Fairy Tales: American Traditions
Based in part on a Smithsonian Associates lecture by Dr. Sara Cleto and Dr. Brittany Warman
Fairy tales, we’re told, contain magic, whereas folktales rarely do.
Originating in the 1800 British Isles, Jack Tales are a cycle of folk stories considered a staple of Cornish and English literature. “Jack the Giant Killer” – the most popular version published in 1890- and “Little Jack Horner” are examples. Here, the stories became especially popular in Appalachia. Scholar Carl Lindahl observes that in England, magic worked “for” Jack, while it America, it worked against him. Our home-grown hero was a modest, underestimated boy from a rural background who managed to succeed in improving his lot with luck, (sometimes unscrupulous) cleverness, and imagination. He fixed what went awry and/or overcame situations. So much for hard work and honesty winning out.
(Public Domain {{PD-US-expired}})
In 1943, Richard Chase collected 16 yarns from a storytelling family headed by Sam Harmon of Tennessee who carried on an oral tradition. He titled the book The Jack Tales. It espouses that someone without advantages can affect those who have them. In poorer regions of the country, the stories were aspirational.
A Jack Tale featuring royalty was the exception. When it did, the men (inevitably) didn’t take advantage of privilege. 1945’s Jack and The Green Man by Louise Fontaine Mann was handed down through five generations. (Green men, faces surrounded by leaves, have long adorned British architecture.)That iteration owes both to nursery rhymes – “the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker” are included and classic fairy tales – it speaks of royalty, courtiers and palaces.
Jack is a prince with no pretensions. He tries to solve a community problem, fights, then plays cards with a green man who cheats and wins. In order not to become his opponent’s slave, Jack must complete difficult tasks. Not for a moment does the young man solicit his father’s help. Before its time, aid comes from a smart independent woman whom he eventually marries.
Black folk and fairy tales rise from a different tradition. Author Zora Neale Thurston said, “Folklore is the boiled down juice of human living.” The hosts admit there’s not as much scholarship in this area as there should be and recommend The Annotated African American Folktales edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar. “Africans brought their languages, their music, their gods…which were crucial components of identity formation and psychic survival under the harshest circumstances,” Gates Jr. wrote.
Br’er Rabbit tales were popular in the American south and Caribbean. A trickster animal, very like Jack, outsmarts authority. The game changer was Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus (1881) the most popular black character in American history. Disney adapted Harris’ tales for the now racially problematic Song of the South.
As rewritten and edited by a White writer primarily for a White audience, the stories romanticized the antebellum south and slavery. African American Uncle Remus entertains his little White master. “As far as I’m concerned, he stole a great part of my heritage,” Alice Walker commented about Harris. Bi-racial author Charles Waddell Chesnutt countered Uncle Remus with aged former slave Uncle Julius McAdoo who narrated The Conjure Woman (in 1889) stories that included brutalities of the slave regime. Also by Chesnutt, The Stolen Voice utilizes aspects of The Little Mermaid (voice), Beauty and the Beast (magic roses), and Snow White (a magic mirror).
Fairy tales today, our hosts suggest, come from the dominant tradition of animator, producer, writer, creator of theme parks, Walt Disney (1901-1966). The first full length animated film was 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It took four years to make and was called “Disney’s Folly.” By 1939, the movie was, to date, the highest grossing of all time.
Snow White opened during The Depression. Emphasis on the dwarfs’ work ethic, their responsibility and collaboration was no accident. (It was the first version of the story in which they were given names.) Nor was the heroine’s innate hope and ability to carry on in challenging circumstances coincidental. The studio had an “aha” moment. Pinocchio (1940), Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and others followed. After Walt’s death, the studio veered away from animated films until the late 1980s when The Little Mermaid ushered in a new era including Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Frozen I and II, Tangled…
Disney versions have always softened rough edges, changing anything thought to be graphic, immoral, or questionable. They’ve also made personalities of characters, added details to situations, and filled narrative gaps. (Original fairy tales are often short.) Author Tracey Mollet has written that “prevailing national myths about America, its people and character” are learned internationally from Disney cartoons. They’re culturally very important. A BBC documentary called Disney: The Fairy Tale Years can be found on YouTube
Doctors Cleto and Warman will present a program on Anderson Fairy Tales May 25
My only caveat is that showing onscreen type of almost exactly what’s being said is a waste of visuals.
Opening Image: Illustration in English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (Public Domain)
