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[CCBC-Net] Alice Disneyfied
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From: Cinco Puntos Press <cinco>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 09:27:35 -0600
Kids are going to experience the culture beyond books regardless of parent's attempts otherwise (we don't have a television but my daughter at five is just as adept in the language of popular culture as the next kid, I don't know how it happened). What I think is great about Monica's approach is that an adult is there to mediate the film and to present the "real" stuff.
(There is all sorts of great research showing that the negative impact of television and movie culture on a kid, for example internalizing stereotypes about race, can be reversed by simply having a parent or a teacher there to discuss those things after viewing, by not leaving a kid out there on their own to make sense of what is presented and by "empowering" kids to know that they can be critical of those images and don't have to accept them whole hog.) Having had a chance to read the book version, children make better critics when watching the film. I think it is important at an early age to teach kids to think about the images of pop culture, embrace what is useful and valuable and discard what is not (My daughter in her low level war to get me to purchase her a Barbie has brilliantly pledged "If you get me a Barbie, I promise not to be like her.")
Of course, the thing that is interesting about the Disney version of Alice is that I'm almost certain they wouldn't touch that kind of a story today. It is dramatically different and more interesting than a lot of the movies that they are doing today. I don't think I have seen a recent Disney movie that has had a girl character on her own, with no boy character to develop a romance with. It is artful and surrealistic. Dream sequences in movies today have more of a daydreamy, lovey dovey thing to them, rather than that sort of creeped out, frantic feeling in some of the scenes in Alice. Fantasia is the same way. I wonder about what it says about the way that Disney and others have changed their perspective on who kids are and who their audience is.
Susie Byrd
* * *
New Books from Cinco Puntos Press at www.cincopuntos.com
ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF C?SAR CH?VEZ by Rudolfo Anaya and illustrated by Gaspar Enriquez
VATOS a collaboration with photographs by Jos? Galvez and a poem by Luis Alberto Urrea
A SCRAPBOOK OF A TAOS HIPPIE Tribal Tales from the Heart of a Cultural Revolution by Iris Keltz
Message----From: Monica R. Edinger [mailto:edinger at dalton.org] Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 2:15 AM To: Subscribers of ccbc-net Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Alice Disneyfied
Amy Krahn wrote, "Ye gods! After all that fantastic work you let them watch Disney?! It seems almost criminal. Please, tell me they like the real Alice better and that they all vow never to watch another Disney movie again!"
On the other hand,
Dorian Chong wrote: "I would love to hear from Monica what her students have said about the Disney version after her teaching of the original. (I'd also be curious to know if she has ever had any students who hadn't ever seen it before.) Do kids view it as better, worse, or just different? What do they like and dislike?"
Kids watch Disney. They know Disney. They LIKE Disney. And guess what? I like some Disney too. Kids come into my classroom with all kinds of prior knowledge. I do not dismiss it out of hand. If I were to do that I would turn them off right away. Here are two different ways I deal with Disney (one related to Alice and one not.)
1. I do a large Cinderella unit. Most of the kids again know the story from the Disney movie. We do not, in class, view the movie, but it certainly comes up in our conversations. I've got a few print copies of it around. Some years the kids reject it after being immersed in other texts, sometimes not. Other way, I think they are entitled to their own impressions and feelings about the Disney text as much as any other. (I've had the opportunity during my various NEH's fellowships to look at some Disney films very closely and it helps to appreciate them a lot more.)
2. As for the Disney Alice, I like parts of it a lot, actually. I think the Disney animators did a better job with certain elements in the text than many illustrators. Of course, they changed the story, combined the two stories, and so forth, but it isn't that dreadful in my opinion.
I show it AFTER the kids have spent lots of time discussing, analyzing, thinking about Alice and her illustrators. They enjoy it and are very articulate about how Disney changed the text, what he left out, why he might have changed the story, etc.
A very interesting example of something left out is the chapter, Pig and Pepper. It wasn't in Carroll's first version (Underground). The kids and I tend to think Disney thought it was too violent (shaking a baby?) They dislike the way he changes the whole story line by turning the whole adventure into a bad dream that she flees from at the end. Not the case in the actual book.
I've written more about the kids reactions in my book. Sorry, but I can't put it all down here! However, I would argue that it is important to bring Disney in to classrooms and libraries (as he is in the kids' minds already) rather than dismiss him completely.
Monica
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
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Received on Wed 25 Oct 2000 10:27:35 AM CDT
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 09:27:35 -0600
Kids are going to experience the culture beyond books regardless of parent's attempts otherwise (we don't have a television but my daughter at five is just as adept in the language of popular culture as the next kid, I don't know how it happened). What I think is great about Monica's approach is that an adult is there to mediate the film and to present the "real" stuff.
(There is all sorts of great research showing that the negative impact of television and movie culture on a kid, for example internalizing stereotypes about race, can be reversed by simply having a parent or a teacher there to discuss those things after viewing, by not leaving a kid out there on their own to make sense of what is presented and by "empowering" kids to know that they can be critical of those images and don't have to accept them whole hog.) Having had a chance to read the book version, children make better critics when watching the film. I think it is important at an early age to teach kids to think about the images of pop culture, embrace what is useful and valuable and discard what is not (My daughter in her low level war to get me to purchase her a Barbie has brilliantly pledged "If you get me a Barbie, I promise not to be like her.")
Of course, the thing that is interesting about the Disney version of Alice is that I'm almost certain they wouldn't touch that kind of a story today. It is dramatically different and more interesting than a lot of the movies that they are doing today. I don't think I have seen a recent Disney movie that has had a girl character on her own, with no boy character to develop a romance with. It is artful and surrealistic. Dream sequences in movies today have more of a daydreamy, lovey dovey thing to them, rather than that sort of creeped out, frantic feeling in some of the scenes in Alice. Fantasia is the same way. I wonder about what it says about the way that Disney and others have changed their perspective on who kids are and who their audience is.
Susie Byrd
* * *
New Books from Cinco Puntos Press at www.cincopuntos.com
ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF C?SAR CH?VEZ by Rudolfo Anaya and illustrated by Gaspar Enriquez
VATOS a collaboration with photographs by Jos? Galvez and a poem by Luis Alberto Urrea
A SCRAPBOOK OF A TAOS HIPPIE Tribal Tales from the Heart of a Cultural Revolution by Iris Keltz
Message----From: Monica R. Edinger [mailto:edinger at dalton.org] Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 2:15 AM To: Subscribers of ccbc-net Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] Alice Disneyfied
Amy Krahn wrote, "Ye gods! After all that fantastic work you let them watch Disney?! It seems almost criminal. Please, tell me they like the real Alice better and that they all vow never to watch another Disney movie again!"
On the other hand,
Dorian Chong wrote: "I would love to hear from Monica what her students have said about the Disney version after her teaching of the original. (I'd also be curious to know if she has ever had any students who hadn't ever seen it before.) Do kids view it as better, worse, or just different? What do they like and dislike?"
Kids watch Disney. They know Disney. They LIKE Disney. And guess what? I like some Disney too. Kids come into my classroom with all kinds of prior knowledge. I do not dismiss it out of hand. If I were to do that I would turn them off right away. Here are two different ways I deal with Disney (one related to Alice and one not.)
1. I do a large Cinderella unit. Most of the kids again know the story from the Disney movie. We do not, in class, view the movie, but it certainly comes up in our conversations. I've got a few print copies of it around. Some years the kids reject it after being immersed in other texts, sometimes not. Other way, I think they are entitled to their own impressions and feelings about the Disney text as much as any other. (I've had the opportunity during my various NEH's fellowships to look at some Disney films very closely and it helps to appreciate them a lot more.)
2. As for the Disney Alice, I like parts of it a lot, actually. I think the Disney animators did a better job with certain elements in the text than many illustrators. Of course, they changed the story, combined the two stories, and so forth, but it isn't that dreadful in my opinion.
I show it AFTER the kids have spent lots of time discussing, analyzing, thinking about Alice and her illustrators. They enjoy it and are very articulate about how Disney changed the text, what he left out, why he might have changed the story, etc.
A very interesting example of something left out is the chapter, Pig and Pepper. It wasn't in Carroll's first version (Underground). The kids and I tend to think Disney thought it was too violent (shaking a baby?) They dislike the way he changes the whole story line by turning the whole adventure into a bad dream that she flees from at the end. Not the case in the actual book.
I've written more about the kids reactions in my book. Sorry, but I can't put it all down here! However, I would argue that it is important to bring Disney in to classrooms and libraries (as he is in the kids' minds already) rather than dismiss him completely.
Monica
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
To remove your address from the mailing list, send a message with the header...
To: listserv at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Subject: signoff ccbc-net
Received on Wed 25 Oct 2000 10:27:35 AM CDT
