The Disney-fication of Folklore

 There's this new thing now where people aren't just retelling stories, they're retelling the Disney version of stories. I mean, okay, it's been going on for several years, but a new thing within, like, the last generation or so, which is pretty new considering the very long history of fairy tales. There are at least two separate Disney-authorized book series like that. And some of them are decent, and some of them are terrible, but all of them are just—just—

Those aren't fairy tale retellings. Those are Disney fanfiction. And we've talked, before, about the relationship between fanfic and folklore, but this is different. When the bookstore is full of retellings of Disney's Cinderella, instead of just Cinderella, we're losing important pieces of our history, our culture.

The way we tell folktales changes with time and region; that's normal and expected. But the way it's changed over the last 90 years or so, specifically—people tend to think that there is one correct version of the story, and the version they think is correct  belongs to someone, and we need his permission to retell it. That's not a normal relationship to folklore. That's not a healthy relationship to folklore.

We’ve got Disney’s Twisted Tales Series. We’ve got Disney’s Villains Series. We’ve got Disney’s Descendants, which is allegedly about the children of specifically the Disney versions of characters, even when it doesn’t always make sense. We’ve got Once Upon a Time, which started out as a show based on fairy tales in general, with some familiar references because it was still being produced by a Disney-owned company, which over the course of a few seasons transitioned to be more and more Disney-centric. We’ve got Disney’s live action fairy tale movies, which had a promising start with things like Cinderella, which was just its own Cinderella movie, before they started copying their own previous movies line for line.

And it’s just so frustrating because Disney’s versions of these stories are a drop in the bucket of a several hundred year history, and somehow we’ve gotten to the point where so many people don’t seem to be aware of anything else, and the market is being flooded with more and more Disney-centric fairy tales.

I love many of Disney’s animated fairy tale movies, very much. But there’s so much more out there. I’m so sick of trying to look up a three hundred year old story, and having to put fifteen qualifiers on my search in an attempt to avoid Disney, and then somehow still having to sort through six pages of Disney-related results before I can get to anything useful.

I don’t have, like, a point or anything. I’m just frustrated.                       

There are so many good stories that have nothing to do with Disney. So many good stories that Disney has done stuff with, but you should still read the non-Disney versions—some of them are better, and some of them are worse, but all of them are different, and worth your time.

 

VISIT PATREON.COM/KONGLINDORM FOR EARLY ACCESS TO POSTS.