1st Edition

Happily Ever After Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry

By Jack Zipes Copyright 1997
    182 Pages
    by Routledge

    182 Pages
    by Routledge

    First Published in 1997. Happily Ever After is Jack Zipes's latest work on the fairy tale. Moving from the Renaissance to the present, and between different cultures this book addresses Zipes's ongoing concern with the fairy tale- its impact on children and adults, its role in the socialisation of children- as well as the future of the fairy tale on the big(and little) screen. Here are Straparola's sixteenth-century 'Puss in Boots' and a 1922 film of the story; Hansel and Gretel and child abuse; the Pinocchio of Colladi and of Walt Disney. AN ardent champion of children's literature and children's culture, Zipes writes also about oral tradition and the rise of storytelling throughout the world. But behind each of his essays lies the key question that all fairy tales will raise: what does it tale to bring about happiness? And is happiness only to be found in fairy tales?

    Introduction; Chapter 1 Of Cats and Men; Chapter 2 The Rationalization of Abandonment and Abuse in Fairy Tales; Chapter 3 Toward a Theory of the Fairy-Tale Film; Chapter 4 Once Upon a Time beyond Disney; Chapter 5 Lion Kings and the Culture Industry; Chapter 6 Revisiting Benjamin’s “The Storyteller”;

    Biography

    Jack Zipes is Professor of German at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, Don't Bet on the Prince and Creative Storytelling, all published by Routledge.

    "...[Zipes'] book does make us wonder whether we should be packing our children off to films that have more to do with mass merchandising than mystery and wonder." -- Teacher
    "An incisive study of fairy tales, ofhow they have been shaped by our culture, and how in turn, our culture has been shaped by them. [Zipes] suggests that the shift from oral to literary traditions helped to institutionalize and commodify fairy tales, and that the film industry has driven this trend to extremes ... it would certainly trigger some stirring classroom debates." -- Christian Library Journal