The Evolution of the Classical Fairytale and Its Subversion from Make-Believe to Reality in Modern Film Remakes

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Chapter 1: Introductory Chapter 1.1 Background Not many would know that the original target audience of fairytales was adults, not youngsters (Zipes, 1999). According to Bruno Bettelheim’s’ The Uses Of Enchantment, Fairytales had their origins in an adult oral storytelling culture, where tales were told to shorten the time while one completed household chores that required physical concentration but left the mind open to wander (Bettelheim, 1975). These oral folklores were then retold and adapted throughout the 16th and 17th centuries into literary fairytales, before a collection of them was first published in Charles Perrault’s Tales of Mother Goose in 1697, which was the first recorded publication of fairytales. Up until the 19th century, famous fairytale authors like the Grimm Brothers began to rewrite these literary fairytales to appeal to the masses, including children in particular, which took much effort and removing of most of the traditional ideologies in the literary fairytale. In 1937, Walt Disney became the first film producer to release a feature length fairytale film titled “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, which was a welcome distraction from the great economic depression at that time (Zipes, 1999). This paved the way for fairytales to be adapted via various mediums such as film and music right up until the 21st century. 1.2 Rationale The evolution of the oral folktales into fairytales that are globally distributed today has been influenced by changing societal times and its influence on the network of fairytales. By examining the metamorphosis of the oral folktale into the literary fairytale that is pervasive in postmodern and modern society, this paper would like to point out that there is more than meets the eye in these one-sided sanitized bedtime stories told to children. Through a look at the Grimm brothers, arguably the most prominent

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