Zipes on Folklore

I have just been reading a rather interesting book – Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell– and I couldn’t help but make some comments on it.

The book’s main purpose is highlighting the major influence that the impact of technology and capitalism has on the historical development of the folklore and ways in which the mass media uses fairy tales in order to manipulate minds and consciousnesses. The way the media abuses the meaning of a fairy tale simply limits the people’s imaginations and sense of culture.

Like, for instance, the misuse and abuse of folklore in advertising. Nowadays, one can find fairy tale motifs everywhere they go. In this aspect, there is the classical example of the advert in which Cinderella uses ‘Mr Clean’:

One older sister: Cinderella, wash the floor.
Other older sister: Yeah, wash it, and then re-wax it.
[Sisters leave for the ball.]
Cinderella: Wash, wax, pfui.
[Fairy godmother appears.]
Fairy Godmother: Phew, ammonia. That strips wax. But use Mr Clean with no ammonia. Mr Clean gets the dirt but leaves the wax shining and you get a shine.
Cinderella: Wow.
Fairy Godmother: And now off to the ball?
Cinderella: Ball-schmall. Tonight’s my bowling league. Bye.’ (Zipes 1979, p.118)

At a first glance, this would seem as a rather amusing advert. But what does it imply? Indirectly, it ruins the originality and glamour of the original Cinderella story. It makes it seem common, Cinderella being seen as a normal girl (and not too sophisticated and girly, since she chooses bowling instead of the ball)

The media also considers that using the idea of magic in adverts gives the viewers, as the consumers, a different impression on the product used. Magic, as in the meaning of supernatural makes the promoted object seem ‘capable’ of much more than it normally is. Even if people do not believe in magic (if i may ASSUME that), they are persuaded to purchase it. The advertising industry considers fairy-tale motifs to be captivating for the masses, and therefore they use it in every way possible. But what influence does that have on our ways of thinking? The true meaning and charm of the classic fairy tales gradually disappears. People are no longer captivated by the magic and fantasy that tales bring. Their sense of culture and folklore is blunted and they can no longer appreciate it. Plus, the too often misuse of such a sacred thing as fairy tales in cheap worldly acts, makes the fairy-tale itself fade away. In other words, if one hears a good joke for example, which is then repeated to them over and over again, in an ‘unskilled’ way (turning it into a bad one), the whole captivation he or she had for the joke in the first place fades away. They do not find it amusing any more, and it would not be surprising if they do not want to hear it ever again.

Another example of misuse and abuse of folklore by the media is in films. Zipes made a study on a few different movies – all having the base of fairy tale plots and motifs – in order to observe the diverse ways of using folk and myths in mundane situations. But in what way do some innocent motion pictures instrumentalize fairy tales?

One of the examples was the classy ‘Snow White’. Even if the story of the film seems to be the same as the original fairy-tale, the little details make an enormous turnover. As observed by Zipes, the plot of the film is totally different. Here, the conflict is not between the two women – the queen and Snow White – as in Grimm’s tale. The attention is turned towards the seven dwarfs who seem to have quite a minor role in the original. The dwarfs represent the real world in our times. They are miners, who concentrate their whole lives on their work and seem to do it with great pleasure. Everything in the film represents order and maintaining it. Each of the seven dwarfs has their own duty which they perform at all times, they have their own place and the arrival of Snow White in their lives helps to maintain that order. She plays the role of the mother, as in every family needs a mother. Her duties are keeping the house clean and showing love and affection to her friends. She awaits for her prince charming, which is the image of the father in a family, who will make it even more complete and perfect.

Zipes compares Disney’s film with the situation of the world in the times when it was distributed: ‘America was still in the throes of depression in 1937. Work was difficult to find, and workers’ discontent led to violent strikes and the rise of a strong socialist movement … Snow White, as Miss America symbolizes the basic goodness of the American socio-economic system, and the dwarfs as workers order themselves nice and neat to defend this system’. The little changes made in the film by Disney had an impact on the masses. By ‘showing them what they wanted’, which is the ideal kind of life in a capitalist society, the film made the masses accept that society. It was not about what changes one can bring in the society in order to make it better; now it was about how to have an ideal life in the society given to you. Accepted by you.

This is the way that Disney, unwillingly, made major changes in the psychology of the masses. And I say unwillingly, because it was not Disney’s purpose to contribute to the mentality change of the people. As Zipes noticed, the film was simply modelled after the way that Disney perceived the world in those times. He tried combining both the social-economic condition of America and culture: ‘that this image served to curtail the individual imagination and the emancipation movement of oppressed groups is a reflection of how Disney himself had become victimized and deluded by the demands of the culture industry’. (Zipes 1979, p.128)

There are many other examples, Like the film that was released just last year, Enchanted. But I will try not to go on about it all, or I might actually bore someone to death.

To sum up, the interest in culture, folklore and myths has obviously decreased. It is a generally well-known fact that children do not find any more interest in stories, preferring the animated films which, without their noticing, shapes their minds in the way the system chooses. That is what Zipes means when he talks about the ‘instrumentalization of fantasy’. Films are often misunderstood, seen as another form of expressing the traditional culture and folklore, but the truth is that traditional folklore, when taken out of its usual context, significantly loses its meaning. The capitalist society limits people’s minds, making them lose their subjectivity and independent thought – point wonderfully raised by Josef Witmann in his poem, Sleeping Beauty:

I’m not a prince,
I have no sword
Nor have I time
To cut the hedge
To climb the wall
To give a kiss
Or marry you …

Tomorrow
I must start work early
(Or I’ll be fired)

My dreaming must wait
Till Sunday
My thinking till vacation
Time

Keep sleeping
And dream another hundred years
Until the right one
Appears.