Classic fairy tales have always had a part in my life, I love myths and legends and I am also a Disney devotee and can never resist sharing one of the classics with my children. Tonight we watched Coraline and it got me thinking; do we share the enthusiasm for the genre that we have always believed? Or, perhaps, the happily ever after that we love so much has been extending to the happily-the-whole-way-through-with-only-a-few-little-bumps-along-the-way.
Parents, as adults, often see elements of a film that children do not, why else would dreamworks be so successful? The jokes that are double entendres added for adult entertainment and deliberately pitched to go above the radar of their young audiences provide some light relief for those who are more reluctant to watch children's movies.
Recently the animation short The Sandman was shown to a group of us in a university input. We were asked if we would use this animation with a primary seven class and most of us thought we would not. The animation had seemed to be too frightening for the age of the pupils.
The settings of animations has a huge impact on our perception and perhaps my desire for bright and colourful scenes is more to do with personal preference than my desire for the happy, happy everything is rosy. As we are all aware just because everything is bright, colourful and outwardly happy does not mean it is a good thing.
The question is should children be exposed to less of the happily-the-whole-way-through-with-only-a-few-little-bumps-along-the-way or have we just forgotten to recognise the scary elements of the films that we watched as children?
Think Snow White - dysfunctional family, rejected by her murdering step mother.
Sleeping Beauty - arranged marriage, sent away to grow up, hunted down by a wicked fairy who wants to kill her
Cinderella - again dysfunctional family, suffers mental abuse by step mother and bullying from stepsisters, treated like a slave, only escape is marriage
Pinocchio - where do I start?
You get the picture. Should we wrap our children in cotton wool (or bubble wrap) to protect them not only from real life but from the stories that we grew up hearing? Has political correctness made us wary of fairy tales or, maybe, we are all so traumatised from these tales in childhood that we wouldn't dream of inflicting this on our little darlings?
There is also the view point that children see and experience too much negativity already in life so it is understandable that adults would want to protect their charges from being exposed to any more. This can be a double edged idea. Surely exposure prevents a child from believing that life is a walk in the park?
I know which I believe. I also know that I am going to continue not to worry when sharing fairy tales with my children after all they are children and I believe that fairy tales are a part of childhood.
Hi Jenny
ReplyDeleteJust finished my PGDE English at Dundee and was interested in your comments re Sandman/suitability. [btw was it Susan B that did this with you at Uni (she introduced us PGDE-ers to it)?] I used this (& Coraline) with an S1 class on my second placement and was amazed at how calmly the class reacted. Most were positively phlegmatic! They were a lovely, Pseveny S1, bit yet cynical or sassy, and they liked S/man and absolutely loved Coraline. We used both films to consider horror genre motifs. I agree with you about not cotton-wooling them - they are more than up to the darker stuff. Good luck with the rest of your BEd. Deborah (@deebeelee)