Given that the fairy tale genre is defined by characters and
story, the significance of the setting can often be overlooked. However, the setting
adds to the atmosphere of the stories, and gives characters an environment in
which their adventures can take place. Authors of fairy tales can take two
different approaches to the setting, often dependant on the medium of story (novels,
films, TV series, etc.) in which they are working. Some prefer to use
deliberately vague locations, primarily defined by their place in the distant
past, whilst others try to depict their location in enough detail to make it
feel like a genuinely realistic environment. The demands of audiences can have
a significant impact upon the portrayal of fairy tale kingdoms. In recent
years, authors have become increasingly aware of importance of representing foreign
areas (particularly those outside the traditional European setting) properly
without resorting to problematic Orientalist stereotypes, and the need to avoid
simplistic clichés means that they have to portray their settings with more
depth and complexity, genuinely examining their inner workings.
The Use of Non Specific Locations
In fairy tales, the main priority is telling an engaging
story packed full of incidents. This means that the setting is merely described
in the most basic fashion. Even fairy tales which aim to showcase a national culture
take this simple approach, invoking images of a particular location without
fully identifying it. When they published their collection of Children’s and
Household Tales in 1812, the Brothers Grimm aimed to promote a unified German culture by highlighting the stories told by ordinary citizens in
German-speaking lands, and emphasising the similar interests and values which
linked these people. The “purely German” nature of the Brothers Grimm tales is
made clear by the fact that these stories all take place in forests and castles
similar to those which can be found throughout central Germany. However, the
nationalist overtones of the Brothers Grimm’s collection are somewhat concealed
by the fact that their location is almost never made explicit. Although some
tales have a concrete setting (The Bremen Town Musicians is set on the road to
Bremen, but the animal protagonists never actually reach the titular town) most
are just set in unnamed and interchangeable kingdoms from “once upon a time”. This
deliberately vague approach gives the stories a mysterious atmosphere, and enhances
their sense of fantasy. Although the various storytellers whose works were
collected by the Brothers Grimm based the locations of their stories on their
home countries, they recognised that specifying a clear location would slow down
their tales and make them too complicated, thus reducing their magic and
universal appeal.
Early Disney films tried to capture the sense of mystery
provided by the Brothers Grimm, with Snow White, Pinocchio, Cinderella and
Sleeping Beauty giving us locations which invoke the look and feel of the
source material without providing many specific details about them. This
deliberately vague approach even applies to some of Disney's more modern films. For
fans of The Little Mermaid, trying to place Prince Eric’s kingdom in a firm location
is nearly impossible. Judging by the sunny climate, proximity to the sea, and
the presence of birds such as Flamingos in the nearby area, Eric’s kingdom is
seemingly inspired by Mediterranean areas such as Greece, Italy and Monaco. However,
Eric’s castle is based on Chillon Castle in Switzerland, and the basic look of the
nearest beach is closer to Scandinavian beaches than Mediterranean ones. Overall,
it seems like writers and animators were primarily aiming to capture the look
and feel of a generic sea-based Kingdom, with little regard for its internal geography.
After The Little Mermaid, Disney films began using more clearly defined
locations, whether real (Beauty and the Beast is set in France, The Princess
and the Frog in New Orleans) or fictional (Rapunzel’s kingdom of Corona, Anna
and Elsa’s Kingdom of Arendelle). The need to provide more sophisticated
stories and more complex characters has led to the basic approach of earlier
Disney films falling out of fashion, and they are now set within more realistic
and detailed environments.
Creating Worlds
both Near and Far
The magic and mystery represented by these faraway lands
have often inspired fairy tale authors. A number of Hans Christian Andersen stories
are set in exotic locations, most notably The Nightingale, which
takes place in ancient China. During the 18th Century, translations of Arabian
Nights became popular in Europe, and in 1805 (The year of Andersen’s birth) the
Danish poet and playwright Adam Oehlenschlager created a stage version of
Aladdin. This was highly popular in Denmark and Oehlenschlager’s romanticism
inspired a lot of Andersen’s finest work. Andersen’s fascination with Asia
often bled into his tales in more subtle ways. Though his version of The Little Mermaid is regarded as one of the definitive Danish fairy tales, it is actually
set in a kingdom with palm trees and orange trees on the beaches, buildings
made from white and yellow materials and characters wearing silk and gold.
These descriptions invoke images of the Mediterranean, in particular Asian
areas such as Turkey, rather than the less colourful environment of
Scandinavia. Incorporating the bright colours and distinctive architecture of
the Middle East and Far East into his works allowed Andersen to show off his
ability at creating beautiful and evocative descriptions and gave his work the
magical atmosphere which has allowed it to remain so iconic today.
Many fairy tale works find inspiration closer to home. In Shrek 2,
the fairy tale kingdom of Far Far Away is heavily based on modern-day Los
Angeles, complete with a version of the Hollywood sign, red carpet events,
shops such as Abercrombie and Witch, and even TV shows. The casually
anachronistic nature of Far Far Away generates comedy which keeps with the
modern and irreverent tone of the Shrek series. However, the decision to model
this a fantasy environment on such a prominent real-life location also serves a
more serious purpose. LA is famous for being one of the most glamourous cities
in the world, due to its association with the stars of Hollywood. By using this
location as their inspiration, the makers of Shrek 2 manage to draw parallels
between the aspirational fantasies represented by life in LA and the fantasies
which define fairy tales, suggesting that the rich and famous of today are the
modern equivalent of the kings, princesses and other major fairy tale
characters. This gives them the opportunity to create a clearly-defined and
colourful world for our characters to inhabit, whilst also satirising the
quirks of life which define not just LA, but in the whole of America. The
combination of the magical and mundane allowed Shrek 2 to appeal to both
children and adults, generating plenty of comedy about modern life without
losing the creativity and imagination which make fairy tales so timeless.
The Problems with Creating
Distant Kingdoms
Sometimes, there are instances where decision to set a story
in a fictitious kingdom can lead to controversy. This can often happen when creating
locations based on regions which are often underrepresented or depicted in an
overly stereotypical fashion by Western filmmakers. One film which been
particularly criticised for the way in which it creates a fictitious kingdom is
Disney’s 1992 hit Aladdin. The kingdom of Agrabah, where Aladdin and the other
characters live, is based in the Middle East, but there are also a number of
elements from Indian culture, with the Sultan’s palace being modelled on the
Taj Mahal. This casual blending of a diverse range of complex cultures into a
single entity is made even more problematic by the shallow portrayal of
Agrabah’s citizens. With the exception of Aladdin, Jasmine and possibly the
Sultan (who look and act more like Westerners than the rest of the cast), the
human characters in Aladdin are almost all grotesque caricatures. The
Westernised view of Eastern cultures as a single, stereotyped, backwards
‘other’ is known as ‘Orientalism’, and this has the toxic effect of increasing prejudice
against these areas. Combining elements from Eastern cultures indiscriminately
without respecting their differences and complexities reinforces the
Orientalist worldview. It can also generate the deeply offensive implication that
the most distinctive thing about these areas is the fact that the inhabitants
are not white. In the case of Aladdin, the mishandled and lazy combination of
Arabian and Indian cultures ensure that neither is represented properly, hence the controversy generated by the decision to cast the Anglo-Indian actress
Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine in the forthcoming live-action remake of the movie.
Ron Clements and John Musker, the co-directors of Aladdin,
also co-directed Disney’s more recent hit Moana. It’s depiction of Polynesian
characters and customs is far more sensitive, and more scrupulously researched,
than Aladdin’s depiction of Arabs, but there are still issues with it. One of
these is the way in which Moana’s island, Motonui, features elements from
various Polynesian cultures, including Samoa, New Zealand, Fiji and Hawaii. As
a result of this, a small but vocal band of critics have accused it of
perpetuating Orientalist tropes by reducing many complex cultures into a single
fantasy world. However, in the case of Moana, the decision to amalgamate a
diverse range of customs and cultures is more justified for two reasons. First
of all, the film is inspired by the story of the Long Pause – the 2000 year gap
between the arrival of settlers in Western Polynesian Islands like Fiji and
Samoa and the colonization of islands in Central and Eastern Polynesia. During the
second wave of exploration, Polynesian tribes discovered, and eventually came
to inhabit, islands such as Hawaii and New Zealand. Hawaii and New Zealand are
the two areas in the region which have the largest population, and most of the
key figures involved in making the movie (including almost all of the cast, as
well as co-writers Taika Waititi and Aaron and Jordan Kandell) come from Hawaii
and New Zealand. For these people, the wayfinders who ended the Long Pause are
a common set of ancestors, so it makes sense for Moana and the people of
Motonui, who represent a fictionalised version of these wayfinders, to
originate some of the traditions which would later become synonymous with their
descendants. Secondly, Moana is based on a set of myths which vary between the
Polynesian islands. Just as the writers had to merge several different stories
about Maui into a single narrative, they had to merge numerous different and sometimes contradictory customs and beliefs, trying to represent all the
regions of Polynesia instead of one specific area. Overall, the Polynesian
culture which is created for the film is much more respectful than that of
Aladdin, but there are still plenty of errors and missteps, and the very idea
of creating a fantasy kingdom based on an area which is often overlooked and
misrepresented in the real world can be problematic for some. The pressures faced when making both Aladdin
and Moana illustrate the fact that creating a fantasy world for fairy tales can
be a risky process which needs to be handled carefully in order to avoid
problematic implications.
Exploring the
Kingdom
In the world of fairy tales, life as a ruler is often
depicted in an overly idealised fashion. Male heroes are rewarded for their
bravery by winning the hand of a beautiful princess in marriage, and the
fantasy of being a princess remains popular amongst girls today. The portrayal of
medieval kingdoms as worlds where characters enjoy power and prestige, as well
as pretty castles and elegant clothes, can clash with our knowledge that the
pre-enlightenment period in which most fairy tales are set was one defined by
prejudice, plague and superstition. This contrast between the dream and the far
less glamorous reality has inspired works such as Amy Schumer’s Princess Amy
sketch, Rachel Bloom’s Historically Accurate Disney Princess Song, and David
Henry Wilson’s 1989 novel The Coachman Rat, which aim to show that the
optimistic fantasies of fairy tales cannot survive in the cruel historical
world in which they are set. These works have a number of differences (Schumer
and Bloom use their signature styles of edgy comedy to make their points,
whilst Wilson’s novel is crushingly bleak) but they share a focus on
deconstructing the belief that becoming a member of the royal family in a fairy tale world is a dream
come true. In recent years, people have become increasingly aware of the
violence and tension underpinning daily life, and this has fuelled the demand
for darker and edgier stories. The comforting picture of becoming a popular and
successful monarch leading a happy medieval kingdom has become less credible, and
this has encouraged some particularly brutal fictional subversions of it.
However, showing more of the real world surrounding the
fairy tale protagonists does not necessarily mean focusing on the most negative
aspects of the human experience. Some of Disney’s most successful properties,
such as Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Tangled, have been spun off into
animated TV series, and the increased amount of time spent with the
protagonists in this new medium means we need to explore their world in more
detail. In films, the kingdoms of our protagonists are depicted in a
superficial fashion, as they tend to be a mere backdrop for events, but TV
series need to give us a greater understanding of the environment which our
protagonists inhabit. The rise of fanfiction has also fuelled increased
interest in exploring the inner workings of fairy tale worlds. Frozen has
lended itself particularly well to fanfics about royal affairs. Elsa is the
first Disney protagonist to be shown becoming a queen, but her responsibilities
are barely explored in the film itself. In a family-friendly fantasy musical
such as Frozen, examinations of the political intricacies of Arendelle would
be an unnecessary and tedious distraction, but in the world of fanfic, authors
can discuss the pressures of running a kingdom as much as they wish. Going
beyond the basic depiction of a fairy tale kingdom is hard to do in films, but
longer and more complex forms of entertainment recognise that building a more developed
and realistic world allows increased opportunities for our protagonists to go
on adventures.
Conclusion
In the fairy tale genre, memorable characters and an engaging
story are generally more important than the setting, which tends to be a mere
backdrop. However, a memorable setting can enhance a fairy tale by giving it a distinctive
atmosphere, or providing a variety of interesting places where the protagonists
and antagonists can interact. The amount of detail which should go into
depicting a location depends on the amount of the length of the story and its
focus. In a three-page, fast-paced Brothers Grimm story, the settings do not
need to be described in any great detail, but in a film like Moana, we want to
get a sense of the daily lives of our characters and the world they live in. In
recent years, writers and filmmakers have tried to satisfy the demand for settings
which reflect the diversity and complexity of the modern world, sometimes
creating controversy in the process. Ultimately, a distinctive location can
make a fairy tale film stand out, but we should not forget that it also needs
to provide a story and characters which audiences all over the world can enjoy
and relate to.
No comments:
Post a Comment