Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

[Huntley]

Copy of what was originally on our site:

Post #1 (Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty)
posted 13 hours ago by Robert Snook
Nicky Phelan's "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty" contains both
elements representative of a typical fairy tale and elements that
deviate from those norms. The tale told by the grandmother seems
relatively typical at first. The focus is centered on a princess born
in a kingdom far away. Additionally, the story involves fairies and a
noticeable amount of the supernatural. The antagonist in the story
also seems somewhat typical as old and physically deformed. However,
the story deviates from typical fairy tales in several ways. The tale
does not have a happy or concrete resolution and instead seems to end
immediately after the main conflict is introduced. Furthermore, the
visual aspect of the story has some elements that seem to be
inappropriate for younger children. The story is also framed in a
manner where the main focus is on the plight of the older fairy
instead of the new born princess. The story told also differs
significantly from the original Sleeping Beauty.

While the video may seem to simply be a grandmother reciting a story
to her granddaughter, there seem to be multiple layers within the
story. Instead of reading the story in the book, the grandmother seems
to add elements of her own narrative and possibly influences from her
own life into the story. The grandmother does not seem very concerned
with maintaining the integrity of the original story and seems more
focused on telling a story about some past slight in her life. The
story can then be viewed as a fairy tale interpretation of the birth
of the grand-daughter and an insult the grandmother believes she
suffered.

Comments
Zoe Ullman Nagel - Jan 18, 2012 8:34 PM

I agree with Robbie that the tale contains both elements similar to
that which we talked about in class that make up traditional fairy
tales while also deviating from the norm.

As Robbie mentioned, the story does differ in many ways from the
Sleeping Beauty tale that we know of. In Disney's version, the
princess' name is Aurora, and three fairies come to bestow a gift each
on Aurora. One gives her beauty, one gives her the gift of song, but
before the third fairy can give her gift, an evil witch who was not
invited says that Aurora will die before her 16th birthday, since the
witch is upset she was not given an invitation to the celebration of
the princess' birth. The third fairy tries to make up for this
unfortunate interference by saying that instead of dying, Aurora will
simply fall asleep until she is kissed by her one true love.

In Phelan's version, the princess is named Beauty, because she was so
beautiful, and it completely excludes the father of the princess, the
king, from the picture altogether. We see other men at the
christening, but none seem to be the king, which is a deviance in
itself since we talked about how it was common to have a king as a
central character. Also, instead of sticking to the rule of 3s, as the
original Sleeping Beauty does with the 3 fairy godmothers, Phelan's
version says that every fairy is invited to the kingdom, besides the
older one resembling the grandma telling the story, to be Beauty's
fairy godmothers. There's also no talk of giving special gifts, such
as the gift of song. The older fairy does represent the common villain
role in a fairy tale however because she puts a curse on the party
that each and every one of the people/fairies in the room will die the
instant they fall asleep. This is another more morose change from the
original because not only are they not just going to be asleep until
true love's kiss, they are actually all going to die, like in "The
Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage," though we do not get to see how the
story ends since the grandmother ironically ends the story there by
saying "sleep well" to her granddaughter, even though the
granddaughter is probably petrified to fall asleep now in case she
dies.

It is similar to Grimm's tales in that it's somewhat more violent and
inappropriate for children and also the fact that many details are
left out. Who is the father? Where is he and why isn't he seen at the
christening of his daughter's birth? What is the queen's name? What is
the villain's name? Etc. We are missing a lot of information. Also
atypical to a fairy tale here is the fact that I don't think the
distinction between good and evil is crystal clear, I find there are
some grey areas. Yes, the "good" people in the story are prettier,
portrayed in happy, friendly colors, seen as social beings, while the
older fairy is green, ugly, deformed, and an outcast, but at the same
time, when the old fairy arrives, all of the "good" fairies start to
say pretty rude things to her, such as "I thought you died last week."

In terms of textual elements, the story does begin with "Once upon a
time, in a kingdom far away..." but it certainly, as mentioned briefly
before, does not end with "happily ever after." Also, though there is
not repetition in the story itself, the grandma in her retelling of
the story adds in repetition. Even when she walks into the room, she
starts to repeat "Are you asleep? Are you asleep?" and even echoes
herself later when she's providing the moral of the story, "Beauty is
not going to get you very far, very far, very far." Lastly, she
repeats herself in the end when she's singing a song to a popular good
night tune, changing the lyrics to be "when they fall asleep they
would die, they would die, they would die, die die die die die die..."

I think Robbie did a great job peeling back some of the layers of the
story and relating it to the grandma's actual motives for rewriting
the classic tale that we grew up with. I agree that I think she
changed the story based on her own life, trying to kind of get her own
sort of revenge on the people in her life who have wronged her in some
way or treated her worse just because of her lack of youth. In her
version of Sleeping Beauty, the fairies probably represent her real
life younger friends or family members who fail to sometimes invite
her to things because they think she would be too old to enjoy them.
Thus, she's enacting her revenge in the tale by killing them all off.

Overall though, I really enjoyed the short film because I thought the
deviations were done on purpose to provide humor and somewhat make fun
of the classic fairy tale, such as the Shrek films often do.
Mary Elizabeth Gambke - Jan 19, 2012 8:32 AM

I agree with points that both Zoe and Robbie made. I do believe there
are significant similarities and differences between Phelan’s version
of Sleeping Beauty and traditional fairy tales. Though, I do disagree
with Zoe in the fact that this particular fairy tale was more violent
than that of the Brothers Grimm. Death it seems is the end for all
fairies and those in the kingdom but only after they fall asleep. I
think that this is a less gruesome ending than some of Grimm’s other
fairy tales, such as Rumpelstiltskin, where he tears himself in two.
However, I do agree that many details of the story seem to be missing
from the story and there is that grey area of what is good and what is
evil in Phelan’s version of Sleeping Beauty.

Phelan’s version seems to be slightly twisted in the sense that
arguments can be made that the elderly fairy is the “villain” in the
story but arguments can also be made that the rest of the kingdom and
all the other fairies have “villainous” aspects. To the elderly fairy,
the other fairies have rejected her and are rude and mean to her about
her age and the way she looks. In addition, she was the only fairy in
the kingdom who was not invited to the christening. On the other hand,
the elderly fairy could also seem to be the villain because of her
unforgiving nature and the curse she put on the party that they would
all die if they fell asleep.

I think it is important to note that in the movie the grandmother is
reading her grand-daughter a bedtime story but is definitely adding in
personal elements to the story. It is clear that she strays from
reading the actual story a little bit when she talks about the harsher
lessons of life where beauty will not get you very far and then
realizes she has gone on a tangent and returns to telling her
granddaughter the story. In addition, the grandmother looks strikingly
similarly to the elderly fairy. She may see herself as the elder fairy
and is therefore creating her own tale using Sleeping Beauty as the
base. I think the granddaughter seems to understand that some of the
story has been created by her grandmother because it is evident that
she is afraid to fall asleep after her grandmother completes her
version of the tale.

[Huntley]

I agree with the rest of the group in the sense that the fairy tale
told by the grandmother was quite inappropriate for children as well
as a reflection on the Grandmother's personal feelings. One way in
which the tale varies from the Brothers Grimm is that the intentions
of the Elderly fairy, along with her final actions, were not really
related to the the lesson which is that "beauty is not going to get
you very far, very far." Yes, the elderly fairy did punish everyone
for not inviting her, but that seems less related to beauty and more
on bitterness of the aged nanny. This speaks more to the elderly
population that it does to children and adults, which is the main
demographic for the Brothers Grimm.

As a whole, the video focuses mainly on the narrative of the
Grandmother than the actual fairy tell itself. The transformation that
is necessary for a fairy tale takes place more in relation between the
grandmother and the elderly fairy than with an actual transformation.
This would slightly explain the lack of male characters in the story
because it all occurs from the grandmother's perspective.
Additionally, the grandmother is portrayed as slightly villainous in
the foreground, transforming into a larger threat as her story
progresses. Overall, the fairy tale does take after important aspects
of the Brothers Grimm but with a slightly different story-telling
style.

[Katie McEwen]

Hi Ogres! Robbie, thanks for getting the discussion started this
week. Your conversation touches on a lot of important points, and I
was really interested to read how you all found comparisons between
the film and other fairy tales. Do you think the idea of "re-telling"
is important in this context? Zoe brought up the idea of "making
fun;" I wonder if you thought about elements of parody or satire in
the film? Could that have something to do with the violence of the
tale in the film? Or with how we might interpret the "moral lesson"?

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[Jenna Anne Lindley]

I think both Robert and Zoe did a great job attributing the
differences and similarities between a traditional fairy tale and the
movie clip. I found the video well done and entertaining, but while
it had some elements found in most traditional Grimm fairy tales, it
overall strikes me as a deviation from “the norm”. As both Robert
and Zoe mentioned, repetition, phrases such as “once upon a time” and
“in a land far away”, princesses, and supernatural creatures such as
fairies are classic fairytale elements. However, while it starts
following the norms, through the grandmother’s story telling, the tale
takes a turn away from fairy. The writing style of fairy tales is
brief, surface-level and teleological—it focuses on events and leads
towards an endpoint which generally is a clean resolution. The
grandmother goes into detail about the psychological state of the old
fairy (something which is abnormal for fairy tales) making it seem, as
Robert suggested, that she is reliving or dealing with personal issues
and adding more of her own creative genius to the story. Also, the
tale ends abruptly with no resolution. This is intended to leave the
granddaughter scared and so she cannot fall asleep. This leads me to
think: what a terrible grandmother, but also, like fairy tales this
story has some sort of purpose or effect it is supposed to leave on
its receiver. While in this case it is not a very moral one, there is
still a purpose. While this video was an interesting take on the
Grimm’s fairy tale, I have to say I prefer the Disney version. After
all, Aurora is the by far the prettiest princess…