The Little Mermaid

For my research paper, I’m writing about The Little Mermaid. I knew it was going to be very different from the Disney version that I grew up with and loved, but I didn’t realize that the ending would be completely different. 

I think it’s really interesting how Disney has taken classic stories and changed them. I know that the story behind Frozen had the Elsa character as evil, and she wasn’t portrayed as evil at all. Misunderstood, yes. It happens with them all. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, all of them. 

The idea that Disney has to change Hans Christian Andersen’s stories so much. These were stories for children, but now they’re not “Disney-appropriate.” 

The little mermaid’s reason for making the prince fall in love with her was not just because she was in love with him, but because she wanted an immortal soul, which she could only get by making a human fall completely in love with her. In Disney’s adaptation, it was similar. She wanted to become a human. In the story, she also had permission to go to the surface and see humans interact, while in Disney’s adaptation she could not because her mother died by humans (That’s in The Little Mermaid III: Ariel’s Beginnings). It is definitely darker than the Disney movie in some aspects. The sea witch is about the same. I think I was actually more surprised by the similarities of the two stories than the differences. 

I’m only focusing on The Little Mermaid for my paper, but I will definitely be reading other stories for myself, and possibly for reference in the paper. I highly recommend that everyone reads at least one original story and thinks about how it’s different from Disney and why they’ve been changed over time. 

I love Disney, and I LOVE the Little Mermaid. But, the original story was so different and, after I read it, I continued thinking about it for the rest of the night and the next day, and OMG it was just really cool. The Little Mermaid was my favorite Disney movie as a kid, and to read the original story now is just so weird, but really great.

What Do We Really Get Out Of It?

    More than anything, I think that the biggest thing that People get out of popular culture, and especially fan culture, is a sense of hope. Creativity isn’t something that is limited to gods in ivory towers, looking down on the masses with contempt and disdain. Sure, that exists too, but it isn’t the end-all-be-all of creative endeavors, and there’s proof of surprise success even in what would normally seem to be this “mass culture”. So forget it. Forget all of that. You can be creative too, random internet-person. Let’s see what you’ve got.

What do you think?

Fan Works - Legitimizing the Source

    I believe that one of the biggest gains to an artistic work or franchise can be found in fan works. From a commercial standpoint, fan works serve as free marketing, and are in some ways a positive feedback loop of people being interested. More importantly though, in a lot of ways, fan interaction legitimizes the original, official works. Especially high quality fan-works are proof that something has inspired the fans to a point where they wanted to create too. Sure, there’s plotless porn and sandwiches flooding the internet, but isn’t that a small price to pay for the occasional diamond in the rough?

    What do you think? Now that the semester has all but finished, are fan works good for creative endeavors? Or does the bad outweigh the good?

Discussion! Leia/R2-D2? - Or - Slash is Great, Guys.

    Now that the semester is all but over, I think now’s the time to ask the fun questions. Out of all of the things that we’ve read for this class, what’s your favorite slash pairing, why is it your favorite, and what kind of pairing is it? I think my favorite kind of pairing is the “Superbro” kind of pairing mentioned by Iris, but I’m still not sure what character pairing is actually my favorite. I think I would enjoy reading a Superbro story for say, Leia and R2-D2, but only because it seems kind of out there.

Sorting Myself

http://86bb71d19d3bcb79effc-d9e6924a0395cb1b5b9f03b7640d26eb.r91.cf1.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/lego-harry-potter-house-crest-locations-guide.jpg

I decided to finally take a quiz to see which house I’d be sorted into at Hogwarts… Well, I went a little overboard and took a total of 4 quizzes to see if I was consistently placed in the same house. I assumed I would be placed into Hufflepuff…remembering my life from high school where I was a bit of a lovable outcast and pretty average overall.

I took my 1st test at www.TheAlmightyGuru.com and got Gryffindor! I wasn’t expecting this…I’m not particularly brave or adventurous. But hey, maybe I would be in the right situation…

I then took my 2^nd sorting quiz at www.BuzzFeed.com and got Slytherin. I am totally ok with this. I do feel I am ambitious, but I am fairly morally centered. I do look out for me and my needs first and foremost and I think it is perfectly fine to behave this way.

I figured the 3^rd test would be the deciding factor…I’d find out if I’m a true Gryffindor or Slytherin… but after taking a quiz at http://quizzes.familyeducation.com/ I was placed into Ravenclaw. Now, I do mean to toot my own horn, and I very much like to think I am an intelligent person. I love learning and deciding to go back to school to finish my degree was the best decision I ever made. I love school. I love knowing things. I love knowing things other people don’t even more. I’m known at my office as a “know-it-all” and I’ve been told I occasionally lord my intelligence over people…but it’s not my fault if other people are stupid or feel stupid after talking with me.

Now obligated to take a 4^th (and decidedly last quiz) I went to http://www.allthetests.com/. I finally got a placed in the same house as one of the other quizzes… as it turns out I am in fact a Ravenclaw. 

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/259/0/c/mug_black_ravenclaw_by_lost_in_hogwarts-d4a0528.png

Snitches

            So while I am not much of a Harry Potter fan, I could see myself following Quidditch matches. It is just such a bizarre but intricate and strategically complex game. Oddly enough, game in the books (or rather the one book I read) did not strike me the same way. It just seemed like the magical companion of rugby. Of course wizards would have a sport that involves flying and abnormally dangerous elements. It seemed to me that the game was designed to give Harry an important position. The game only ends when the snitch is caught, only the seeker can catch it, and oh the snitch is worth so many points that the team that catches it usually wins. So why is the rest of the game there?  Did there just need to be a field of twelve other players who divert attention from snitch chasing?

Out of book Quidditch (which I really want to call Muggle Quidditch, but I think I would be wrong and probably insult a bunch of players) The best explanation of the game I found is actually the documenter posted on Black Board. Catching the snitch is no longer such an advantage, and means that the seeker has to time his catch to make sure his team has the upper hand when the game ends. Also by making the snitch a person it adds a dynamic to the community. The snitch is a one man team that the fans are just as ready to applaud as any other. Here is a video of an exceptional snitch. What he does is cool, but I enjoyed the way the crowd is in league with him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JYbLDwfGPE

I tried to put this in the post but my internet hates me.

Getting Things Past the Radar - Scenes Implied Through Context

It should come as absolutely no surprise that I read Cracked, which is why I’m going to link a fairly good summary to what I was referring to in class the other day regarding the fate of Dolores Umbridge. The article is, by and large, Not Suitable For Work. The title “The Five Most Depraved Sex Scenes Implied by ‘Harry Potter’,” should be enough of a hint about that, but in case it isn’t, you’ve now been doubly-warned. It’s worth reading, honestly, but I’ll summarize the points made regarding Umbridge.

    The woods to which Umbridge is dragged off to in the fifth book are populated by a number of magical creatures, and though Centaurs are indeed an established inhabitant of the area, so too are things like giant spiders, so it’s safe to say that the choice of a roaming gang of Centaurs is an intentional one on Rowling’s part.

    The mythology of Centaurs is fairly clear on their generalized goals and actions, and at least one person present for Umbridge’s abduction knows this. To quote Cracked author Jacopo della Quercia, “Hint: It’s Hermione, the character whose main purpose in the plot is to know absolutely everything.” Neither she nor Harry make any effort to save Umbridge from multiple horse-men.

    Umbridge is clearly written to be a character that is hated, but teenagers and teenage girls in the story seem to take no small amount of glee in the fact that Umbridge, upon being found and brought back to Hogwarts, is suffering from a nonspecified trauma and reacts to the sound of mock-hooves clip-clopping with symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

    By all accounts, Umbridge needed to be punished for the things that she’s done and the way that she treated people, but at some point in considering how to go about doing this, Rowling sat down and said to herself, “What about gang rape?” That’s not a punishment. It’s a crime. Having established that there is a wizard prison, that admittedly was not really useful at the time of the fifth book, I think that, maybe, I don’t know, Umbridge should have had to go before that Wizard court they dragged Harry to and then gone to Wizard-Jail. But now, you’d basically have to be Dolores Umbridge to think that Dolores Umbridge still deserved some kind of formal punishment. Hasn't she suffered enough? 

In a single implied scene, Umbridge goes from monster, to victim. But it was just implied, so we still react to Umbridge with hate.