IMO. And nastier too: the "You've broken the Rules" bit is *NOT* in the novel. At all. (Having read the book a year or two before the movie came out, I was shocked when we got to that scene in the movie.) I don't really know why Dahl remade the movie Wonka into a borderline nutcase, when the guy in the book came across as "eccentric but somewhat lovable" to me.

[batyatoon]

I was utterly shocked when that bit came up in the movie. And also by the earlier bit that leads into it, where Charlie and his grandpa taste the Fizzy Lifting Drinks. Because the whole point in the book is that Charlie doesn't break the Rules, and he's the only kid who doesn't.

It's a bit of a shock to me now to hear that Dahl wrote the script for the Gene Wilder movie. I wasn't even sure how it made sense that he'd approved it.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

OK, imdb.com doesn't give a screenplay credit for the movie -- but the poster (which a non-LJ friend has) says "Screenplay by Roald Dahl" followed by "Based On His Book..." What struck me about the movie, even at a young age, was how well the movie followed the novel -- about as well as a movie musical could, really -- *except* for those two scenes! And you're absolutely right about the point of the novel.