The true and not sweet story of Disney’s books

Today I was reflecting on one of the class that we recently made with Raquel about some true stories (original ones) of Disney books, in this case was about the story of Cinderella, but not the one that we know, one more cruel and bloody, for me it was a little bit shocked know it because it was one of the books that grew up with me and I have to say that I’m a little bit fan of this books and films (yes…okey…I know all the songs…).

When I was a child, my favorite book was the little mermaid, so I was reading about the original story of this book:

At the beginning, it is more or less the same story, “once upon a time, there as a mermaid who lived under the sea…she want to be human because she felt in love of a prince who lives in the land. So she decided to go to see the witch of the sea to ask for help”.
The first different thing is that the witch doesn’t steal her voice, she cuts her tongue! And when the mermaid starts walking, she fells a terrible pain in her feet, like if someone were stabbing her with a dagger. The advertisement that the bad witch gives to the mermaid is that if she gets that the prince loves her more than he loves his parents, she will be able to stay with him forever, but if he got married with another girl, she will die and she will convert into sea foam.

She, meet the prince, and he falls in love because she is very beautiful and lovely, but his parents tell them that he is a prince, so he as to got married with a princess. So he meet a neighbor princess and after a short period of time, they got married and the poor mermaid cry and cry knowing that it was her end. But the witch gives her another opportunity to save herself and tell her that if she kills the prince and wash his feet on his blood, she will save her life, but the little mermaid is really in love of the prince, she can’t kill him so she returns to the water and die.

Finally she is compel to be 300 years making good actions.

What do you think about this story? I let you here a link where you can found another examples of the traditional book and the original stories.

http://lapiedradesisifo.com/2013/07/30/la-verdadera-historia-de-las-pel%C3%ADculas-de-disney/

 

Y was reflecting about why this changes along the time and why Walt Disney created the sweetest versions and maybe he wanted to protect the children of the bad and cruel things of the world to they have a better childhood…what do you think about that, do you think that they don’t know the real world and only fairy stories?

4 thoughts on “The true and not sweet story of Disney’s books

  1. Hello Sara.
    I have to say that this lesson was also very interesting for me. I’ve heard a lot of times that fairytales come from more cruel stories, but I don’t if it was for laziness or just luck of time but at the end I never went deeper into this topic.
    I think that the link you have add to your post is very interesting because it tells you in a little summary what things are different between the fairytales and the real stories but I don’t know if you or another person knows a good webpage where I could find the hole stories. It will be very interesting to read them, if we have time.
    About the question you ask at the end of your post I have different opinions. On one hand, I think that may be that the real stories are a bit cruel for children and this is the reason why Disney have changed it, but I also think that in their real lives they see this kind of things in the newspaper, in TV…
    Other think I have about it is that when they see in these fairytales that everything is beautiful and good, that women are the responsible of doing house work and these kinds of things, can also be a bit dangerous for them.
    In summary I would like to say that the important things are not the stories that we tell them, but the way in which we use them.

    • Hello Yolanda
      Thank you for commenting! I didn’t know a page where are all “original” stories of Disney, but for me wasn’t difficult find the little mermaid on internet! So I’m sure that you will find easy.
      I’m a 100% agree with you and your last sentence, how beautiful is see a children trying to fly like superman, or believing in magic, isn’t it? But it’s true that have to take care of the way of we tell them.

  2. Hi Sara!
    Your post is very interesting. When we discover the original version of Disney stories it’s a big surprise for us, isn’t it? But I have to say that most of all these “fairytales” weren’t made for children but for adults.
    Related to the Little Mermaid, I read the Perrault version when I was 7 more or less and I felt so sad because it was very different from the Disney version even though wasn’t so terrible knowing the “truth”.
    From my point of view, I think children should know the reality because we cannot keep them into a bubble and building a magical place where they think they are living. Along our childhood we have been watching all these Disney movies, most of them with the same values, roles and stereotypes, and apparently anything happen. But years later, when we tried for example to find the truelove we realized that princess and blue princes don’t exist apart from films and fairytales. So I completely agree with Yoli when she says that the “the important things are not the stories that we tell them, but the way in which we use them”, we have to teach them what is right or wrong and that what they see is not always the reality.

    • Hi Lidia.
      Yes, it was a Little bit shocking because in my case, i have never ear these kinds of cruel stories, how different are comparing with the ones that we know right?
      It is true that sometimes, (and more in our times) that children are more overprotected (in my opinion, of course) but, they are children, and we couldn’t show them the 100% of the reality, because they need this kind of magic in their lives, showing them tan live is more than fairies and witches, but don’t take away this innocence, don’t you think so?
      And for sure, I’m really agree with Yoli too in this sentence.

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