An Inverted Fairy Tale

Looking through my first blog (which is too embarrassing to link to), I found this post on an fairy tale-themed anime.  I'm not sure if my reaction would be the same were I to try to watch it again, especially if I followed through and completed the series, but I thought it worth sharing.


Upon first watching Revolutionary Girl Utena, an anime I'd always known by word of mouth, if not personally, I'm hopelessly hooked.  Not only is it a twist on the traditional fairy tale, it's ripe with symbolism and grossly thought-provoking (like, your head hurts watching it after a while, trying to figure stuff out).  Utena is the stuff critics dream of.  It's just waiting to be harvested: the dichotomy of good and evil, gender stereotyping, and the multifaceted nature of appearances.

Utena is a beautiful adolescent enrolled at some sort of alternate universe academy.   When she was a newly-orphaned child, a handsome prince appeared to her and told her to grow up big, strong, and noble.   He gave her a ring, saying that it would lead her to him some day.  Only the betrothal backfired.  Instead of making Utena into the dewy eyed sleeping beauty, awaiting the arrival of her beloved prince amidst a curtain of thorns, Utena decided to become a prince.

This just grabs me.  A prince!   Adopting the stereotypical characteristics of the fairy tale prince, Utena dresses handsomely (gender-bender?), is always courteous, and is constantly on the look-out for the wronged hearts of tender maidens.  Only she really cares.   Despite her aspiration to prince-hood, she refuses to sacrifice her femininity often appearing unsure of herself, confused, innocent, especially sexually.

The basic tale unfolds as follows: a male classmate, who happens to be the president of the student council, slights Utena's friend.   She challenges him to a duel, unknowing that in challenging him, she is asserting herself as a competitor for the shy but secretive "Rose Bride," another classmate called Anthy (what's really cool is that she's of Indian origin; yay variety!).  In the typical prince-like accomplishment of prevailing against impossible odds, Utena wins the duel, winning Anthy as well.   Technically, Anthy and Utena are now "engaged."  And Utena has access to the mysterious power dwelling inside Anthy.

One might assume a chronically submissive female and a girl who thinks she's a prince cannot possibly equal a healthy relationship, straight or otherwise.  But I think that people, particularly women, can learn something--or at least put the key into the lock of the door to learning--from these two.   Every little girl has the first experience of the masculine.  She has an awakening, or comes into a knowledge of, a sense of assertion or power.  She can do.  She can shape.  Some women, I think, react according to personal qualms, insecurities, or societal constraints, believing that the only way they can know "the other" is through a man.  And they wait like long-locked dames in towers for him to reveal himself to them.

But what about the other little girls, who, rather than joining the warbling chorus of "One Day My Prince Will Come," decide to be the prince?  Who says we can't?  Though maybe Utena's innocence is a sign (I haven't finished the series, so I can't say) that it's an idealistic but socially impossible goal.  That a woman who claims to be prince is making herself vulnerable.  While Anthy, the seemingly submissive one, has strengths and wiles of her own.

Interestingly, as the story goes on, it seems that both Utena and Anthy are the consorts of the prince figure.  I wonder if the two are not halves of the same woman.  Maybe they have to embrace each other, change each other, learn to love one another in order that they may be whole.

As much as it is anything, Revolutionary Girl Utena is a story about growing up.  All of a sudden, a young woman "wakes up" and realizes that she is this foreign creature (a man? or perhaps her ripening femininity is foreign to her).  Though the age of this awakening varies for individuals, I think it's universal, and most likely for men as well, though I can't speak for the other sex.  She may fight tooth and nail for all she's worth, or she may lie down and let the world puppet her as it pleases, reacting as listlessly and with as much emotion as seaweeds floating on waves.  Which is better?   Or is it neither?  And who's to say?

Or have I become an English major automaton, drilled into searching for critical meanings in every context, and am reading too much into it out of sheer force of habit?

One other thing that strikes me, and the I'll shut up: is it irony (or is there something to the fact) that the only person who can fulfill a woman's dream of the long-awaited prince is another woman?

Snow Apple

This is a superb re-telling, made to accompany a virtual item on Gaia Online.

I'm not sure of the artist and author.  Words and images were provided here.

In a frozen land far from any place you have ever been, where night seemed as eternal as the cold, there reigned a queen made of ice. She was cruel and beautiful, her subjects frigid spirits, her servants souls she had taken pity upon and rescued from certain death in the cold. 

The snow queen was vain as well. She enchanted a mirror to show her the fairest woman in the kingdom, and of course, hers was always the face she would see.


Among the queen's servants, her favorite was a child she had taken from the snow. She was quiet and hard working, and plain, the part that the queen liked most. The girl was called Snow White.


Years passed, and Snow White grew into a young woman. One day the queen asked her mirror to show her the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. . . And to her horror, the traitorous mirror did not show her own face, but the likeness of her servant.


Enraged, she summoned her most powerful minion, the Yeti. She ordered him to take Snow White far out into the wilderness, and return with her frozen heart.


The Yeti obeyed and lead Snow White far across the ice, into the circle of the world that is only frozen ocean. There, he looked upon her, shivering and cold, and could not bring himself to kill her. He told her to run and hide where the queen could never find her.


Terrified, Snow White ran and ran until her lungs burned in the cold air and her legs gave out under her. Lying in the snow, she knew she would die if she didn't get up. But her eyelids felt so heavy, and the snow felt almost warm. . .


And when she opened them, she WAS warm! Piled around her were seven sled dogs, the same colors as the rocks and ice, almost as if they were born of the land.


When she asked them who they were, they replied, "We are the workers of the snow and ice. We can run forever and never fall, and despite the long cold night we will never freeze. Stay with us, young one, and we'll teach you the ways of the winter, and make you strong." She gladly agreed. Months passed. . .


And Snow White's spirit grew fierce. Even so far beyond the edges of the queen's kingdom, the enchanted mirror could see no one else. The queen knew her minion had betrayed her, and also, looking upon the face of the girl she had condemned to death. . . She felt a terrible fear.


She called upon her own ferocious spirit, casting a spell to transform herself into a great white bear. She hid between her claws a sliver of ice from the very top of the world, so cold it froze anything it touched.


The queen travelled far across the ice, tracking Snow White for many weeks. Finally, they found each other in the wasteland. Snow White could not recognize the queen, and saw only a bear threatening her dogs. She lunged towards the bear even as it charged her, as fearless as she was certain that she would not emerge alive. The queen's heart trembled as she looked upon the girl, and saw her death in those dark eyes.

The bear faltered, its claws missing Snow White by a breath, and she saw her harpoon's opening, sealing the fate of the beast.  As she stood, she suddenly recognized the queen.  She felt a sharp pain in her chest, and looking down, she found the shard of ice, lodged in her heart.  The familiar beating of her blood stopped cold.  Even her breath froze.

The seven dogs ran to her, but there was nothing they could do. They nipped at her boots and barked for attention, but she would not wake. Overcome with sorrow, they threw their voices to the wind, calling for help that they knew would not come.


And then, a miracle happened! A survivalist named Les Cannon happened to be filming nearby, and heard the mournful howls. Adventurous and bold, he immediately determined to discover the source.


Upon arriving, he saw the frozen Snow White, and was moved. He dropped his equipment and labored to revive her. As their lips met, albeit in the breath of resuscitation and not the legendary prince's kiss, the spark thrown off from the clash of their two strong spirits melted the ice in her heart, and it leapt in her chest.


Together with the seven dogs, Snow White and Les Cannon trekked back through the winterland, intending to alert the frozen kingdom of their liberation from the queen. As the palace grew larger on the horizon, so did the faint warm blush of a long dawn. Day had come at last.

Classic Anime Fairy Tales

Today is my 27th birthday, if I may divulge my age.  I therefore think it appropriate to indulge a little nostalgia.

Like most little girls, my early childhood was dominated by Disney fairy tales, but they weren't the only ones.

A few non-mainstream movies sidled in there beside the squatting Disney giant, and the ones that gave me the most lasting impressions were the Japanese animations.

It's undoubtedly a matter of taste, but I find the Japanese's graceful animation style much more suitable to fairy tales than Disney's more exaggeratedly cartoonish rendering (not so bad at first with Snow White and Pinocchio but growing more over-the-top in the 80's, so that after The Little Mermaid, we now have highly stylized pinched waists and hulking shoulders in Hercules and Tangled).

I also find (correct me if I'm wrong) that the Japanese are less loath to present troublesome subjects to children, so that their fairy tales remain closer to the originals.

Like Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid:

While there is a talking dolphin (it's not out of the question to assume that in Anderson's vision, mermaids regularly conversed with the ocean locals), his cuteness is considerably blunted by the fact that he is carrying a knife with which to murder the prince.

In the conceptual drawings for this movie, they show the mermaids bare-breasted and went forward to animate them accordingly.  In the English dub, however, all the "revealing" scenes are deleted.

images courtesy of The redanimation blog

Swan Lake was another one that imprinted in my mind, so that many years later, after the introduction of YouTube, I would go in search of it to sate my nostalgia.

In contrast to this version, The Swan Princess is not Disney-made, but it follows the well-forged path by grafting on musical numbers, humorous animal helpers, and an uncompromising, happy ending.

The Japanese animated Swan Lake differs drastically in plot and mood.  Though squirrels narrate and follow the tale, this is not entirely outside of fairy tale fashion, as in Anderson's The Swamp King's Daughter.

And who could forget the enchanting animation for Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, an example of the rare (though growing more common) American anime?

This foaming, rolling wave, curling into a host of galloping unicorns emerging from their black sea-prison is one of the most memorable scenes.  Talk about moments of perilous beauty encountered in Faerie!

This next one was a later discovery for me, but there are some real elements of whimsey, such as the fire children plucking and lighting flowers.

I like the inversion of the characters' elemental colors.

Apparently, The Sea Prince and the Fire Child is based on a Japanese myth and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

I'll deal with Disney and why I'm not overly fond of their re-tellings in the next couple of posts.

Hey, and if you want to gift me a free birthday present, it's as easy as leaving a comment!