As a parent of two boys, I have developed an interest in literature and stories designed for children. From board books to primers to chapter books, movies and shows I have brought the same critical eye I bring to literature and my own work to the stories designed for… my kids. At some point in my experience as a college credit plus professor, I came to teach a piece from Maria Tatar found in a volume of classic fairy tales; in our case it is the excerpt from the 12th edition of Behrens and Rosen’s Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. In this excerpt simply titled “An Introduction to Fairy Tales,” she cites Bruno Bettelheim as positing that children derive strength and confidence from stories:
"In his landmark study, The Uses of Enchantment, Bettelheim argued that fairy tales have a powerful therapeutic value, teaching children that “a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable.” “If one does not shy away,” Bettelheim added with great optimism, “but steadfastly meets unexpected an often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious...By entering the world of fantasy and imagination, children and adults secure for themselves a safe space where fears can be confronted, mastered, and banished. Beyond that, the real magic of the fairy tale lies in its ability to extract pleasure from pain. In bringing to life the dark figures of our imagination as ogres, witches, cannibals, and giants, fairy tales may stir up dread, but in the end they always supply the pleasure of seeing it vanquished."
When Hansel and Gretel triumph over their would-be murderer, children understand what it means to use wit and cunning to outsmart the adults. Similarly, when Harry and Ron and Hermione break the adults’ rules in the name of the greater good, kids feel empowered. Kids and teens are a powerless lot, so I think it’s a wonderful notion that they can become empowered through good storytelling. Is the same true for adults? Are hopeful and courageous stories about heroes overcoming villains purely kids stuff?
I have always been a critic of Disney because their translations of classic fairy tales water down the struggle. For instance we never see the Little Mermaid turn to sea foam for placing a crush above her own inherent talents, nor do we see the sea witch in her underwater castle made of skulls carving the very tongue from her head. In the case of Beauty and the Beast Disney is perhaps at fault for creating a more horrifically behaved Beast, sending the message that if we “just hang in there” we can change an abusive partner. What I’m getting at is that they don’t seem to know what they’re doing, and that’s a problem. I realize that in the current climate that has indicted Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer and “Baby it’s Cold Outside” I’m in danger of being labeled a whiner by claiming that these adaptations encourage girls to a) abandon their voice to attract the attention of a male, and b) to hang in there and try and change a miserable bastard of a partner. What I’m further expressing is that if we apply Bettelheim’s logic to storytelling for children, then our very own children, when exposed to luke-warm conflicts, or the wrong sort of resolution, will not be as strong nor as confident as they otherwise could have been. Disney is, in my opinion, often guilty of having been more interested in selling princess merchandise than in helping to build strong children.
Of course one could claim that this is changing and point to stories like Frozen, Moana, and Brave, but I still think marketing trumps any altruistic desire to build strong children, and those characters were only created due to social and cultural backlash against Disney’s limp female “damsel in distress” characters. And here we are considering movies and books in the same category. I don’t, personally, think reading a story, or having one read to you, can ever be replaced by a cinematic experience, but culturally we will try because there’s more money to be made in films... and all that princess merchandise. So, now that Disney owns Marvel, what’s going to happen to the comics that have depicted the triumph Bettelheim may have been talking about in his Uses of Enchantment?
Comic books are near and dear to my heart as I have been reading them since I was 10 years old. Comics contain some pretty hair-raising conflicts, and I like to think that I am stolid, brave, worthy, and responsible, and that my character was in-part shaped by characters like Wolverine, the Punisher, and Spider-man who persevere in the face of danger, don’t back down from a fight, and recognize that with great power there must also come - great responsibility! But comics, like Disney and fairy tales, are for kids, right? And besides, who would read a comic when we can just go and watch the movie in XD 3D 4K!?
So where are the stories intended to inspire for adults? Grownup literature is filled with heartbreaking stories of loss and existential angst and death and unrequited love and… the list goes on. Maybe I am still a naive reader, but the overwhelming message I take from most “adult” literature is that life is tragic, and at the very least constricting, that love and hope do not triumph over death and despair, and the only inspiration is that we should grit our teeth and walk in the rain like a broken Hemingway character. Now of course Hemingway believed that being broken by the world was inevitable, and he even believed that we grow back stronger in the broken places, but why don’t we get to see any of that in his literature? Where are the hopeful stories for adults? Where is the powerful happy ending? Where are the great modern literary stories about bravery, and worthiness, and responsibility? Why do tragedies often have more literary merit than comedies? Creon, before he sends Antigone to her death says that if we were allowed to wail our own dirges we’d never stop… There’s no end to our whining about how life is unfair! And, it seems, we call the bulk of this whining classic literature.
Because my wife is interested in this podcast I was listening to My Favorite Murder on the way into work today, and Georgia was telling the story of Reyna Marroquin. In an uncharacteristically elegant moment, Georgia said that while serial killers and the gruesome details of murder are intriguing, the thing that actually compels her to love and to tell the stories of murder is “You want to know how there are good people out there trying their best to at least put a period on a horrible sentence… that’s at least humane… insane human fucking stories of crazy adversity that happens all the fucking time to people all around us…” Karen said, “Unpack it all, investigate it all and find out how much this person actually means.” That’s what literature is. The unpacking of, as Prince would say, “this thing called life” to figure out what it means.
I just wish it was a bit more hopeful is all.
Maybe I should choose a different podcast, or a different writer? Perhaps you’re correct. Perhaps feeling disenchanted with adult storytelling is my own fault because I seek to be immunized by literature the way Houseman suggested Mithridates sought to be immunized by poison. Maybe I’m trying to immunize myself against an illness that doesn’t even exist?
Perhaps I should go back to reading the comics I’ve grown up with and ignore reality. Besides, what is reality, exactly? Thoreau said, reality is not what we look at, it’s what we see. I’ve been taking great pains to express what I see when I look at literature. And Disney. And comics.
A literary piece I’ve grown very fond of over the last few years is August Wilson’s Fences. It is a story about the bone crushing reality of racism, dishonesty, and death with all the hope of love and new beginnings. It is truly marvelous. I’d love to be able to write something that represents the darkness of the world while weaving in the hopeful colors of new beginnings.
When it comes to teaching teenagers… here’s where I struggle. I want to help them and build them to be strong. What stories might do this? Is it different for every kid? Will a story about a courageous teen empower them to be courageous? Is it that easy? Is it that easy with small children? I remember pretending to be Robocop at the age of 8 or 9. I felt powerful walking down the street after seeing a snippet of the movie and drawing an imaginary pistol from my robotic leg, but was it the right kind of powerful? What is the right kind of powerful? Is a popular American film capable of expressing it?
Tatar also claims that stories of heroism do not necessary make heroes. Well, it can’t hurt to try, right? Be strong, readers. Life is not as grim as some would have us believe, and stories of bravery and goodness and love go untold every single day. May all of us one day have the courage to tell them.
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