Lately in my English 495 class (or my way awesome Senior Seminar which is all about fairy tales), we have been talking about the role of the storyteller in today's world with books, TV shows, and movies. Darnton, a fairy tale scholar (yes, there are fairy tale scholars), once said that books were "lifeless" and that the tales lost a lot of their meaning as soon as we write them down because the reader doesn't get to hear the storyteller's pauses, the voice inflections, etc.
I think there is a lot of truth to what Darnton is saying, but at the same time, I think books and different TV and movie adaptions give fairy tales a whole new kind of life. With books each new reader becomes their own personal storyteller, and that is only enhanced when people decide to read to each other (and I'm proud to say that I read to my mom...whenever I can. Because I am AWESOME at doing different voices for different characters). Books create thousands of storytellers every day; isn't that awesome?! So take that Darnton. Books are cool.
I also think that TV shows and movies are a great way to create storytellers. One of my new favorite TV shows is Once Upon A Time, which literally takes fairy tale characters and puts them in modern-day Maine. A lot of people might criticize the way they are portraying the characters is completely ruining the integrity of the fairy tale characters, but the producers/writers/directors/whoever else makes decisions about TV shows took that opportunity to simply retell the story. Which I think is brilliant. Also, British phrases are brilliant, but that's besides the point.
With each adaptation, each movement rather--whether we move from an oral tradition to a written one, and from a written one to an audio/visual one--fairy tales get reinvented, and that's good, isn't it? Times change, cultures change, storytellers and readers change. Fairy tales, and any other kind of tale (classic, ghost...you get my drift) for that matter, must change too or else they run the risk of eating the Dorito-orange colored sun-tan dust of reality TV. And that is a truly depressing thought.
I think there is a lot of truth to what Darnton is saying, but at the same time, I think books and different TV and movie adaptions give fairy tales a whole new kind of life. With books each new reader becomes their own personal storyteller, and that is only enhanced when people decide to read to each other (and I'm proud to say that I read to my mom...whenever I can. Because I am AWESOME at doing different voices for different characters). Books create thousands of storytellers every day; isn't that awesome?! So take that Darnton. Books are cool.
I also think that TV shows and movies are a great way to create storytellers. One of my new favorite TV shows is Once Upon A Time, which literally takes fairy tale characters and puts them in modern-day Maine. A lot of people might criticize the way they are portraying the characters is completely ruining the integrity of the fairy tale characters, but the producers/writers/directors/whoever else makes decisions about TV shows took that opportunity to simply retell the story. Which I think is brilliant. Also, British phrases are brilliant, but that's besides the point.
With each adaptation, each movement rather--whether we move from an oral tradition to a written one, and from a written one to an audio/visual one--fairy tales get reinvented, and that's good, isn't it? Times change, cultures change, storytellers and readers change. Fairy tales, and any other kind of tale (classic, ghost...you get my drift) for that matter, must change too or else they run the risk of eating the Dorito-orange colored sun-tan dust of reality TV. And that is a truly depressing thought.
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