Context of Practice: April 2017

Bruno Bettelheim was a psychoanalyst who focused on child psychology and especially that of troubled children. His 1976 novel “The Uses of Enchantment” explores the positive effects that fairy tales have on children as an essential part of growing up and applies Freudian psychology to them. The novel has won multiple awards such as the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award. Bettelheim led a tumultuous life; he was imprisoned in Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps in the late 1930s, became a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, and in his later life suffered from depression. He eventually killed himself in 1990. Bettelheim’s own life seems to embody the process he described- the effects that inhumane treatment can have on a person’s psychological health.
Although Bettelheim was a highly esteemed child psychoanalyst, celebrating success in treating children with the most severe emotional disorders, he has also received a great deal of criticism, particularly after his death. Multiple former students of the Orthogenic School for Disturbed Children at the University of Chicago where he was Director claim emotional, physical and even sexual abuse. It is said that he hired young and largely untrained staff purposefully; one counselor recalled, "I didn’t know a thing about emotionally disturbed children. I think he hired us because he didn’t want a staff with its own ideas, people who had been trained by someone else." (Finn, 1997). There are also accusations that he plagiarized much of “The Uses of Enchantment” and claimed false academic credentials. Although this does not disprove his theory, I feel it is important to keep in mind while reading his work.
In “The Uses of Enchantment,” Bettelheim provides a compelling argument about why fairy tales are crucial to a child’s development. Fairy tales are not something I have ever considered as essential before, but after reading Bettelheim’s work, I have come to agree with his theory and the quote below;
“In order to master the psychological problems of growing up, a child needs to understand what is going on with his conscious self so that he can also cope with that which goes on in his unconscious, it is here that fairy tales have unequaled value, because they offer new dimensions to the child’s imagination which would be impossible for him to discover as truly on his own.”
Bettelheim (1976) lists these ‘psychological problems’ as the following; “overcoming narcissistic disappointments, oedipal dilemmas, sibling rivalries; becoming able to relinquish childhood dependencies; gaining a feeling of selfhood and of self-worth, and a sense of moral obligation.” He presents very interesting views on how separate fairy tales tackle these problems, for example, Snow White explores the problems of a parent; the evil queen, and her jealousy for her child - this would fall under the ‘oedipal dilemmas.’ Furthermore, fairy tales like ‘Hansel and Gretel’ could teach children about the realities of poverty. They experience separation from their parents; the children are cast out by their parents because they are too poor to keep the, greed; in the form of resisting the temptation of the gingerbread house, and having to rely on their own initiative; in pushing the witch into her own oven. The fairy tales explore much of which the child itself fears but teaches that there is always a solution.
A case against fairytales could be the way that female characters are portrayed, in an essay by Alice Neikirk (2009) it is argued that female characters often need onlysit in a tower and wait to be resuced by the prince. This could be discouraging to little girls listening to fairy tales who feel their worth is therefore less than the heroic prince who saves the day and has exciting adventures. Neikirk further makes the point that, often in fairy tales "Attractiveness is the most important attribute that a woman can possess," while the villainous females are almost always portrayed as ugly. This viewpoint, if instilled in a child at an early age through the reading of fairy tales, could be harmful to the childs self esteem and could also promote prejudice.
The main point that Bettelheim argues that I agree with strongly is that fairy tales enforce the idea in children that life will come with its difficulties, but if you persevere through these struggles you will be rewarded. In his book “The Hero with A Thousand Faces” (1949) Joseph Campbell talks about the idea of the “Heros journey”. This is the idea that the narrative of many tales focus on a Hero who sets out on an adventure and overcomes many obstacles before returning in victory. This idea, which is the structure of many fairy tales, may allow the child to relate their own lives to that of the Hero, and feel more confident on their own journey after seeing the Hero's success.
In a study titled “Training the hippocampus and amygdala of preschool children by means of priming tasks: should parents rather focus on learning of facts than reading fairytales?” E. Pretorius , H. Naudé & U. Pretorius suggest that the reading of fairy tales to children should instead be replaced by memory exercises, and carried out an experiment on a young boy whereby the child was informally given one fact per day, which was reinforced the following day, by first asking him what was talked about the previous day. If he could not remember the answer, the fact was told to the boy again and discussed more. This was continued for six months. The under takers of the study “believe that, although controversial, parents and educators should place more emphasis on these types of activities than perhaps lengthy and sometimes taxing reading activities,” and that memory exercises such as these take less time but provide the same effect.
I think this study is interesting and useful as a memory exercise, but I overall disagree with it. The facts they taught the boy were such as; “How many continents are there in the world? Who is the queen of England?” and so on. While these are obviously useful and interesting things for a child to know, in my mind they obviously teach something completely different than the experience a fairy tale provides for a child. Fairy tales can teach morals and allow a childs imagination to run free, whereas these facts are probably only being remembered by the child because they are being asked to remember them, and not actually interested in what they have learnt. Furthermore, I believe a child would enjoy the fairy tales more, and they are an important part of culture that should be valued as a learning tool for children.
In another study, titled “Fairy tales: a compass for children’s healthy development,” Tsitsani, P.et al (2011), Four hundred and seventy parents were asked multiple questions about the effects fairy tales have on their children. The majority of the parents had a strong belief in the power of fairy tales, and describe how they use storytelling as an instructive tool, in order to calm their childrens anxieties or set examples for them. Examples of the answers from the respondents are the following; ‘. . . She seems to realize that even in fairy tales, heroes must fight to get what they want . . .’, ‘. . . Within fairy tales she finds a moral corrective to everyday life. You see, all these stories represent a world in which the good is consistently rewarded and bad is consistently punished . . .’I think this says alot for the power of fairy tales as a tool to be utilized in child development.
In a study titled 'Emotions in Imaginative Situations: The Valued Place of Fairytales for Supporting Emotion Regulation,' researchers Marilyn Fleer and Marie Hammer explore the importance of exposing young children to fairytales in school programs. They believe "Being more aware of an emotional state allows children in group care settings to more successfully self regulate and hence interact more effectively with peers." The focus on fairytales is because the story is almost always dramatic and will regulate a childs emotions more and allow them to identify with the Hero. This regulation of emotions can be seen when children being read a fairytale express contempt for a villain or fear at the story. Fleer and Hammer also argue that through roleplaying fairytales, children, who want to be like the Hero, will "act out the ideal" as well as realising consequences for themselves and others and creating solutions to problems, making the fairytale an invaluable learning source for children.
Fairy tales have always been used to appeal to children and to help them utilize their imaginations. This tradition has moved from oral to written and now has become a key genre in modern animation. Disney has been using fairy tales as inspiration for their animated films ever since they released “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” in 1937. However, one of the most innovative uses of the fairytale genre in animation, released by Dreamworks animation studios in 2001, is 'Shrek;' an unconventional adventure that turns everything we thought we knew about fairytales on its head.
In terms of the ‘deep constructions’ of animation outlined in Wells (1998), I believe Shrek fits into quite a few of the genres. I believe it fits the ‘Formal’ genre, because it makes use of the fact that its an animated film in that it has elements that simply wouldn’t work as well in a live action version, for example, even the idea of a talking donkey and the different magical transformations that take place in the film would look cheap and tacky if this were attempted in a live action version and would definitely take away some of the magic of the film. I think the animation also fits into the ‘deconstructive’ genre, at many points in the film it makes comical references to its own genre. I also believe ‘Shrek’ fits into the re-narration genre, when it unconventionally contradicts the fairy tale genre by having the main character narrate and make fun of the idea of a ‘happily ever after.’ I think ‘Shrek’ also fits into the “political” genre of animation; it makes moral and ethical statements throughout the animation, for example, it teaches self acceptance and happiness even in the face of adversity, and teaches that you don’t have to be a princess or ‘prince charming’ to have your own happily ever after.
I believe ‘Shrek’ is a film which strongly opposes convention in what is typically a rather restrictive genre. In Disney fairy tales for example, there is always a beautiful princess and a handsome prince, who may have to face some sort of conflict in the story to reach happiness. In these films from ‘Cinderella’ to ‘Tangled,’ each character could almost be carbon copies of eachother, there is no great variety in the way the characters look or act. ‘Shrek’, however, approaches the fairy tale genre in an entirely new way, showing that the hero can, in fact, be a disgusting ogre, and that the handsome, seemingly perfect ‘Prince Charming’ is a selfish and untrustworthy villain. I also think Shrek promotes a much more realistic body image than the typical Disney film does, the idea of feminine beauty in these films is always a princess with a tiny waist, long slender legs and huge eyes. The average female character in Shrek has a much more realistic body shape, which I believes promotes even further the idea of self acceptance. Shrek is a film with completely original characters that go completely against the cliche that is so often found in Disney and other animated films. Furthermore, I believe the film also promotes the idea that beauty is only skin deep and that true love is possible for everyone to find, for example, towards the end of the animation, Fiona is meant to have transformed into her human self again, and is shocked when she is still an ogre, saying “....I don’t understand, i’m meant to be beautiful.” and Shrek replying with “But you are beautiful.”
I believe the mix of subtle adult humour that is found in ‘Shrek’ also brings the fairy tale genre up to date and may renew an interest in the genre for older people. The animation plays with the paradigm of the conventional fairy tale and gives the genre new life. It shows that everyone has feelings, from a disgusting ogre to a talking donkey, and that everyone is worthy of finding happiness. There is a particular moment in the animation where Shrek uses an onion as a symbol of how he is much more than the stereotype that the world has attributed to him, telling Donkey that “Onions have layers, Ogres have layers.”
I can understand why some parents may not want their children to be exposed to certain aspects of fairy tales, and this carries over into ‘Shrek’, where at times the humour can be a little bit shocking, for example there is a scene where Fiona sings a duet with a little bird in a nest. When Fiona hits an extremely high note, the bird swells up and explodes. We are then shown that two eggs have been left behind in the birds nest, and in the next scene we are shown Fiona frying them for breakfast. This is one of the only times when I can understand why some children may be upset at the film, but at the same time it is in keeping with the classic fairy tale genre and the sometimes grim details that are prevalent in many stories. However, as quoted from author Jamie Lee Wallace, "Many adults who want to write for children make the mistake of assuming that children want nice stories. Our mature perspective distorts our memories and deceives us into believing that only unicorns, fluffy bunnies, and fairy godmothers populated our childhood fantasies. We have forgotten our own dark natures." I think this is a very good point in the argument that fairytales are too violent or scary for children; in reality, the childs imagination is probably not as innocent as we imagine.
In Shrek, there are times when our unconventional Hero can show his flaws as an ogre, and come across as selfish and agressive. This could be compared to Bettelheim's idea that "..the monster a child knows best and is most concerned with, is the monster he fears or feels himself to be," meaning that the child who is watching may see parts of himself in Shrek, as they would in reading a fairytale and relating to the villain. As put by Sheila Kohler; "Unable to express anger or hatred directly toward those adults on whom the child depends, he/she can displace this natural aggression and give free reign to it personified by the villain: the step-mother, the wicked wolf or the witch (2014)" In this way Shrek is quite a realistic Hero, he has flaws as anyone does but the child is able to see him overcome these and do what is right. I feel that ‘Shrek’ presents what is the typical ‘Hero’s Journey’ structure that is so common in traditional fairy tales, but with much more human and relateable issues, such as self acceptance and finding love.
It has been argued that Shrek is not quite as progressive as it first may seem. In 'You can't say no to the Beauty and the Beast: Shrek and ideology' (2005), the gender roles of the female characters in Shrek are discussed, primarily "..that they differ little from the gender ideals promoted in conventional patriarchal fairytales." At first Fiona, our heroine, is presented as an independent and fierce character who can defend herself. However, as the story progresses and she becomes her 'true self'- an ogress- eventually marrying Shrek, we see this personality start to change, and become more demure and unassuming. Takolander and McCooey (2005) make the point that; "Through marriage she will come to exist in her 'true form'--as a man's wife; as a sexual beast of burden; as a mother." Fiona's primary role- as is typical in conventional tales- is as an object of male desire - she is recused by Shrek, delivered to Farquaad, and then 'reclaimed' by Shrek. Like so many of the saccarine Disney princesses, Fiona waits for her 'prince charming' rather than try and take control of her own life.
In my visual investigation journal I attempted to communicate visually my ideas and research put into better understanding Bettelheim's quote. I found trying to visually illustrate my ideas challenging, particularly with more abstract concepts I was trying to show, but I enjoyed the process as well. I think I may have relied too heavily on using words alongside my images to further illustrate the points I was trying to make, which is something I would like to change, but this also helped me more with understanding the research I was doing. The journal helped me find new ideas to support my essays and vice versa, so in this regard I consider it sucessful.
I think I got too caught up about the structure of the journal as I was doing it, rather than having something sequential that flows in a series of images, I feel I have put all my thoughts and research into one concise place, which is still helpful to me, but I think I could have more sucessfully communicated my ideas visually. Having never really undertaken visual research of this kind before, I think I was slightly perplexed and cautious aout how clearly I was illustrating my ideas, which led me to rely more on text than I should have.
I began my visual research by trying to contextualise how fairytales have come to be such a huge part of modern media and pop culture. I thought about the roots of fairytales; no one person can be said to have 'invented' fairytales. They would originally be known through word of mouth, folk stories that come from all over the world. I tried to visualise this showing groups of people from different cultures and time periods telling eachother stories. This was called oral tradition, and was how fairytales and folklore came to be known and eventually documented in literature, which was what I focused on trying to show next. I included pictures of the most well known fairy tale authors and books, such as the brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Andersen. I also pictured "Arabian Nights"(1704) one of the only well known book of eastern fairytales, from which such stories as 'Aladdin' came.
Following the timeline of fairytales further, I did a few pages about how the fairy tale has been represented through animation. For many people, their entire knowledge of fairytales begins and ends with Disney animated classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937) and Cinderella (1950). I tried to show how modern animation and other retellings of fairytales have 'Disneyfied' the fairytale genre, taking out the dark, sometimes brutal bits of the stories and making them child-friendly. I also showed pictures of how the fairytale genre has been revamped with modern live action films like "Snow White and the Huntsman"(2012) and "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters "(2013). The fact that the fairytale has endured for so long and is still appealing to audiences today shows how versatile and enchanting the genre is, further seeping into popular culture by inspiring fantasy authors, like C.S Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien, who adopt certain fairytale elements and undoubtedly use them as inspiration.
One of the areas in which I feel the visual journal aided me and interested me the most was my research into colour. The most obvious and reused colours in fairytales are white, red and black. This can be seen in Snow White, where the queen wishes for a child "...as white as snow, as red as blood, as black as ebony." Red can be interpreted in many different ways, for example, the red of Little Red Riding Hood's hood is said to be a symbol of menstruation and sexuality. It can also be seen in the red of Snow White's lips or the red apple that poisons her. White in fairytales is often a sign of purity, innocence and peace, which I showed with images of a dove, a swan and a bridal gown. Black symbolises death, the unknown and evil, show by a black cat or a black witches hat. Gold is another colour common in fairytales, associated with wealth, beauty and glamour. I showed how colour is communicated in animation; showing some well known animated villains and how they often are shown using dark and malicious colours, particularly greens and purples. This is contrasted with the light, airy colours that often surrounds the Disney princesses or heroines of the film.
I went on to explore the different character archetypes found in fairytales and related them to modern animations. The Hero- a brave knight or prince in classic fairytales- has been reinvented in modern animation, with an 'unlikely Hero' type used in many different examples, such as Shrek, or Aladdin. The next most common fairytale character archetype is the 'prize,' often showed in the princess character, who must await her 'prince charming' so he can take control of her life. This character obviously must be beautiful; a trait that hasn't changed from traditional fairytales to animated ones. In older Disney fairytales, this character type was much more common than it is now.
I showed how the villain, often female, in fairytales must be represented as ugly. This too has carried over to animation. Intelligence and cunning are seen as negative traits for a female to posess, and their ambition leads to evil, many fairytales demonize female power. Progress has been made in reinventing certain stereotypical characters in animation. I showed this in a page that shows some modern animated heroines who don't just wait until a man comes and takes control of their life.There is also a lot more racial diversity than the typical white princesses Disney focused on prior.This is shown in characters like Mulan, Pocahontas and Jasmine in 'Aladdin.'
I found exploring the idea of gender in my journal interesting and beneficial to my research on how much fairytales do benefit children. As I have said previously, I believe it may be discouraging to little girls whose only role is to sit in a tower as a prize, while boys get to imagine themselves as knights on adventures. The animated fairytale brings another problematic issue, I believe, in the way they present beauty. I think modern Disney princesses are probably more damaging to childrens self esteem than any old tales may have been; the body image in many animations is simply impossible to achieve. The princess must have a tiny waist, huge eyes and long legs, while many male characters in animation have rather realistic figures. However, there are a few realistic body representations in animation, for example, Fiona in her ogre form in Shrek, as I have mentioned above, and Nani from Lilo and Stitch (2002).
Because my focus revolved around how beneficial fairytales may be for children, I found my research focusing more and more on the theme of gender. It became obvious to me that the arguments against fairytales often revolve around how they may affect young girls. This led me to creating images which reflected how women are portrayed in fairy tales and trying to show what effect this may have on young girls reading them, or watching animated versions of the tales. I tried to show how fairytales can fuel a childs imagination, showing a girl reading a book of fairytales and her dreams of castles and 'meeting prince charming.' I was trying to show how the fairytales, while feeding the childs imagination, may restrict them somewhat because they now only see this one dream as 'Happily ever After.' The boy reading the fairytales can dream to be a hero and have grand adventures, but the girl must always be a prize.
In conclusion, I believe my visual journal was sucessful in helping me bring together my ideas and explore them further, and found it interesting as a new way to investigate my ideas.

Bibliography
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses Of Enchantment. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1976. Print
Finn, Molly. "In The Case Of Bruno Bettelheim". Leaderu.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 26 Dec. 2016.
Neikirk, Alice. "Happily EverAfter" (or What Fairytales Teach Girls About Being Women) Routledge, 2009
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. 1st ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1949. Print.
E. Pretorius , H. Naudé & U. Pretorius, Training the hippocampus and amygdala of preschool children by means of priming tasks: should parents rather focus on learning of facts than reading fairytales?, Routledge, 2005
Tsitsani, P. et al. "Fairy Tales: A Compass For Children's Healthy Development - A Qualitative Study In A Greek Island". Child: Care, Health and Development 38.2 (2011): 266-272. Web.
Marilyn Fleer & Marie Hammer (2013) Emotions in Imaginative Situations:The Valued Place of Fairytales for Supporting Emotion Regulation, Mind, Culture, and Activity, Routledge, 2013
Wells, Paul. Understanding Animation, Routledge; 2nd ed. edition (28 May 1998)
Jamie Wallace (2012). 'Children do not want nice stories', Word Press, September 18. Available at: https://nhwn.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/children-do-not-want-nice-stories/ (Accessed: 25 April 2017).
Kohler, Sheila, On the importance of fairytales, Psychology today, 2014
Maria Takolander, David McCooey,You can't say no to the Beauty and the Beast': Shrek and ideology, Deakin University, 2009

Context of Practice

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Evaluation

Critical reflection and proposal

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Animation Proposal

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Final Essay