The King of Blah

There are worse hymns than “The King of Love my Shepherd Is,” a text based closely on Psalm 23 (or 22? the DRV has ruined my sense of psalm numbering for life).  The old text is indeed a gem:

1 The King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never.
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine forever.
2 Where streams of living water flow,
my ransomed soul he leadeth;
and where the verdant pastures grow,
with food celestial feedeth.
3 Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
but yet in love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.
4 In death's dark vale I fear no ill,
with thee, dear Lord, beside me;
thy rod and staff my comfort still,
thy cross before to guide me.
5 Thou spreadst a table in my sight;
thy unction grace bestoweth;
and oh, what transport of delight
from thy pure chalice floweth!
6 And so through all the length of days,
thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise
within thy house forever.

Unfortunately, the text they gave us on Sunday was … well, not bowdlerized or demasculinized but certainly dumbed down.

1 The king of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness fails me never;
I nothing lack if I am his
and he is mine for ever.
2 Where streams of living water flow
a ransomed soul, he leads me;
and where the fertile pastures grow,
with food from heaven feeds me.
3 Perverse and foolish I have strayed,
but in his love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.
4 In death's dark vale I fear no ill
with you, dear Lord, beside me;
your rod and staff my comfort still,
your cross before to guide me.
5 You spread a banquet in my sight
of grace beyond all knowing;
and, oh, the wonder and delight
from your pure chalice flowing!
6 And so through all the length of days
your goodness fails me never:
Good Shepherd, may I sing your praise
within your house for ever!

Is it really so difficult for modern churchgoers to understand words like “celestial” or phrases like “transports of delight”?  Does the occasional “thee” or “-eth” burn the ears of our modern Puritans?  (Indeed, I’m astonished that the word “perverse” escaped the censor’s snip.)  Oh, those old fashioned words wouldn’t be relatable.  Pardon me.  That’s why we read two-year-olds books with only a two-year-old’s vocabulary and grammatical structure: so the toddlers can “relate” to their entertainment.

All sarcasm aside, here is a lovely polyphonic setting of the psalm by Bach.  And if Bach isn’t quite to your taste, CPDL has a setting by Hassler, if only some kind soul would record it!  I think the words are appropriate enough for Thanksgiving, no?  And also for funerals.  Thus we hit all the end-of-November stops.  You may thank me when we meet … later.

Der Herr ist mein getreuer Hirt, BWV 112 (Johann Sebastian Bach)

Homo Erectus

My long-running obsession with justice and judgment (fed by the current dissertation chapter) has made the words pop out everywhere; Scripture, of course, is full of the ideas.  And in mulling over the Hosea reading mentioned in my last post, it occurred to me that the obsession may appear a little grisly to anyone not writing an academic chapter focused on the topic.  “Justice” brings to mind such disturbing phrases as “the justice system” or “Justice Kavanaugh”; our ear catches at a word and surrounds it with the auras of other words with which we are used to hearing it matched.  Nor is it of any help if our mind interposes the more apropos phrase “a just God,” for it is generally uttered these days in doubt or mockery or, at best, when trying to lay doubt and mockery to rest.  Justice sounds like a sham; and if it dares enter our heads to think of real justice, most of us (we tell ourselves rightly) tremble.

I think it need not and ought not to be that way.  The Hosea reading suggests that there is a sort of incipient “justice” we human beings should cultivate in our lives on earth; if we do that, we need not fear when Divine Justice rains down.  But I think one can go farther than the cryptic metaphors of the Old testament prophet.  His image of our justice springing up to meet Another’s coming down, with its insistence on the perpendicularity of the arrangement, calls to mind another common translation of whatever biblical word is being rendered in English as “just”: upright.

Just, upright, erect.  The former two are synonyms, as are the latter two, although the first and the third do not share a common meaning.  But with good reason Hosea calls up the image of grain growing erect towards the sky: there is a coordination between standing erect and being just, an inherent symbolism that is not a merely human invention.  The etymology tells the story: the thing that we call just is also called being upright; to be just is our birthright as human beings, and what distinguishes us from other animals; it is no terrifying external imposition; it is as natural to us (in one sense) spiritually as walking erect is physically.  We stand erect because that is an image of how we ought to stand internally: upright.  To be upright, that is, pointing up at the sun, is natural for flowers that draw from its rays their strength.  In an upright human being who does the same, we say briefly and without comprehension that he is “just.”  What we really mean is that, like the sunflower, he stretches naturally towards the Sun of Justice from which all the rectitude of his nature comes.

To Live Is to Follow the Light

Christians throughout the world recently celebrated the feast of the Epiphany, some on the traditional date of Jan. 6 (the “Twelfth Night” of the twelve days of Christmas) and others on the nearest Sunday (this year, Jan. 7).  In many cultures, Epiphany is a little Christmas.  Just as Dec. 25 commemorates Jesus Christ’s manifestation to his own people, the Jews, so Epiphany commemorates his manifestation to the gentiles, in the person of the wise men whose arrival is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew.

The wise men or magi, sometimes called “kings” in reference to Old Testament prophecies of kings of the East visiting the Messiah, followed a star which led them to Bethlehem, to the house where Jesus lay.  They had some knowledge of astronomy, enough to know that the star was unusual; and the astrology to which the ancients gave credit led them to believe that this astronomical phenomenon heralded the birth of a new king of the Jews.

Still, they must have felt there was something more to the strange light than that.  After all, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar (as tradition names them) were not Jews themselves, and the Jewish people were not prominent in world affairs.  Why did the magi care about the birth of a new king in a minor foreign nation?  The star boded something more, suggested some ramifications personal to them, or larger than what they admitted to Herod.

Perhaps one indication of what they expected, or at least what they found, lies in the gospel for the earlier epiphany.

The Gospel for Christmas Mass during the Day does not come from the infancy narratives, but from John: “In the beginning was the Word …”  As John continues, clarifying the relation between the Messiah and God as one of identity, he adds the following:

“All things came to be through [the Word], and without him nothing came to be.  What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race.” —from the USCCB readings for the Mass for Christmas Day.

John explains the Word’s creative role in terms of two fundamental things: life, and light.  Unfortunately, this is one of the many places where translation confuses.  The USCCB translation says that “What came to be through him was life,” but the Douay-Rheims has the more familiar “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”  This is a straightforward translation of the Vulgate, which reads “In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum.”

Read the rest at the Register.

Life

John 1:4:

“What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race.”

—from the USCCB readings for the Mass for Christmas Day.

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

—from the Douay-Rheims.

“In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum.”

—from the Vulgate.

“εν αυτω ζωη ην και η ζωη ην το φως των ανθρωπων.”

—from the Greek.

The precarious word here is “en” which, like a lot of Greek prepositions (and for that matter, English and Latin ones) is slippery in meaning.  It could stand for in, by, or with—and probably a lot of other things I don’t know about.  Jerome, obviously, chose to translate it “in.”  I suspect the USCCB translation is relying on the other meanings, especially “by”.  “By him was life” sounds very much like a clumsy or idiomatic way of saying “By his power, life came to be” (or, as the official translation says with more circumlocution, “What came to be through him was life”)—and this is especially true in the context of the preceding verse, where “He” is described as responsible for the making of all things.  So—with apologies once again to Jerome—“in him was life” is kind of weak sauce by comparison.

Why is this interesting?

Well, what does it mean to say that the Word of God, Who Is God—now incarnate as Jesus Christ—made life?  (Think for a moment about the curiosity that is life on the merely biological level, of its inexplicability; think too of the thing that we mean when we say “Now that’s really living life.”  This “life” is Divine in origin.  Explains quite a bit, doesn’t it?)

And further, what does it mean to say that the life that God created is “the light of men”?  (Light is that by which we see; it is also that by which we live, physically—not just because our sun happens to be hot and light coincidentally, but also because E=mcc and so forth.  That by which we live is also that by which we see; that by which we see how to live.  Is it too much to find in this line the seeds of the notion of natural law?)

The Count Is Seville

Today we got some fresh farmer’s market fruits and vegetables from a neighbor.  And today, researching how to use three enormous and very green oranges, I finally understood what had long been one of my favorite neglected Shakespearean lines.

It’s one of those difficult lines for actresses, thanks to pronunciation changes from Shakespeare’s day.  Any playgoer who consults his footnote will understand its meaning, but conveying the sense to a nube in the seats is nearly impossible.  It’s one of those fruity Shakespearean jokes that are, alas, ripe for the cutting.

In Much Ado About Nothing, poor Claudio has been informed that his Duke has stolen his girl Hero.  In fact, the Duke has interceded on Claudio’s behalf, and persuaded Hero to agree to marrying the handsome young soldier.  When Claudio’s friends go to collect him so that the Duke can break the good news, Claudio is, understandably, in a sour temper.  He puts on a show of indifference—after all, he can’t very well take a stand against his duke—but underneath he’s seething.  Hero’s cousin Beatrice explains Claudio’s ambiguous humor to the puzzled Duke in the following words:

The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor

well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and

something of that jealous complexion.

The basic joke, as I mentioned, is explained in the footnote of any solid edition.  Beatrice is punning on the word “Seville,” which evidently in Shakespeare’s time must have sounded much closer to “civil” than it now does.  “Civil as an orange” would have been grasped by an audience as “Seville, like an orange,” the city in Spain being, presumably, known for oranges then as it is now.  (Incidentally, this is an interesting illustration of how changing vowel sounds are rarely so much of an issue as changing accents.  If, for example, we now pronounced “Seville” “SEE-vul,” the pun would still be easily rendered in speech.  The fact that we say “civil” “SIH-vul” and “Seville” “suh-VILL” is much more problematic.)

So much for the footnote.  Claudio is of the same jealous complexion as a Seville orange.  Recalling that jealousy is supposed to be green-eyed (itself a Shakespearean coinage—see Iago’s lines to Othello), one naturally supposes that Seville oranges must have arrived in England green, perhaps plucked green from trees by Spanish matadors in the off-season, and shipped to England unripe in order to survive the arduous voyage that even an Armada could not withstand.  Some tough fruit, that.

But no.  As I learned today, oranges are normally green.  I had only been getting half of Beatrice’s joke all these years.

The moral of this story?

(1)  Don’t put green oranges in the windowsill to ripen.

(2)  Never assume Beatrice is telling a lousy joke.

(3)  Always trust a duke named Pedro.

(4)  Shakespeare scholars don’t know everything, even the ones who get paid to write footnotes.

(5)  Someone should hire me to edit a new edition of Much Ado About Nothing.

(6)  We will never really see Shakespeare “the way his audiences saw him.”

(7)  Emma Thompson is an amazing actress.

Anger and Appetite

Paul Cantor's worthwhile lectures on Shakespeare's political plays have made good dinner-prep listening for me for the past month or so.  But they raised a complicated contemporary question in my mind.  According to Cantor (to whom, apologies, since I grossly simplify), the republican regime in Rome was characterized by thumos (see Coriolanus) and the imperial regime by eros (see Antony and Cleopatra).

Thus, the background.  So, my question:

Thinking back to the Platonic understanding of these terms, is Trump more chracterized by thumos or by eros?

Discuss.

The Beauty in the Beast

Part 2 of a series.  Part 1 is here and the latter four parts are here, here, here, and here.

My claim in the previous post might be summarized as follows.  There is an impression running about and shouting (like a chicken with its head cut off) that fairy tales are supposed to be dark.  This is only partially true: fairy tales certainly contain frightening things.  But the fairy tale genre is stylistically ill-equipped to raise and answer psychological, cultural, or moral questions; consequently, a lot of the “darkness” that we see in adaptations of fairy tales is in fact a moral dinginess imposed by our expansion of their narratives.  And in expanding, we have a choice: we can emphasize what is creepy, or what is wholesome (not to sound too Richard Weaver about it).  A “dark” fairy tale movie reflects who we are as a culture as much as (or perhaps more than) it reflects the original fairy tale.

One of my favorite fairy tales, “Beauty and the Beast,” is a case in point.  Had I seen the Disney version at a young age, I am less sure it would have been my favorite; having no source beyond a cassette recording by “Children’s Radio Theater,” I fell in love.  But college came: innocence was lost: I saw Beauty and the Beast, and enjoyed it, without having it displace the original in my heart.

But Jean Cocteau’s version, which I saw about the same time, was different.  I thought then and still think now (subject always to the revision of another viewing) that Cocteau came rather closer to capturing the spirit of the story as it then was known.  As much as Linda Wolverton and co. at Disney borrowed from Cocteau (and observers have noticed all sorts of things, from a Gaston-like rival to an enchanted candlestick), they left out something important: the characters of Belle and the Beast.  These are not very fully fleshed out in the source (again, see my previosu post); but Cocteau’s film seems to develop what is already there, while the Disney team took another direction entirely.  As a result, Cocteau’s film for grownup audiences turns out, counterintuitively, to be less “creepy” than Disney’s, though no less frightening.

For frightening and creepy are not the same thing at all,

 as Meg Murry almost said.

My previous post noted that some viewers were reacting to the buzz around Disney’s new B&B by asserting that the story “glorified Stockholm Syndrome.”   More specifically, some denizens of the Book of Face expressed (perhaps merely rhetorical) concern that B&B implanted on the minds of impressionable young girls the notion that men who held them and/or their aged relatives captive and shouted and threw stuff about were no worse than a bit rough around the edges.  It was unclear, in the critical comments that I encountered, whether this criticism was leveled at the Disney movies specifically, or at all things bearing the title “Beauty and the Beast.”  Given our general state of cultural ignorance, I rather fear the latter.  But the accusation, if it was general, was not merited: there are large differences between the “original” fairy tale, the Cocteau film (1946), and Disney’s 1991 adaptation.  I would argue that these differences make all the difference between a story which “glorifies Stockholm Syndrome” and one which is more subtle and less potentially misleading.

If you have the time for it, I would request that you do a little homework.  Here is a summary of the original fairytale; here is a summary of the film by Cocteau; and here is a summary of the Disney film.

Note that I am cherry-picking based on what I have seen …

there are many versions of the story, from many cultures—

Norse, American Indian, etc.—and the “beastly” character

is sometimes female, as in the “loathly lady” tradition.

If you completed your reading and returned, congratulations!  If you skipped or skimmed your assignment, like ninety-eight percent of my former students, I’ll pull a teacher and powerpoint the relevant differences between Disney et al.

Details	Villeneuve/Beaumont (1740/56)	Cocteau (1946)	Disney (1991)
Entrapment of father by Beast	At first treated royally, the father plucks a rose and is accused of ingratitude/theft, and threatened with death.	At first treated royally, the father plucks a rose and is accused of ingratitude/theft, and threatened with death.	The father is imprisoned by the Beast for being lost.
Deal between father and Beast	The Beast relents when the merchant promises to either come back himself or send one of his children.	The Beast suggests that one of the merchant’s daughters can take his place.	Deal?  You think this Beast makes deals?
How the Beast initially receives Beauty	“graciously”	See left; the Beast explains that she has as much power to command as he.	Um … does the word “hostility” convey anything?
What life in the castle is like	Pleasant from the get-go; the Beast proposes nightly, and Beauty’s reaction is always: “Nice guy, but nope.”	Beauty is uncomfortable with the Beast’s proposals of marriage, but grows to enjoy his company.	Initial hostility and incivility on the part of the Beast is gradually overcome, and mutual regard established.
Why the Beast’s spell, anyway?	“… an evil fairy … tried to seduce [the prince] … when he refused, she transformed him into a beast.”	“… because his parents did not believe in spirits, in revenge the spirits turned him into the Beast.”	“An enchantress … offers an enchanted rose to a young prince in exchange for shelter … but he refuses. For his arrogance, the enchantress transforms him into a beast …”

In brief: The French Bête is a gentleman, and the American “Beast” is not.

Now, admittedly, the French Beast uses threats and chicanery to entice Beauty to his castle (offering to kill dear old dad is a questionable move by anyone’s standards).  Nevertheless, his kindness to Beauty once she appears suggests that, even with her father, his bark was worse than his bite ever would have been.  He is, from the first, a far cry from the grouchy—let’s be honest, a downright terrifying recluse of the Disney movie.

I’m not entirely sure why Disney made the changes—perhaps to up the ante in terms of obstacles to love? or to make Belle’s initial rejections of the Beast seem less shallow?  Whatever the rationale, these changes simultaneously call her character and intelligence into question when we witness her acceptance of the (now ex?) monster.  We are supposed to move, in the course of a three minute song, from believing that the Beast is “mean … coarse … and unrefined” (not to mention mentally unstable and abusive), to judging him a pretty decent bloke who just needs some better hair-styling advice.  This is farcical if you don’t take it seriously, and bad role-modeling if you do.  But such is the power of music that we accept it unblinkingly, at least until the credits role and the lights come up again.

Perhaps the goal for Disney was less to strengthen Belle’s character than to provide a stronger story arc for the Beast.  And certainly, going from handsome but arrogant numbskull to violent captor to genteel and ultimately altruistic fur-ball is a trajectory.  But there are so many other possible trajectories that could have been forged from the motherload.  For example:

B&B, Continent-Man-Gains-Virtue Edition: The Beast is initially focused simply on finding a girl to break the spell; as his respect for Beauty as a person develops, he realizes this is unfair to her, and lets her go home, knowing it will doom him to permanent enchantment.

B&B, Old Style Therapy Edition: The Beast has initially given up hope that his spell can ever be broken; eventually Beauty helps him regain his self-respect and hope.

B&B, Modern Therapy Edition: The Beast is initially focused simply on finding a girl to break the spell; as his friendship with Beauty develops, he comes to accept his ugliness.  (Yeah, that’s a little too Shrek for me, but still …)

B&B, Ann-of-Green-Gables Edition: The Beast is initially looking just for companionship, because he’s totally cool with being ugly; his interactions with Beauty lead him to realize that love would be even more awesome, and that he would really like to earn her love as well as her friendship.

That’s four possibilities, just off the top of my head …

I know what you’re thinking.  Naw.

There’s no way I’ve ever worked on

my own adaptation of this story.

… possibilities which Disney ignored—in favor of … what, exactly?  A stronger Belle?  OK, let’s try developing her character too then.  In the original story, her main obstacle to accepting the Beast’s marriage proposals is seemingly the Beast’s appearance.  That’s a little shallow, maybe.  So what about …

B&B, Righteous Woman Edition: Beauty initially goes to the Beast’s castle terrified of the Beast and his evil deal with her father.  She eventually gets up enough courage to call out the Beast on his selfishness; he lets her go home, she eventually returns of her own free will, and they start from scratch.  (This obviously pairs well with B&B, Continent-Man-Gains-Virtue Edition.)

B&B, Old Style Therapy Edition: Beauty initially goes to the Beast’s castle thinking that, unlike her sisters, she was going to stay single for dear old dad’s sake; taking dad’s place with the Beast is merely an extension of the sacrifice.  Over time in the castle, she comes to realize that her apparent self-abnegation is actually a form of selfishness: she has been avoiding romantic love out of fear that [her heart will break OR it will look selfish of her OR need to be needed by dad OR …].

B&B, Modern Therapy Edition: Beauty initially goes to the Beast’s castle thinking that she’s looking for the perfect man to love; her time with the Beast leads her to realize that romantic love is overplayed anyway, and they can just be platonic friends while she pursues her REAL dream as a sustainable forestry entrepreneur.

B&B, We’re Only Human Edition: Beauty initially goes to the Beast’s castle resenting her father and the Beast for making the deal.  She comes to understand the pressures under which the Beast cut the deal, when she makes a similar deal herself (I’ll go home for three days—oops, yeah, sorry, that was three weeks, jk, right?), and realizes her hypocrisy.  (May or may not pair with various Beast stories.)

BONUS:  B&B, Canon Lawyer Edition (Catholic audiences only): Beauty initially turns down the Beast’s proposal of marriage because, while she’d love to help him out, she’s concerned that maybe marriage with him might violate a norm or two.  Fr. Jacques-Phillippe assures her that (1) the Beast is a rational animal, and thus technically human; and (2) the Beast’s backstory indicates that they have a pretty good chance of procreating ten kids, none of whom look even vaguely lionesque.  A lovely wedding ensues, with the Beast scattering gold coins everywhere like Alan Rickman, and the villagers remarking that, since he’s rich and she’s handsome, it’s nbd, but what an atrocious lack of lace! Selena would stare when she heard of it …

Are these all great movies in the making?  Perhaps not.  But they are different stories—different takes on the fairy tale; different enough to suggest, I think, that there was no need for Disney to skirt so close to the edge as it did with its unoriginal moral conundrum of a beautiful girl who falls in love with a bad, bad man.

The series will resume some time during Easter Week.

Actually, Fairy Tales Aren’t Meant to Be Creepy

Part 1 of a series.  Part 2 is here and the latter four parts are here, here, here, and here.

There is, reportedly, a new “moment” in the new Disney Beauty and the Beast.  Some are calling for boycotts; some are calling the boycotters names.

This is not a post about that moment.  There will be no post on that moment—not on TGWWS.  For one thing, this blog has generally focused on things I care about that other people don’t, or at minimum on offering a different angle on things everyone else is already discussing.

One reason I’ve said little about the election is that I’m not sure

there’s anything to say, true or false,

that hasn’t been said.

But trust me, I’ll think of something eventually.

No, I want to talk about something brought up in a thread I was reading about B&B, something which I’ve seen raised a few times now, which was there phrased as a critique of the previous Disney movie.  Roughly, it goes like this: Why are we seeing, and taking our children to see, a film which glorifies Stockholm Syndrome and perhaps worse?

If this critique is puzzling to you, you probably

haven’t seen the first Disney B&B, which is fine..

If you have seen the first Disney B&B,

just think about it for a few moments.

Bothered yet?

Good!

One potential reaction to this sort of question—which is but a particular version of the general query, Why take our children to a film that glorifies bad behavior?—is best expressed in a response which I’ve seen time and again when fairy tale adaptations are discussed (e.g., Once Upon a Time).  It reads more or less as follows:

Well, but of course fairy tales are creepy!  Or maybe we could call them “dark” or “edgy” if you prefer.  We only think fairy tales are innocent and sweet and tailor-made for children [alt.: “We only think children and their tales are innocent and sweet”].  If you read the original Brothers Grimm stories, you’ll see that they’re actually quite violent and nasty and disturbing.  Good doesn’t even always win!  And of course Perrault was writing for grownups at the court of Louis-the-Somethinth.  So really, we shouldn’t be surprised if the films we make of fairy tales are sometimes improper.  We can’t help it; the originals were improper too!

Oh, mon frères.  Up to a point, I grok this.  Fairy tales can, by a certain definition of “creepy” or “dark”, be … well, creepy and dark.  They contain dragons, after all.  They are even potentially improper—at least, considering them too carefully can involve the overthinker in impropriety.  I remember being a much younger age, and mentally trying to frame an adaptation of “Rapunzel,” and coming hard up against the undeniable fact that Rapunzel and the prince managed to have two babies without a church wedding, and being scandalized.

In this case, you will note that Disney’s version actually removed

the impropriety, proving that they CAN when they want to.

There are, however, ways around the “Rapunzel” problem that even a touchy religious person like myself could work, if we wanted to.  Introduce a chaplain in the desert (the cast of the story is rather thin for a two-hour movie anyway!), make Rapunzel and her prince pagans (of the ancient or modern variety), make them St. Augustines (i.e., sinners who repent).

I can already hear some crying “foul!”; for of course, such additions may appear to be inexcusable intrusions of morality into what was an innocently improper genre (see description of Grimm et al. above).  Perhaps; but I am not convinced.  The fairy tale is an innocently improper genre, much like Greek or Norse myths; but it does not follow that a full-length feature film or novel can proceed as the original fairy tale did.  For one thing, the mere representation of dialogue in a novel, or of a real actor in a film, awakes questions in the ordinary adult mind which have no room to rise in the confined paragraphs of a fairy tale: What is this person’s backstory?  What is their family like?  What sort of world do they live in?  What are their secret motivations and unrealized goals?  In other words, the film and the novel are inherently psychological; the fairy tale is not (unless perhaps one wishes to discuss psychology of the Jungian sort).  And the novelistic psychological inevitably touches on history and culture as well; for those same questions which tell the particular story of a given person, when asked of an entire society, generate accounts of the doings of nations.

This is where things like ethics, morality, and even religion enter in.  One can, of course, construct a fantasy world with a different religion, or without much religion at all, or with no religion beyond whatever vague spirituality is contained in the magic.  The fact remains, however, that—religious or not—a fantasy world will have its own manners and mores just as the real world does, and it will be necessary to portray the protagonists of the now-grownup fairy tale as either in conformity with or in violation of their universe’s norms.  And if these norms differ significantly from those of the majority of readers or viewers, it will be necessary for the author to communicate the differences (however subtly) to his audience, so that they are cognizant of them as a frame for understanding the characters’ behavior.  This need not imply endorsement of the cultural norms portrayed—an author may present protagonists who are rightly rebels.  The fact remains, however, that if the characters are rebels, with or without a cause, it is important to the viewers to grasp this fact; otherwise, they have not grasped a part of the character.

All of this leads me to say, regarding my adolescent instinct to give Rapunzel a wedding, that although it may have been clumsy in the realization, it was not misdirected in substance.  In a novel or film some elaboration of Rapunzel’s behavior was necessary; at minimum, the audience needed to know whether this was par for the course or the sort of thing upon which her parents would frown.  It affects the happy ending just a bit, if you know what I mean.

To generalize: Fairy tale adaptations must be …

And that is a nonmoral must, a technical must:

If they are to be good as literature or entertainment …

... fairy tale adaptations must be responsive to the expectations of normal literary works; must not leave us with psychological or cultural loose ends—unless, of course, the loose ends themselves are left dangling by design, as part of the story, part of the artistry, to make us question this or that type of character or situation.  But even then, it is important to realize that these loose ends are an overlay of the original story: the fairy tale does not, by its very nature cannot raise the sorts of question that makes us say in reply: Creepy (modern sense).  It is only our adaptation of the fairy tale that may, if we choose to so construct it.  If the old Disney Beauty and the Beast is “creepy,” or if Ever After is “edgy,” or if Maleficent is “dark,” we are the ones who made them so; and we might as well be honest and own up to it.  Ultimately, fairy tales are a magic mirror that reflect who we are, depending on how we interpret them.

This brings me back to the topic with which I opened, to the particular problems posed by Disney’s (now two versions of) Beauty and the Beast.  Does the Disney take on the story in fact glorify Stockholm Syndrome, or otherwise present an unhealthy image of love?

I’m so glad you asked.  But that, at this point, is matter for another post.