#bruno bettleheim

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Hi. Not sure if you've answered this before, but do you have a list of books to recommend on fairytale/mythic analysis?

So I finally have a real response to this question, but it's LONG, be warned:

First, it depends what you want to get out of your folklore study, what lens you'd like to use for analysis. And second, it's important to know that the practice of folktale analysis has changed over time, especially in the last ~15 years or so as the scholarly consensus has evolved toward decolonization.

For example, the common historical starting place was Bruno Bettleheim's The Uses of Enchantment. Candidly, I haven't read it yet for a few reasons: 1) It focuses fairly exclusively on Western European fairy tales like those of Grimm, Basile, and Perrault. 2) It assumes the primary audience for such tales are children. 3) It's a white man's perspective, and there are already enough of those to go around. That said, it's considered a foundational text for folklore study, so I'll probably get to it eventually. There are some modern authors who might be considered scholarly successors of Bettleheim, like Maria Tatar. I haven't read her books yet but I know she's also a powerhouse of Western fairy tale analysis.

Some other popular perspectives include the works of Carl Jung and his protégés in psychoanalysis, Marie-Louise von Franz and Erich Neumann. These are wonderful sources for learning about depth psychology and the universal unconscious which causes certain motifs to recur in storytelling across the globe and over centuries. Another popular author in this field is Robert Bly, who dove deeply into the concept of the Shadow as it appears in folk tales.

But for me, my favorite sources have been a collection of feminist authors who were active in the late 80s and early 90s, notably Barbara Fass Leavy and the incomparable Clarissa Pinkola Estes. While their work is pretty firmly grounded in second-wave feminism and therefore not very intersectional as we understand it today, they were the first to begin exploring interpretations of folk tales outside of a patriarchal context. I personally refer to Leavy's In Search of the Swan Maiden and Estes' Women Who Run With the Wolves more than any other books.

A lot of the most current perspectives are only accessible via blogs, like Jeana Jorgensen AKA The Foxy Folklorist, who often explores fairy tales through a Queer lens. Another brilliant voice working today is Helen Nde of Mythological Africans, who is doing the long-overdue work of decolonizing African folklore.

And while all these sources will help you develop a framework for analysis, still one of the best things you can do is read the tales for yourself. One of my favorite series is that of Heidi Anne Heiner of Sur La Lune Fairy Tales, who has amassed impressive collections of folk tales of the same type from around the world, making comparison easy. She also provides excellent footnotes that offer context to the versions and translations she's selected, and every tale has a source.

Outside of that, I like to read regional collections from indigenous scholars and native speakers: some editors will even include a copy in the original language along with the English translation, thus allowing others to "check their work." One of my favorite folkorists like this is Inea Bushnaq, who collects Arab folktales and again provides accessible cultural context. It's important to remember that most oral folktales which are now available in English were first recorded by colonizers, so the versions we have may be edited, mistranslated, or even maliciously altered to suit Western tastes. This is why seeking out versions from actual members of indigenous communities is critical.

Right now, I'm reading The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan by Hayao Kawai, and I'm next going to try Oral World and Written Word by Susan Niditch. I tend to just go where the spirit moves me, journal a bit, go down a research rabbit hole about a particular topic... it's fun. But whatever you're looking to get out of your folk tale study, rest assured you will never run out of material!

[mightydragoon]

*cracks knuckles like this hasn’t been my dissertation* 

I really reccomend Bonnie Evans: The Metamorphosis of Autism in Britain and Steve Silverman’s Neurotribes book (specifically the later chapters).

Also shhhh don’t tell anyone I got Evans entire book here.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK436841/

Prepare to hear me ramble for a tiny bit. I wish I can go on but no one wants to see that. I should write my own post on this one day.  

The modern understanding of what we still recognise as autism (as in i.e as a spectrum) is probably at most around forty years old.

Warning period typical language to describe autistic people below.

The way Leo Kanner diangosed autism originally in the 1940s was also incredibly narrow and specific as well. So one would only get the most “extreme” cases leaving others to be ignored or diagnosed with something else. And even then they were probably diagnosed under “subnormal”, “pyschotic”, etc anyway.  That’s not even accounting half the shit they did with ECT and LSD to try and treat autistic kids. I digress.  It wasn’t until the 1960s & 1970s he started to retract his theories once the rest of his patinets grew up. Because not all turned out like Donald Trippett.

The joys of mental institutions and subnormal hospitals.  You can guess what happens next. It wasn’t pleasant.

Let’s look at Britian real quick because suprisngly a good amount of work there helped advance our understanding of autism.

They were only moving past the whole “childhood schziophrenia” thing in the 60s and in Britian it took the works of the then National Society for Autistic Children (National Autistic Society now) founded in 1962 by groups of parents with autistic kids who were essentially fed up with the lack of support from the government.   Also because autistic kids during this period were often deemed “subnormal” and “uneducable” (The mental health Act 1959 had still excluded autistics until 1970)  and the parents from those groups fought for the right for their kids to have an education and understand more about autism itself. And plus you know they didn’t want their kids in institutions. Even building specialist schools (*see Sybil Elgar) and later in the 1970s residential homes like Somerset Court.

*See Michael Edge story here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/nov/13/autism-first-child-growing-up

 The fact the word “autism” itself was used compared to childhood sczhiophrenia, mental retardation or pyschotic was also more specifc and neutral term and was a more attractive word that didn’t have the baggage the other words had.

Also fun fact. Would you also believe it was a fucking Tory (Willaim Compton Carr) who first brought up autism in the 1960 in Parliament?  

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1960/may/18/mentally-handicapped-children

Plus passing laws in the 1970s which targeted disabled people in general but was a step foward in granting provisions and resources for autistic people. Panaroma even did a bit on highlighting autism to the public and the troubles these specialist schools had with lack of resources and fears about the future for many autistic kids who would probably end up in instituions rendering their work with them obselete. 

 Panorama - 1974 - Autism Provision  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRSs_WDmsV0&t=1620s

This along with tireless work from pyscholgists like Mildred Creak , Michael Rutter, Victor Lotter, Beate Hermelin, Neil O’Conner, Uta Frith, Lorna and John Wing.  And so much more who were often involved with autistic schools and the like.

*Note Uta Frith is also still alive.

There was also up and during the 1960s still a belief of “refrigerator mothers” too, that it was mothers cold parenting that caused their child to be distant. Like holy shit the stuff Kanner and Bruno Bettleheim said. Bettleheim fucking compared autism to being like a prisoner in a concentration camp. For additionaly points Bettlehim was also a Holocaust Survivor. Take that as you will.

Enter Lorna Wing who was a mother of an autistic child and along with her husband John who knew German and translated Hans Asperger’s work. Lorna basically helped formed the modern understanding of autism with the idea of an autistic spectrum during the late 1970 and 80s.

THE FUCKING 80S!

Concidentally a certain film involving a Rain Man was also made in 1988. There is also a scene where the nurse doesn’t know what autism is. Rain Man has its own problems but it did present autism to the best of their ability of the standard of its time. Raymond Babbit himself whose character inspirated came from savant Kim Peek  and Bill Sackter (a close friend of Barry Morrow) didn’t originate from autism. That was an additional thing worked into the film.

 But what is also important is how signficant that fucking film was in sheading light on something not many people had heard of until then for better or now. but it also unfortunatly set the standard and image of what Autism was in Hollywood even decades after its release.

LOOKING AT YOU SIA’S MUSIC!

Either way that paired with the conept of a spectrum and growing concepts of neurodiversity and people like Temple Grandin (also still very much alive) who are finally being able to tell their stories personally, you start to get increased numbers of people getting diagnosed especially during the 1990s.

And that’s not even getting into the whole Andrew Wakefield (sadly also still alive) shenaginery. Hbomberguy already said enough that speaks volumes on the man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BIcAZxFfrc

[oblivionnecroninja]

I think we should bring back public executions, but just for Ole Ivar Lovaas and Andrew Wakefield.

[gatheringbones]

["At the end of August in 1981, I found myself in a small town in Arkansas, where I knew no Lesbians other than my new lover, Lynn. I wanted it that way. We were living in hiding from my armed and vengeful ex-lover who had abused me for four years and had threatened both of us with deadly harm. This was five years before the publication of Kerry Lobel's ground-breaking book, Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian Battering. I knew I had been battered, but I did not understand how deeply I had been injured.

I only knew that I seemed to have saved my life at the cost of my sanity. I jumped at loud and not-so-loud noises. A frown from a stranger could reduce me to tears. I was afraid to bathe if I was alone in the apartment. I relived every word of every fight in relentless flashbacks. I had blocked much of the unbearable pain of the previous four years out of my consciousness at the time, in order to cope with immediate danger. Now that I was "safe" it all came flooding back. To escape, I watched TV compulsively, avoiding anything violent—nature shows were my favorites—and I read science fiction. Having lost faith in women as well as men, I was a serious candidate for a species-change operation.

Luckily, at some point in that bleak winter, I read a magazine article on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Vietnam Vets, and I recognized all my symptoms. I had a name for my suffering, and 1 knew I was not "crazy." I'd felt so much guilt and anger towards myself for not being okay, that is, my old self, since I was "free." Now I knew healing would take time and effort, and I gave myself permission to not be normal right away. Also, seeing how much my condition resembled that of war survivors helped break down some of my denial about the hell I'd been through.

Still, I had no guidance on how to recover from PTSD. I followed only the dimmest instincts. First, I began to read accounts by survivors of any serious trauma. These people became my invisible support group. I found myself drawn especially to stories of political prisoners and concentration camp survivors. Although my experience was not like theirs, these were the people I felt would understand how my will had been sapped and my strengths twisted, how the smallest acts of resistance and mere endurance had needed all my wits and courage. Bruno Bettleheim in his chapters called "Behavior in Extreme Situations" (The Informed Heart) finally answered the question I'd put to myself every 44 hour since my escape: "How could I have been so stupid?" He made me realize that under abuse, especially the combination of intermittent threats, unpredictable violence and constant psychological torture, everyone responds differently, but everyone changes fundamentally, and everyone has their breaking point.

One day as I sat reading at the kitchen table, I looked out the window at the small yard beside our duplex apartment, and I began to imagine growing a garden there in the spring. It seemed like a highly improbable idea: the area was very small, steep, bare of everything but gray shale and orange clay, and the house shaded it part of the day. But the notion of a garden took root strongly. For the first time in several years I had something pleasant to anticipate.

I wrangled my landlady's permission to put in a garden. Then I mailed off postcards for seed catalogs. I persuaded an acquaintance who owned a truck to bring me a load of cedar slabs discarded by a local sawmill, and I used these to construct two frames, about four feet by six feet, and two even smaller ones, just three feet by four feet. By this time Lynn and I had saved enough money to buy a very old VW bug, so we drove to a nearby creekbank and filled bushel baskets with rich bottom dirt, which we dumped into the frames to make raised beds about four inches deep.

To supplement the tiny growing space, Lynn scavenged large cans from the cafeteria of the hospital where she worked. I painted them a hopeful green, filled them with soil and placed them along the sidewalk below our porch. Old-timey "Corn-row Beans," originally bred to tolerate the shade of cornfields, grew up strings tied to the roof and bore prolifically.

I didn't have much money from my SSI income to spend on garden gadgets, so I made do. I wove a trellis for my peas from six-pack rings liberated from a liquor store trash bin. (I can testify that this plastic never biodegrades—the pea fence survives to this day.) I got some more bushel baskets from the local grocery, painted them with non-toxic preservative and lined them with garbage bags after snipping a few drainage holes in the bottom. Placed around a small stone patio above the garden, these became containers for large plants.

The garden rewarded me before the first mouthful of early spinach was harvested. It moved me out of the gloomy apartment and into the sunshine, watering can in hand. It motivated me to interact with people and to occasionally risk asking for help. I found out they would usually say yes. My attention was now focused on the future, not the bitter, unchangeable past. At night when the flashbacks threatened to roll, when I dreaded the dreams I might have, I put myself to sleep with 45 detailed plans of my next crop rotation. I found out I could learn a major new skill, a little at a time. I could do things right, even come up with ingenious solutions to seemingly impossible difficulties. And when I did things wrong, plants were most often forgiving. The plants themselves were a tremendous source of inspiration. Talk about survivors! They defied every book written about their needs, often thriving with too little sun, too little water, and too little soil. At the end of a year, I could easily stick my shovel in the dirt up to the hilt, where only four inches of top soil had previously existed; compost and the action of the roots had created friable loam out of shale and clay.

When I experienced failure with gardening, it was never the kind of disaster I'd grown to associate with mistakes. We didn't go hungry, because other crops outstripped our expectations. My lover didn't beat or berate me, but sympathized and helped. The garden was important to us economically, because we'd both lost almost everything we owned in our escape. Luckily, in southern Arkansas, it's possible to garden yearround. The garden gave me precious, desperately needed tastes of success. Disabled, unemployed, I still felt like an important contributor to the household. I even had food to give away sometimes, and that was a delicious feeling.

Gardening was not the only factor in my recovery, but it was an important one. I didn't grow up with abuse, but battering and similar traumas can expand minutes into hours, years into decades, until four years feel like most of a lifetime. At the end of a year and a half of gardening, I no longer felt as if I'd spent the majority of my life in a battering situation. Healing had acquired a new definition for me: I didn't insist on having the old me back; I'd mourned her long and well. I accepted the fact that some injuries are too severe to be made whole, that I might never be the same again. But I began to actually like and trust the me I am now, scars and all. As my garden taught me, I must make do with what I am. I have discovered that my flaws are not fatal and my successes are greater than I'd hoped for. So far I have not gone hungry, and I even have something to offer."]

Amy Edgington, Gaining Ground, from Garden Variety Dykes: Lesbian Traditions In Gardening, Herbooks, 1994

[amillionmillionvoices]

@bonnissance tagged me in this - thank you dear!!!!

Rules:  tag 9 people you would like to know / catch up with

Last Song: Dance Monkey by Tones & I

Last Movie: Uhhhhhh @atheneglaukopis was it Jingle Jangle? Have we watched anything since then? (Which is SO GOOD BTW!!!)

Currently watching: we started Julie and the Phantoms but haven’t gone back to it. Mostly I just keep rewatching THORS. 🤷‍♀️

Currently reading: The Descent of Alette and Certain Magical Acts by Alice Notley; The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettleheim; Helen in Egypt and Trilogy by HD; I Must Be a living Twice by Eileen Myles

Currently craving: sleep

Tagging: @atheneglaukopis @mygalfriday @foxx-queen @applebottomclaudiajeans @wonderwanda @cassiopeiasara @delightinpetrichor

[utopiaparkway]

Storytelling

English 1100C    Global Lit    Professor Lee Ann Brown 

Fabulosity: The Importance of Stories

“A writer is always reading and a reader is always writing.” 

—Robert Scholes 

“In a newsletter as early as 1977, when asked in an interview why people should pay attention to storytelling when issues of social justice, housing, schools, and health care were the “real” issues of the day, Morrison was unapologetic in her reply, doubling down in her steadfast belief that it’s not an either/or proposition. She argued that supporting and protecting the art of storytelling is as crucial to human progress as any other issue: 

"…that’s where truth lies—in our myths, in our songs, that’s where the seeds are. It’s not possible to constantly hone in on the crisis. You have to have the love, and you have to have the magic, that’s also life, and I regard it even though it may sound as though I’m dealing in fantasy. I don’t think so; I find it all terribly realistic because I regard my responsibilities as a black writer as someone who must bear witness. Someone who must record the way it used to be. The way it ought to be, I leave to the sociologists. But I want to make sure that a little piece of the world that I knew...doesn’t get forgotten."—Mary Gannon / Toni Morrison, CLMP newsletter, November 21, 2019.

This is an assignment designed to practice combining research with critical and creative writing skills. It is a two parts which should inform each other: One part Critical and one part Creative. In working incredibly rich and varied world of myth, fairytale and folktale you will encounter many issues and threads of traditional and innovative intertextuality. Both sections of the assignment should be informed by independent research: Use at least 2 primary sources, 2 critical sources and one reference source, and include a works cited page. Please use in text MLA-style citation. 

Research: Read through and take notes on material from the world of global myth, fairy tale, and folktale. Gather further source material that adds to your stockpile of ideas, images, characters and motifs for your own story. Gather visual as well as intextual materials. Anything that can help you recombine materials until you spark some ideas for stories of your own. Work with your sources and notes to gather a kind of  “look book,” or fantastic map, cut-up or collage of this material in your journal.  

ESSAY:

Instructions: Choose one of the prompts below (or develop a topic of your own) and write a well-developed essay with an introduction and conclusion, answering the questions posed in the prompt. Use specific examples from your primary texts, including page numbers for reference. Each paragraph of your paper should cover a single main idea. 1000-2000 words,  double-spaced and typed in 12 point New Roman type. 

Choose a word, name of a character, or place name from a myth that is full of layered or hidden meanings. Explore etymological meanings, recurrences in other stories in other cultures, or in some way “unpack” the significance of that one term or name. Write an essay analyzing the significance of the word, phrase, name or saying to the work as a whole. Also add in commentary on how you are using these new insights in your own creative piece. 

Focus on a single contemporary poem that uses elements from traditional fairytales, folklore or mythology and do a close reading of the work. Try searching keywords in websites such as the Academy of American Poets  https://www.poets.org/ and The Poetry foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ 

Add in commentary on how you are using these new insights in your own creative piece.

Select a fairytale, folktale or myth from any global culture that features a character whose origins are unusual, mysterious or intrigue you for some reason. Then write an essay in which you analyze how these origins shape the character and that character’s relationships, and how the origins contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole. Also add in commentary on how you are using these new insights in your own creative piece. 

Many myths contain a character who intentionally deceives other. The character’s dishonesty may be intended either to help or to hurt. Such a character, for example, may choose to mislead others for personal safety, to spare someone’s feeling, or to carry out a crime. Choose a fairy, folktale, ballad or myth  in which a character deceives others. Then, in a well-written essay, analyse the motives for that character’s deception and discuss how the deception contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole and how you are using parallel practices in your own creative piece. 

It has often been said that what we value can be determined only by what we sacrifice. Consider how this statement applies to a character from a fairytale, folktale or myth. Select a character that has deliberately sacrificed, surrendered, or forfeited something in a way that highlights that character’s values. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the particular sacrifice illuminates the character’s values and provides a deeper understanding of the meaning of the work as a whole. Also add in commentary on how you are using these new insights in your own creative piece. 

In literary works, such as fairytales, folktales, ballads or myths, cruelty often functions as a crucial motivation or a major social or political factor. Select a fairytale, folktale, ballad or myth in which acts of cruelty are important to the theme. Then wel a well-developed essay analyzing how cruelty functions in the work as a whole and what the cruelty reveals about the perpetrator and/or victim. Also add in commentary on how you are using these new insights in your own creative piece.

CREATIVE WRITING: 

Write a short narrative by transforming, borrowing or subverting elements of the fairytale, folktale, ballad or world myth you wrote about in your paper. Look to Angela Carter’s rewrites of classic fairy tales for clues on how to do it your own way.  You may want to combine characters, plot, themes, talismanic objects etc from two or more sources, then let your imagination go from there.  1000-2000  words

EXTRA CREDIT: 

Transform / Translate your narrative (or part of it) into another narrative genre, or art form such as Comic Strip, Graphic Novel (see MAUS, PERSEPOLIS), Ballad (see CHILD BALLADS or those collected by CECIL SHARP and MAUD KARPELES), Dialogue Poem (see Frank O’HARA’s True Account of Talking to the Sun in Fire Island), Video, Screenplay, Poets Play (see work by KEVIN KILLIAN and others), Song, Painting, Collage (see JOSEPH CORNELL), Map (see Bruce Chatwin’s SONGLINES)  etc. . . 

Include a Works Cited Page at the end of your Essay: 

Use at least 2 primary literary sources

At least 2 secondary (critical articles or journalism)

And at least 1 reference source

Relevant Readings: 

Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber.   (On Reserve)

Introduction to Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber by Marina Warner.

 The Bloody Chamber”

“The Company of Wolves”

“Wolf Alice” etc  

Handout of and literary rewrites and analysis of Red Riding Hood, including 

Bruno Bettleheim, works by Olga Broumas, Roald Dahl and others. 

Anthology of World Myth edited by Angela Carter (Reserves)

Textbook hand-out on writing short stories

Phillip Pullman essays on Writing Fairytales

Philip Pullman: recent interview in the New York Times and the New Yorker 

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (in Reference section of Library) 

SCHEDULE

Friday, NOVEMBER 22, 2019: Bring in topic ideas (In class Writing)

Tuesday, NOVEMBER 26th, 2019  Independent work in Library writing and research

Friday, NOVEMBER 29th, 2019: Thanksgiving Break 

Tuesday, DECEMBER 3rd, 2019: Bring in 1st Drafts of both pieces (In-class Workshop)

Friday, DECEMBER 6th, 2019:   TBA   - Please bring in 3 pages of best work from semester for class magazine with your name, email and class

Tuesday, DECEMBER 10th, 2019:     TBA

 Final Reading during Exam Period: TBA

First drafts due: December 3rd in class 

Final Draft Due: In Final Portfolio

Final PORTFOLIO: 

-Revised and expanded Letter to the Reader  Please include a paragraph or two on how you worked together as a group, what your role was  and what you observed about writing in collaboration

-Revision of first half of semester writing 

-Collaborative“Poet’s” Tree Play 

-Storytelling Project: Critical Essay and Creative Writing 

[jewelridersarchive]

The Music of Jewel Riders

Aside from the Kenner doll collection, possibly the most remembered aspect of Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders by the fandom is the music. The theme song can be quite the catchy earworm! And for many, they remember the theme song before they remember the name or whether they did or did not actually see the series. We invite you to listen to the theme song, as you remember it, from our music playlist: Have you had that jewel-powered theme stuck in your head for 25 years? If you haven’t listened to our compilation of the theme song as heard ‘round the world, we encourage you to do so now! Listen now: Did you know that the show was pitched with episodes being “Mini-Musicals,” likely an appealing concept for the early 1990s when Disney’s musical animated films were the king of family entertainment. The characters never truly break into song the way those in a true musical might, but the show does feature both Broadway-style musical numbers (sung by Tamara) and background vocal numbers over the action in the show. Series Music Credits:Music: Louis Fagenson. Notable Credits: Composer for Johnny Bravo, Universal Studios Tram Tour and Theme Park. Music Supervisor: Ken Kushnick. Lou Fagenson’s Manager. Notable Credits: VP International Operations/Europe for Warner Bros. Records;  Face/Off, Muppets From Space Songs Producer: Jeff Pescetto. Notable Credits: Singer of the DuckTales Theme Song, Wrote songs for Spaceballs, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Sound Designer for Tekken 5 From Lou, "It was my first series and I had to crank out 18-20 minutes of music a week. Episodes would air two weeks after I scored them. No room for error and because the production company was based in New York, I was on my own as far as musical direction. I had to clue into the art of directing. The book I got the most of of and highly recommend is, “The Uses of enchantment” by Bruno Bettleheim. Knowing how the story line works on an unconscious level is an important key to how the music can help develop a story.(http://www.animationinsider.com/2011/11/louis-fagenson/) I wrote the music to an episode a week (except for the songs) and it would air two weeks later.  I don’t have a single copy of any episodes – just a few toys. I wish I had them to play for my daughter. The show brings back a flood of great memories for me. Thanks for keeping the fire alive… After Gwen, I went on to write the music for Johnny Bravo and other animated shows. Recently I arranged an album of Christmas music for Neil Diamond." In  the Avalon: Web of Magic books by Rachel Roberts, the Fairy Band B*Tween is loosely based on the Jewel Riders. Their songs (outside of “Supernatural High” and “Golden”) are songs that were originally in PGJR. Several of the songs and lyrics have been available for download from the Avalon Website for some time, along with an orchestral suite related to the books. The songs featured for download and in the playlist below all originated with a Starla and the Jewel Riders “Free Sing-Along Cassette” that was discovered on Ebay. The Gwenevere version of full opening has been edited together with previous audio sources to create a one-of-a-kind exclusive version! Visit The Jewel Riders Archive's Music page to discover music downloads, sing-alongs and more! http://www.jewelridersarchive.com/music/

[peechi]

Deep web please show me the very specific group of people that want to trash on the uses of enchantment by bruno bettleheim

[cinderellasfella]

20 Questions Tag

FINALLY getting around to this after being tagged by @theteaisaddictive, thank you for the mention!!

Rules: answer 20 questions, then tag 20 people.

1. Name: Conor.

2. Nickname: Con. Not a whole let else you can do with it, I guess.

3. Zodiac sign: Cancer.

4. Height: Mmmm between 5′7″ and 5′8″, I can never remember exactly what the number is.

5. Orientation: Gay.

6. Nationality: Irish.

7: Favourite fruit: Bananas.

8. Favourite season: Probably winter. I like the longer nights and the approach of the holidays.

9. Favourite book: *long beleaguered sigh* let’s try and keep this short. The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettleheim, the Harry Potter series, Spindle’s End and Beauty by Robin McKinley, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion by Jane Austen, North Child by Edith Pattou, Middlemarch by George Eliot, And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, and Is It Just Me? by Miranda Hart.

10. Favourite flowers: Lavender, tulips, roses, and dahlias.

11. Favourite scents: Lavender, fresh paint, hot chocolate, vanilla.

12: Favourite colour: Purple. Mauve and magenta are especially nice

13. Favourite animal: Either cats or flamingos.

14. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: Hot chocolate all the way.

15. Average hours of sleep: 6/7 on average. It might usually be more, if I didn’t stay up ‘til 1 in the morning on Tumblr. Much like now. *shrugs*

16: Cats or dogs: Cats in general, though I do like dogs, and adore our own dopey little pup <3.

17. Number of blankets you sleep with: Just the one at the moment. I should probably get another one, given that we’re practically on December’s doorstep, but as long as I’ve my bedsocks to keep my feet warm, I’ve no trouble sleeping.

18. Dream trip: I’d love to see Vienna someday, for all the music history. Or America, to see some mutuals and go to the Disney Parks.

19. Blog created: Around October of 2015. Thought that if I was going to be lurking around so many accounts, I might as well just give them the follow. Of course, quite a few of those blogs I admired now follow me back, so that’s probably a bit surreal to 2015 me.

20. Number of followers: 193! I’m still shocked I ever made it to 10, tbh.

Thanks again! I’ll pass it on to @chasingthewindandthesky, @fantasticalnonsense18, @droo216, @karis-the-fangirl, @bri-ecrit, @kristanna, @michaela-armstrong-paul, and @chickennuggetpower, if they feel like it.

[ignot0]

Frightful Witches and Kissable Toads: How Folktales Nourish the Soul

One day Baba Yaga's two believed frogs stated,

"You are really frightening!"

"Great!" said Baba Yaga, "in light of the fact that that is what I'm here for."

from The Wise Doll by Hiawyn Oram.

As an expert storyteller, I need to admit my biases. I am absolutely and enthusiastically infatuated with the class of folktales. Indeed, there are folktales that are exhausting or excessively rough or model awful qualities. These are the frog stories and indeed, at times one needs to kiss a couple of amphibians before finding the rulers and princesses of story. Additionally, if your primary introduction to the exemplary fantasies has been Walt Disney movies or books, you might be uninformed of the prior, earthier and all the more fulfilling variants. As my companion and ace storyteller Brian Hungerford frequently wryly asides, 'There is a unique spot in damnation for Walt Disney.' (1) Many grown-ups appear to be additionally to have lost the capacity to decipher the allegories in folktales. This leads them to confound sovereign and princess stories with frogs and miss the potential in folktales to recuperate, alleviate and model methods for being for their youngsters and themselves, in an engaging and grasping way. In this way I need to write in protection and in recognition of my old buddies and darlings.

Image source Folktales are frequently dismissed for their savagery, their 'sappy vision' and upbeat ever-after endings and for being about rulers and sovereigns. For me, those things didn't stress me, yet the sexual orientation generalizations did. So I abstained from telling the exemplary Grimm's stories and decided to tell progressively bizarre folktales with dynamic champions. However, two encounters switched that dismissal. The first was my child's conspicuous get a kick out of Little Red Cap (Red Riding Hood), Rapunzel, Goldilocks, Rumplestiltskin and Jack and the Bean Stalk. (2) He was then two years of age. The second was perusing a book called The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim. Right off the bat, for what reason are there such huge numbers of lords and sovereigns in folktales? Maybe you partner the government with tyrannical force, inbreeding and money related disparity. However emblematically, the lord and sovereign speak to our entire, develop and advanced selves. Lords and sovereigns in an original sense, have high confidence and the insight to settle on significant choices. They show steadfast supporters, can withstand resistance and live in a condition of wealth.

Additionally, Bettelheim says,

'Each kid sooner or later wishes that he were a ruler or princess - and on occasion, in his oblivious, the youngster accepts he is one, just briefly corrupted by conditions. There are such huge numbers of rulers and sovereigns in fantasies in light of the fact that their rank implies outright force, for example, the parent appears to hold over the kid. So the fantasy sovereignty speak to projections of the kid's creative mind'

Brutality in Folktales

Presently, how about we address viciousness in folktales. There are two things I'd prefer to consider here. The first is age propriety. The second is sifting through positive stories from dangerous stories.

I have recorded a CD of stories (3) and the primary track, Molly Whuppie, is a customary Scottish folktale wherein Molly outmaneuvers and surpasses a mammoth who needs to eat her and her sisters. My child's companion, a manly kid who is four and a half, fears the story Molly Whuppie, while his more youthful sister and my child have adored it since they were two. So it's not simply age you have to consider, and absolutely not sexual orientation, yet singular demeanor. My multi year old reveres terrifying stories and asks for them continually. I ask 'Are you certain this isn't unreasonably frightening for you?' He shakes his head determinedly 'No' and asks for a tale about a witch who eats youngsters. Indeed, for my child, his bad dreams facilitated, at that point stopped, when we started recounting stories like Red Cap (the more seasoned form of Little Red Riding Hood), Jack and The Beanstalk and Baba Yaga. I perceive that the inverse could be valid for certain youngsters whenever given an inappropriate story excessively youthful. They are acceptable medication, however you need to get the measurement right. (4)

Giving a chronicled setting on our mentalities towards folktale, Joseph Campbell, a world expert on folklore and folktales stated, 'The "colossal, silly and unnatural" themes of folktale and fantasy are gotten from the stores of dream and vision. On the fantasy level, such pictures speak to the all out condition of the individual dreaming psyche...but explained of individual bends and profounded - by artists, prophets, visionaries-, they become emblematic of the otherworldly standard for Man the Microcosom. They are hence states from a picture language, expressive of magical, mental and sociological truth. What's more, in the crude, oriental, age-old and medieval social orders this jargon was contemplated and pretty much comprehended. Just in the wake of the Enlightenment has it out of nowhere lost its significance and been articulated crazy.' (5)

Youngsters instinctually react genuinely and unknowingly to the similitudes installed in stories, on the off chance that they are permitted to. Unknowingly and sincerely they perceive the witch, the monster and the wolf as the terrifying part of grown-ups as well as themselves. At the point when I am fatigued and depleted and the infant is crying and my multi year old energetically hits me one too often in the wake of being asked not to, I can transform into something much the same as a wolf, a witch as well as a mammoth. This is completely dazing to a youngster. Where did that pleasant mummy go who is lively and cherishing and on my side? It tends to be simpler to envision that mummy or daddy or grandmother or educator or whoever, has been briefly taken over by an abhorrent beast, than to think about that they are equipped for being so startling. Consequently, grandmother is overwhelmed by the poser Riding Hood.

Goliaths as a rule symbolize that side of our temperament that is cantankerous, childish, uncaring, silly and mean. In any case, to youngsters, the approaching stature and extreme control over them that grown-ups have, implies unwittingly grown-ups are their mammoths. This is enhanced when we are irritable, however in any event, when we are sensible, we can in any case appear to be frustratingly ground-breaking. Regardless of on the off chance that you are the most reasonable and quiet parent on the planet, your youngster will in any case appreciate fantasizing that they can be the chief and even annihilation you. As a general rule, they need your insurance, direction and limits to have a sense of security, and obviously they would prefer truly not to see you come to hurt. You are their darling and the focal point of their reality. In any case, in a story, they can unwittingly have those darker wants satisfied with no genuine mischief coming to you.

Moreover, says Bettleheim,"...whatever the substance of a fantasy - which may run corresponding to a youngster's private dreams whether they be oedipal, wrathfully vicious, or deprecating of a parent - it very well may be transparently discussed, in light of the fact that the kid doesn't have to keep mystery his sentiments about what goes on in the fantasy, or feel regretful about getting a charge out of such contemplations."

So folktales can give youngsters access to methods for managing their characteristic feelings of trepidation, wraths and disappointments. Folktales - even numerous with vicious pictures, can give kids significant approaches to manage these befuddling emotions. A few stories may display a sort of conduct that is improper. In Molly Whuppie I have ventured to change a huge piece of the story, on the grounds that the goliath's significant other - who had really been useful to Molly - was thumped and this was set as clever. This most likely originated from a period in history when spouse beating was viewed as adequate and the standard. Be that as it may, the stunt is in separating a story that is in itself debilitated, from a solid one with a wiped out piece. We don't have to discard the good along with the bad. A tad of medical procedure made the story adequate to me.

In 2003, I had an extremely clear close to home understanding of the recuperating and engaging characteristics of people stories. I was expected to go on visit to Sydney for fourteen day's work narrating, however I was feeling truly terrified.

My work on visit includes conveying twelve to fifteen performance shows seven days. Each show comprises of 120 to 150 offspring of blended ages. I need to drive and explore through pinnacle hour traffic to two city areas daily. This time, I was taking my then three yr old Tamlyn and my bosom bolstered child Layla, who was four months, and would need to come to appears with me, while Tamlyn would be best off left in one spot. This implied I required a carer for every youngster, except nobody could do basically everything. I was altogether restless, Layla was crying seriously in short vehicle excursions and I believed I was confronting an incomprehensible undertaking. Anyway I was likewise resolved to do it, so I needed to discover the fearlessness.

Simultaneously, I was learning The Wise Doll, a variant of a customary story about Baba Yaga, the witch of Slavic and Russian convention, by Haiwyn Oram. Baba Yaga's home is encompassed by a fence made of bones: little bones, since she jumps at the chance to have little kids for supper. It's a really realistic and brutal picture. Her home stands on chicken legs and when she needs to travel she basically directions: "Rise chicken legs, rise and RUN!" and the chicken legs ascend, and the house ascends and the chicken legs convey the entire house forward with the fence of bones encompassing it. The "Too Nice Girl" is sent to Baba Yaga's home in the woodland, in the night to visit Baba Yaga and bring back a blessing. With the assistance of her Wise Doll, given to her by her mom before she kicked the bucket, the scared young lady breezes through three assessments, gains the blessing and her mental fortitude too. In reality the blessing speaks to her fortitude.

The more I practiced it, the more I felt fearlessness ascending in me - for if a youthful frightened young lady could go to the place of a youngster eating witch, alone in the center of the night, what was two weeks acting in Sydney with two little kids?

This is one reason why the unnerving characters in society stories should be so distinctive. In the event that, by relating to a saint or courageous woman in a folktale, you can vicariously encounter confronting and triumphing over an overwhelmingly alarming adversary, at that point confronting your own genuine difficulties appears to be much simpler and do-capable. It is a mentally enabling exper

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Hi! I was wondering if you could recommend a text as an intro to folklore studies?

This is a nearly impossible question to answer because it's SUCH a broad field, so it really depends on what aspect of folklore interests you. Personally, my gateway drug into my amateur studies was the realization that Cupid & Psyche, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, The Green Bird, and Tam Lin were all the same story. I wondered why and started digging into that, then found myself going down a rabbit hole learning about universal folktale types like ATU 425 or The Search for the Lost Husband. Your interests might be more specific to a particular culture, or another folktale type, or you might want to study it through a feminist or queer lens. Thankfully, there are books, blogs, and more that cater to each of these areas of focus.

That said, I found a few sources useful in all of my research:

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales

Sur La Lune Fairy Tales (they also sell print collections of versions of single folktale types from around the world, like Cinderella or Beauty & the Beast)

Multilingual Folktale Database (unfortunately this was taken down in December 2019 and no one seems to know why, but the outline is still there)

There are also classic standbys like Bruno Bettleheim's The Uses of Enchantment, but many of the books and articles I found indicated that his ideas are now considered sexist and eurocentric. Most active folklorists seem to be focused on broadening their research to include non-western traditions, thereby challenging notions of which patterns and motifs are actually "universal" and which are specific to a single culture or society.

Hope that helps! 💙

[costumavasernathydoida]

Fui na biblioteca

Fui na biblioteca hoje devolver o livro "Na Terra das Fadas" de Bruno Betthleheim (acho que é assim que se escreve) que eu não consegui ler por quê, bem, o subtítulo do livro é "Análise das personagens femininas", então tinha uns termos como "id" e "fixação oral" e eu não tenho nenhum conhecimento sobre Freud e Psicanálise, então não rolou, não deu jogo.

Acho que ainda vou ler esse livro, ou ao menos um livro assim, por quê eu tenho muita curiosidade sobre como a cultura molda a forma como nos vemos e vemos os outros, principalmente como a cultura para o público infantil molda a forma como as meninas e, por consequência, as mulheres se vêem e se colocam na sociedade. Acredito que a personagem feminina posta sempre no papel de vítima, e principalmente no de vítima a ser salva por uma figura masculina, nos convença - ou nem precise de tanto nos ensine primariamente - que somos frágeis e não cabemos em papéis de heroísmo nem de liderança. O que acontece tanto nos desenhos direcionados para meninas quanto para os meninos. Reparo muito na postura das personagens femininas nós desenhos do meu irmãozinho, como uma porcaria de desenho de temporada "Alvin e os esquilos" que num episódio trazia em algum momento da história uma personagem expressando em palavras e ações o pensamento de que as mulheres não podem confrontar os homens, por serem as responsáveis por cuidar dos sentimentos deles e o confronto os magoaria.

Mas não foi dessa vez, então hoje fui devolver o livro quando cheguei lá entrei na biblioteca, deixei minha bolsa normal, cheguei na primeira mesa dos bibliotecários e perguntei sobre o livro que tinha reservado "Ai, mas não tem nenhum livro reservado aqui", daí eu fui buscar o livro e cheguei na mesa denovo "Ah, o site caiu", e eu "E agora?" "Agora a gente não faz nada, a gente espera" "Até quando?" "Não sei". Daí não deu nem pra eu devolver o do Bettleheim nem pra pegar o Budapeste do Chico Buarque.

Assim, é a biblioteca da prefeitura, ok, serviço público, mas a Biblioteca Circulante até onde eu usufrui dela é um bom serviço. O meu ponto - e eu até tava conversando com a minha mãe sobre isso - é que não dá pra vida parar por quê o site caiu. Devia ter um processo alternativo, analógico! Porra, o livro tá ali com a barra de código dele, minha carteirinha tava ali, era só tirar uma foto da barra de código, anotar o meu número de matrícula e anota na minha carteirinha o dia da devolução e será só! But nooo!

[rebeltoes]

Enough. When I use the word enough it is to imply completion. An ending. No need. Enough chocolate. Enough bickering. Enough money. D.W. Winnicott’s theory on the Good Enough Mother has recently spawned lots of talkative offspring. There’s Good Enough Parent by Bruno Bettleheim and Good Enough Parenting by John and Karen Louis.  There is a Good Enough Mother blog and a Good Enough Mom blog and…

[fictionchronicler-blog]

Villain Moms!

Destroying Children’s Happiness Since Ancient Greece

NOTE: None of the illustrations or gifs belong to me.

Let's take two fairy tales, shall we?  Seems innocent enough.  We'll do Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel.  Both about kids in the woods who meet strangers who intend on eating them.  Great fare for kids, right? Bruno Bettleheim did this in his book The Uses of Enchantment, but I'm going to make his point shorter—what is the best part of Little Red Riding Hood?  

“When she gets in there and confuses her granny with a wolf in drag.”

Crude, but correct.  Everyone LOVES the “what big teeth you have” reveal.  There is an element of fun to the Wolf.  He's enjoyable...as he's preying on a small child.  Kids lean forward and start smiling when Red enters the house and isn't quite sure of what she's seeing. It's naughty fun that ultimately gets punished anyway, so why not indulge a little?  

Now, what is the best part of Hansel and Gretel?

“........when Gretel shoves the Witch into the oven?”

“Of all the days I lent my gun to the witch two forests over.”

Yeah, kids cheer when the Witch meets her demise.  Meeting her is not fun; it's scary.  The kids realizing the stranger with candy is luring them into a trap isn't fun; Hansel's shoved in a cage to be fattened up while Gretel is freakin' enslaved!  Look at the painting, for goodness sake!  The candy exterior looks more and more like human heads as you get closer to the Witch!  Human heads!  

“What's your point?  You've told us over and over again fairy tales are darker than people think.”

Yes, but what's the real difference between the villains here?  The Wolf uses trickery and seduction (of a kind) to get what he wants, but we find him charming and fun to the point that a small part of us wants him to win.  The Witch uses trickery and seduction (of a gluttonous kind) to get what she wants and we are relieved when the old lady is burned alive in her own oven.  I submit to you my thesis—women are scarier than men, and therefore, the scariest woman of all is your mother.

Fiction is full of horrible parents, fathers and mothers, but there is something about the latter that truly makes us afraid rather than thrilled.  Why?  

DISCLAIMER: There will be spoilers.

Pioneers of Evil

Medea: I’ve been working on this one-liner all day! (clears throat) Now YOU clean up that mess!

In the Greek play Medea, the eponymous character is a witch from a far-off land who helped Jason and the Argonauts obtain the Golden Fleece.  It was a Happily Ever After moment when she left her crazy family and went off with a hero right up there with Theseus and Perseus.  The playwright Euripides, though, decided there wasn't enough angst and fan-fictioned a sequel where Jason leaves Medea to marry a princess. Medea's idea of punishing Jason?  Killing their two sons.  Heinous, yes, but she's portrayed as a tragic figure, kind of like a female King Lear.  

There is an assumption that parents are predisposed to love their children above all else, but sadly, this just isn't true.  In 70% of cases where a child is killed by one of his/her parents, it's the mother.  Neglect was the main type of abuse in 66% of cases involving a female caregiver vs. 36% of cases involving a male caregiver. However, it's important to note that women still spend way more time with kids than men do, and when a man is charged with violence against a child, it's very likely the woman in the household is charged, too, not to mention that in cases of murder/suicides in the same household, males are the perpetrators 90% of the time.  

Depressing subject matter today.

So is there a precedent for bad moms getting more attention than bad dads? Well, in classic literature, right before the Trojan War started, the Greek king Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter to the gods in hopes they would give him fair winds on the way to Troy.  His wife, Clytemnestra, was understandably outraged, and when her husband came home from war, she and her lover killed him.  But Clytemnestra is remembered not for being an avenging mother, but for being a cheating wife and a scheming queen who is pursued by Orestes in another play to avenge his father's death.  Ah, Greek mythology—the only soap opera people will think you're smart for following.  

“Can't you talk about something a little lighter?”

Okay. Let's talk about Snow White.

“Shit.”

“I thought they kept you around to keep this place clean?”

In the first edition of the Brothers Grimm collection, the Evil Queen is Snow White's mother, not a stepmother.  Jealous of her daughter's youth and beauty, she takes her out to pick flowers and abandons her there.  From that point on, the tale is all about the Queen having the determination of the Terminator in that she tries to kill Snow with a really tightly laced corset, a poisoned comb, and then a poisoned apple.  This queen also didn't have a magic mirror, but talks with the sun itself about who the fairest is, and suns don't lie.  The Grimms censored the peasant stories they collected, though, and decided by the next edition that it would be “better” if this was a stepmother going after Snow White and she outsourced the first murder attempt to a Huntsman who would ultimately chicken out.  

We'll get to stepmothers later, but isn't it telling that we remember the female fairy tale villains more than the male ones?  The stories in the Grimms' Children's and Household Tales have more than their fair share of bad dads, ones who gamble with their daughters' lives (and sometimes their souls), ones who are so financially irresponsible their sons are left with no inheritance, ones who imprison their kids in towers, and even ones that want to bed their own daughter.  But we remember the scary moms the most.  

“Who's telling these stories???”

Well, moms.  And grandmas.  The Grimms didn't invent these stories; women did, peasant women who had a ton of work to do and had to 1.) make sure their kids didn't go into the woods, and 2.) make sure their kids appreciated them so they would do what they were told and, again, wouldn't go into the woods.  In this time, mothers dying was common.  Dads remarrying was common.  These stories where a mother is absent sent a subtle message to the listeners that a woman's life was hard.  Elderly women were valued even less because they were past childbearing years, so all those stories where a seemingly inconsequential old beggar woman turns out to be a powerful fairy or benevolent fairy godmother?  Self-promotion.  When kids are running for their lives in the woods and find a gingerbread house in the middle of nowhere, maybe the kid listening to the story starts to feel a little sorry for these kids, huh?  These poor, abandoned little idiots who didn't have a mother to tell them this is definitely not a good idea, huh?  

So we definitely pay more attention to the evil mothers because they terrify us and moms know and exploit this.  Hmm.

When Stepmothers Ruin Lives

Eat your heart out, Maleficent.

Beetlejuice, Labyrinth, Enchanted, Sleepy Hollow, The Parent Trap, Double Indemnity, The Ramayana, and even The Tale of Genji, the world's oldest surviving book, all have evil stepmothers in them. The oldest ballads from England are crawling with them, and the Hansel and Gretel story actually has one, the woodcutter's wife (sometimes the biological mother) whose idea of saving money is to leave the kids to die in the woods.

By far, the most famous wicked stepmother would have to be Cinderella's, in every incarnation of the story. The Disney version makes it a point to tell us that the father has died, leaving a very young Cinderella in the care of a woman whose “true nature was revealed—cold, cruel, and bitterly jealous of Cinderella's charm and beauty.” But many versions don't tell us the father's fate; he's just that unimportant to this story about one woman oppressing another.

No matter what personality your main character has or what they go through, most protagonists have to strike out on their own and become independent, self-actualized people, and it's a lot easier to do that if there isn't much tying them to home and childhood. As fairy tales moved up the social ladder into the salons, so did the role of a stepmother. A peasant man might remarry for love, and a stepmother's role would be to continue having children and raise the ones that are already there. So whether they loved her or hated her, the stepmother was a big part of the kids' lives. An aristocratic stepmother, however, might spend more time as a wife and being the lady of the house than being a nurturer, so it would be easier for the kids to hate her and see her as something a little more demonic. In “The Juniper Tree,” the stepmother straight-up DECAPITATES her stepson and pins the blame on her own daughter.  The Russian fairy tale “Vasilissa the Beautiful” has a girl in such dreadful Cinderella circumstances that she is sent by her stepmother to Baba Yaga, an old Russian bogeyman sort.  The tale “Brother and Sister” has siblings fleeing their abusive witch of a stepmother who turns the boy into a deer and almost succeeds in killing the sister.  

Do stepmothers have it out for their stepchildren?  As of 2011, 4 out of 10 Americans have at least one step-relative. However, stepfathers are more likely to be violent toward the kids than stepmothers.  Kids are more likely to be killed by non-family members than by their stepmothers.  The most common “motives” for these adults killing their children are anger/revenge (40%) and substance abuse (36%), which seems to indicate that these are heat-of-the-moment crimes of passion rather than some calculating sociopath moving in and eliminating the kids so they can have Dad all to themselves or something like that.  The supposed “Cinderella Effect,” which claimed that children with a step-relative were about 40 times more likely to be murdered, has a lot of attributing factors and there may have been some biases with the studies.  

“Are the toys further down in the chest, Stepmother? To the side of this painted target?”

So it seems that a relatively non-violent member of a family is singled out, creating a disproportionate number of stories where the stepmother is almost always the bad guy, but the stepfather only sometimes is.  Well, this does kind of make sense.  The stories, while dark, were cautionary tales to be told to children, and children usually spend more time with their mothers/stepmothers/grandmothers than the male members of the family, so yeah, spending the day with the crazy woman trying to kill them would be scarier than spending an hour in the evening with the crazy guy who only might want to kill them.  

When the Bad Moms Run Amok

Literature was racking up the evil mother/stepmother points, reveling in evil, scary women who were charged with looking after children.  Jane Eyre starts the book out living with her aunt who verbally and physically abuses her, but spoils her two biological daughters.  James of Giant Peach fame lives with two evil aunts.  Harry Potter's mother figure is abusive and neglectful to him, as is Fanny Price's guardian, and even Shakespeare has gotten in on the act with Tamora in Titus Andronicus.

In most of these stories, we see the mother from the perspective of a child.  Neil Gaiman's Coraline is one of the most blatant examples and one of the most realistic ones. In his story, neither Coraline nor her mother are perfect.  Coraline has bratty tendencies, and her mother can be distant and overworked. Mrs. Jones in the film doesn't smile all that much, can be a bit snarky, and since she's in a neck brace after a car accident, she's not always in that great a mood.

She's a bit short with her daughter, but she is doing her best, and the movie (gentler with the characters than the book) implies that it isn't always this way, just when her parents are approaching deadlines.  However, this deadline is right at the time they have moved, so Coraline feels especially uprooted.  Without going into too many details, Coraline discovers a world parallel to hers where she has “Other Mother,” a mother who is consistently sweet, pleasant, cooks for her, plays games with her, and gives her whatever she wants.  

She has chickens for hands!  Run for your lives!

Those of you who are genre-savvy may be able to see where this is going, but Coraline has a unique distinction of being a story that frightens adults more than kids. Adults often find its imagery and story details disturbing, but it strikes a nerve with younger readers/viewers and everyone gets creeped out. Win-win.

But Coraline also has issues with her father, who is also overworked. Charlie Jones may be a little friendlier than his wife, but Gaiman describes him as one of those dads who thinks by embarrassing their kids that he's being cool and the voice actor describes him as a guy who would swerve to avoid slipping on a banana peel only to fall into a manhole. A bit bumbling, doesn't cook all that well, and is apparently so busy he can't even shave. But Other Father, well.......without giving anything away, Other Mother is the one you need to watch out for.

Many mothers feel that they do less than their own mothers did, many stay-at-home mothers feeling pressure to be good mothers because they feel that's all they have to contribute, going so far as to feel guilty for asking their husbands for help with chores. Most men today, on the other hand, feel they do more than their fathers did, and don't have the same intensity of inadequacy feelings that mothers do. The amount of negative emotions women feel increases after they have children, especially in the years when the children are under 3. It's all very selective, too. When you ask a mom if she likes spending time with her kids, she says yes, remembering fun activities like playing at a park with them or reading books to them. But when asked to recall their day, the moms remember all the time spent getting the kids to do this or that, breaking up the fights, yelling to get things done, and disciplining when the children disobey.

“All this sounds normal.”

It is. But we're conditioned to feel that it isn't.

To be absolutely fair, Barbara Billingsley said she wore pearls to hide a shadow created by the hollow of her neck, and her high heels were to appear taller than the actors playing her sons as they grew older. And who WOULDN’T want what’s in this pitcher?

Leave it to Beaver's June Cleaver is usually held up as the ideal mother, up at the crack of dawn making a hot breakfast for her family every day, vacuuming and doing dishes in pearls, and having a house so spotless it looked like a prop man came in and cleaned between scenes.  However, she was often snarky and witty, told her sexist boys that girls have just as much ambition as boys do, and was always wise to Eddie Haskell.  Her relationship with Ward is also more nuanced than pop culture believes.  The two of them traded good-natured barbs, discussed parenting like partners, and when she deferred to him for disciplinary actions, it was usually so she would look like the nicer parent.  

But unfortunately, the show was about creating an image.  What people took away was that this woman didn't have interesting story lines like her kids did, and she wasn't as prominent an authority figure in their lives as their father was.  The house WAS spotless all the time, whether the prop man did it or not.  She WAS up early doing chores in fancy dresses and made it look easy, and we're taught at a young age that these chores are supposed to be fun.  I'm all for making work fun and kids learning young that work has to get done whether you like it or not, but you don't see toy washing machines marketed toward little boys all that much.  We are bombarded with images of moms doing housework HAPPILY and all conflicts with kids being resolved QUICKLY and rather PAINLESSLY.  

Today's mother get bombarded with images of super, idealistic parenting, too. The internet and social media have photos of DIY projects that create more storage in kids' rooms, art and cooking projects you can do with your kids for cheap-but-meaningful quality time.  We are one click away from looking at summarized studies that tell you how much screen time your kids should have, how much time outdoors they should spend (but with sunscreen, anti-bacterial wipes, and bottled water handy at ALL times), what you should and shouldn't say when a pet or Grandma dies, etc.  When in the past, moms had their moms and the occasional parenting book, we have advice EVERYWHERE, so the pressure to succeed is heightened, but the definition of success has expanded. What do you mean your kid isn't an athletic, musically inclined, chess expert who reads Proust and is in the above-average math class and spends Saturdays volunteering at a soup kitchen?  Don't you want them to have high self-esteem?

Bad Moms Make Better Protagonists

We tend to forget Scarlett O’Hara is a mom.

I know, right? How did we forget that?

We usually find stories where characters don't get along more interesting than ones where they do.  In the book, Scarlett has three kids by three different fathers—Wade by Charles Hamilton, Ella by Frank Kennedy, and Bonnie by Rhett.  And she's terrible to all of them.  Not because she has postpartum depression or anything like that.  She's just not interested in them.  Wade is so neglected it's easy to forget he's in the book at all, and Ella may or may not be a victim of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome as all we're really told about her is that she's ugly. Bonnie's rather doted upon, but Rhett spoils her rotten, perhaps to compensate.  Anyway, they suffer for their bad parenting when Bonnie dies and Scarlett is pretty distraught.  Not anywhere near Rhett's suicidal level, but distraught.  Like a grieving mother would be. The movie probably thought Scarlett would be more sympathetic if Bonnie was her only child, what with that Hays Code demanding bad behavior be punished, and bad mothering is bad behavior.

It's even easier to forget that Daisy Buchannon from The Great Gatsby and Emma Bovary from Madame Bovary are mothers because they're just so inattentive.  Their kids just don't show up on their radar.  

Alfred Hitchcock managed to create a protagonist/antagonist out of a mother that was already dead when he directed Psycho.  No small feat.  There are previous films where his characters had severe mother issues like Strangers on a Train, and even Cary Grant's mom in North by Northwest is kind of awful (and only like 6 years older than him), but Psycho brought mommy issues to the forefront in the form of Norman Bates, a mild-mannered, sweet guy who has the burden of caring for an invalid mother and a dying motel business all by himself.  

Norman: Ignore the eerie mist and creepy house on the hill.  I ate the last guest, so I'm too full to eat you!  Ha ha, this is a joke I have made.  Welcome to the Bates Motel!

I may be the only critical movie watcher who likes the psychologist's summing up scene near the end of the movie. Most find it stops the movie dead and takes away from the atmosphere, but I don't think it's that bad. For one, it clarifies that the Mother personality Norman has is kind of his own problem. Yeah, it's hinted that Mother was pretty bad, but all we have to go on is Norman's perspective. The psychologist says that while Norman was jealous and clingy of his mother, he also believed she was jealous of him. That's why “she” kills women he takes sexual interest in. It shuts down the idea that Mother was a complete monster and Norman was a nice guy. That's only partly true. It also differentiates between one of Norman's personalities being female and your garden variety transvestite, making it a point to say that Norman is not getting any sexual kicks out of wearing his mother's clothes, and that the men who do aren't typically violent or dangerous in any way. The real Mother may have been abusive and a master manipulator (“I'm not even going to swat that fly”), but Norman's perception of her that hasn't changed since he was a child makes her larger than life, an almost supernatural villain whose sole purpose is to make life difficult for her son.

Never mind the fact that Norman himself killed her because she had a boyfriend.

The bad mother isn't usually just a part of back story. She is usually an active player in the present-time plot of a story. Margaret White in Carrie, for example, is sort of responsible for the entire plot as it's implied that Carrie wouldn't have developed her powers if she hadn't suffered her mother's abuse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12wHDwNXBL0 --Behold, the day Carrie got her first period.

Religious maniacs as villains weren't anything new when Stephen King wrote the story, and I'll be very quick to point out that King doesn't seem to put that much thought into his characters (an alcoholic from Maine who has problems! Genius!), but Margaret is one of his better crafted ones, and director Brian DePalma knew exactly how to make the most of the late Piper Laurie's acting abilities. We meet her as a reasonably pretty, pleasant woman except that it's the 70s and she's wearing something that looks more like a witch's cape. She has scenes where she does neutral-to-positive things with Carrie like share a piece of cake with her, and she seems protective of her in not wanting her to go to the prom....only shouting that everyone will laugh at her and calling her breasts “dirty pillows” may not be the best way to go about things. I'm not going to lie: her very vivid and explicit death at the end is very satisfying.

It's the blatant disregard for their children's mental health as well as physical that makes for some top-notch villains, like Eleanor Iselin from The Manchurian Candidate who is totally okay with her son being a brainwashed assassin and seems to harbor incestuous feelings for him.

“Tell me more about my randy younger days!”

Even sitcoms cash in on this frequently, softening the bad mother only to the point where she is slightly smothering. The overbearing mother can be both a villainous and sympathetic role to play, which is probably very rewarding for a talented actress. Take Doris Roberts' portrayal of Marie on Everybody Loves Raymond, a woman who has an obvious favorite child, has no sense of boundaries with either of her kids, constantly fights with her husband, and belittles her daughter-in-law whenever she gets the chance. But she can be surprisingly sympathetic, as the show explores when she has to deal with one son having a dangerous job, a history of an insensitive husband, and just the overall sorrows motherhood brings.

The Ultimate Scare Factor

Poor Joan just couldn’t NOT be insane ever.

In 1978, Christina Crawford wrote a tell-all about her adoptive mother, famed actress Joan Crawford...and almost single-handedly destroyed her reputation.  Some found it to be revenge since Christina Crawford was cut out of her mother's will, whereas others believe every word of it.  Bob Hope, Cesar Romero, Barbara Stanwyck, and even Crawford's first husband say they never saw anything that would lead them to believe the events in the tell-all were true, but Helen Hayes, June Allyson, Betty Hutton, and Christina's brother Christopher all have said they'd witnessed abusive behaviors.   The movie based on the book, Mommy Dearest, is now seen as an unintentional comedy due to Faye Dunaway's performance, but Joan Crawford (and Faye Dunaway) were never looked at the same way again.  

It may seem obvious now that a celebrity in the 50s wouldn't be all that he/she seemed, but this was the first expose of this kind, and it was considered pretty shocking.  Here it is half a century later and the likes of Andrea Yates and Casey Anthony are household names. It still shocks us when a mother is bad to the point of murder.  And it should.  

That's why mothers as villains are more terrifying than fathers as villains—it's more shocking.  

Motherhood is still romanticized and yet heavily scrutinized, which means moms have to walk a very thin line.  A 2014 study looked at 125 articles by mental health professionals in scholarly journals and found that mothers were blamed for 72 different kinds of problems in their children, everything from bed-wetting to schizophrenia.  People point out that women are still more likely to take kids to doctors and therapists more than men, so it's easier to blame the mother when something is wrong.  You have a face.  Most parenting books recommend mothers limit their time with their children to avoid smothering them and/or forgetting about their individual needs, but dads are encouraged to spend as much time as possible with their kids.  

The result of this is that stressed mothers tend to withdraw even more from their children.  We don't want to be the crazy murderous moms in fiction, so we avoid that.  But let's learn from these bad moms.  Were there common factors?

“Mental illness = Villainy.”

Well......yes.  Film especially sees mental illness as its own villain cornucopia.  But another one may be lack of a support system. Carrie's mother is all alone and seems to have a bad history with Carrie's father.  Scarlett has a lot of people in her social circle, but she ends up being stuck taking care of most of them, and even the person at Tara she was closest to, Melanie, has a skewed idea of motherhood, believing every woman wants a baby and that babies make things better.  On that note, a lot of men complain about the lack of paternity leave they receive when their children are born.  I've talked about the difficulties women have, but that doesn't mean men have none.  They are pressured to be breadwinners and spend more and more time with this new kid so they will be a better dad than their dad was.  

Hell, even Mother Bates had no resources, the psychologist telling us that for years she and Norman lived like there was no one else in the world but the two of them.  Maybe moms who are overprotective to the point of smothering have abandonment issues.  Maybe moms who engage more in substance abuse than Dr. Seuss (I was wondering if I could fit that in somehow) are intensely overwhelmed.  Maybe stressed-out moms who yell all the time don't have other adults to talk to and only have Pinterest to compare themselves to.  

The good news is that a strong support system and a clear idea of what is normal can help.  In virtually every article I looked up for this thing, the professionals made it clear that they've never met a perfect parent, mother or father.  And it's pretty futile to try to be one even though you want to be.  

Fiction is also finally looking at mothers as interesting characters in their own right, not automatically assigning them roles as either cipher or villain.  All three of Once Upon a Time's female leads are mothers, Sarah Connor of Terminator fame has both positive and negative traits, and Modern Family's Claire and Gloria get to be as much a part of the comedy as the rest of their family.  Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables finds a stern but devoted adoptive mother in Marilla Cuthbert.  All these women have something going on other than just being a mom, whether they stay home or work or whether they are of our time or part of another world.

Harry Potter does find a mother figure in Molly Weasley, a witch with seven kids and a husband who apparently gets paid to figure out what a rubber duckie is when he could just go find some Muggles and talk to them like they're people.  Anyway, she was just kind of that background snuggly character you knew your protagonist could cry to when things got tough, but when she took out Bellatrix Lestrange, there was some controversy. “How can a housewife beat a Deatheater?”  The stereotype that mothers are meek, passive, soft, uninteresting women living vicariously through their children was prevalent.  But Molly kicked Voldemort's Number 2's ass just the same, and we all owe her a parade for that.  The way she holds the chaotic Weasley brood together is commendable enough, but when she told Sirius Black that Harry was like a son to her, all our hearts melted.  

[crealitysoarsfree-blog]

PASSED MARCH 13th's::: KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI SUSAN B. ANTHONY BENJAMIN HARRISON BRUNO BETTLEHEIM GARSON KANIN KITTY GENOVESE NICHOLAS BOILEAU

[davidpaulkirkpatrick]

Lincoln: The President Who "Swallowed His Shadow"

The Before and After Photographs

The iconic before and after pictures of  President Abraham Lincoln

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