I love having a day for English lovers to congregate and share thoughts and ideas. This past Friday, I got to attend the session titled "A Whole New World: Disney, Adaptation, and the Americanization of Fairy Tales". I went to this session because I was personally interested, and was pleasantly surprised when some of it pertained to my research paper.
The first speaker spoke about the history of fairy tales and how Disney taints it. Her last point was that Disney took control of the American culture through its children. His stories, although adapted from folktales of other countries and histories, were altered and stamped with his name. He therefore erased their true origins. And through these stories he catered especially to children. When young, the most important lessons are learned and remembered. Disney has been very much remembered.
The speaker quoted a critic about Disney's role by saying, "authorship is control." This excited me, because that's exactly what I am trying to prove in my paper! When an author writes something, he has control over that story. It is great to think of Disney, and other great influences like him could be just exhibiting control.
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