What Walt Disney Never Told Us

J. Howard Miller's "We Can Do It!" poster from 1943

My favorite way to find enthusiasts is by contacting the authors of articles that have been helpful in my writing process. I wrote an email to one such author expressing my appreciation for her work and explaining how it has enhanced my own paper. Her article explores the male-directed film adaptation of Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine arguing that the film eliminates the feminism that is present in the novel, and also explores feminist fairy tale media in general. I have been researching feminism in Gail Carson Levine's fairy tale adaptations Ella Enchanted and Fairest. This article has inspired me look more closely at why in some parts of the novels, feminism makes way for the sake of the fairy tale. The article's bibliography also led me to several more helpful sources.  I explained to the author I would be citing her article in my paper.

The reply was enthusiastic to say the least. She offered me links to even more related sources, and advice for how to keep things organized. I again expressed my appreciation for the time and effort she was exerting on my behalf. We messaged back and forth on Goodreads until I felt comfortable asking her if she would be interested in reading a few pages from a draft of my paper. Her reply, "I'd love to see a draft of your paper. Thank you again for reaching out."  She often thanks me for "reaching out" and continually mentions how much she appreciates that I found her article, read it, enjoyed it, used it, and asked her questions about it.

deviantart.com

deviantart.com

As a result, she feels a desire, rather than an obligation, to read my paper too and give meaningful feedback. It's amazing what happens when we take the time to care about someone else's work.

The most exciting discovery that I have made recently is an article in The Journal of American Folklore called "Things Walt Disney Never Told Us". This article is the reason I have decided to include Fairest by Gail Carson Levine in my paper about Ella Enchanted because it directly addresses Cinderella and Snow White and the messages they teach society. This is exciting because I have a direction and can really feel the momentum now.

The article explains how the two princesses really aren't people at all when their characters are analyzed. This is going to help support my claim that these two fairy tales oversimplify women and in both cases, Levine restores feminine balance and reality to these stories. 

Welcome to the Real World.

Logo from goodreads.com

I have been on Goodreads exploring different reviews that members have written about the YA novel Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. I stumbled upon an extensive review with a link to a whole article on feminism in Ella Enchanted. I was pretty excited, because it relates really well to the ideas I have been exploring for my literary analysis paper. I messaged the author of the article (a college student from Pace University) to thank her for her helpful article and asked her if she had any thoughts about feminism in Young Adult Literature specifically in fairy tales. She responded to me in literally 20 minutes:

"Hi Tori! Thanks for getting in touch. It's so nice to know people still find that review on here and actually read the article..."

She went on to give me links to several more articles and her thoughts about my topic. Wow. That was so helpful and it happened so fast. Plus, it was so easy. People really do wan
t to talk to me about my little paper! I was blown away by her eagerness.

I also have an old Facebook group from a class last fall semester and we have kept it going this semester even though we are all in different classes now. I don't know the people very well, all I know is that that are a little bit nerdy and have a lot of great thoughts about my ideas. This Facebook group I have quite honestly ignored for the past few months has become a great resource. 

I have also been looking for ways I can get my paper out to people who might care about reading it after I finish writing it. I had no idea that there were so many ways to publish undergrad essays online! I am very grateful for this informative blog post about how to find authentic audiences for my work, even while I am still a student. It has been very motivating.

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First of all, I am definitely going to submit my work to the BYU repository called the ScholarsArchive because it accepts any kind of student research. It would be a cool place to be published since I am attending school at BYU and I'd feel like I was leaving my mark here. 

I would also love to submit to the International Student Journal because I love the variety of topics and the range of research that they accept. People from all over the world can submit to this journal. I think my paper about YA literature, feminism, and gender roles will find a home there.

This blog: Interesting Literature is calling for any papers on literary analysis which is exactly the kind of paper I'm working on right now. This is one of my favorite options becuase I feel like guest blogging is more low-key. I feel pressure to write something worth reading, but I am not overwhelmed by the formal elements of a journal submission.

Chris on Flickr: shutterhacks

This blog: PURM is more geared toward bloggers who want to discuss the process of undergrad research. This isn't one that I could submit my paper to but it is something that is beginning to interest me. It makes so much sense for us to be looking for authentic audiences now while I am a student, and yet, I have never done it before. Why haven't I? I've decided it comes down to two things: fear and ignorance. I'm afraid of an authentic audience and I haven't bothered to learn how to find them. It's much more comfortable to settle for a contrived audience.

But no more. 

Real life is beginning. Undergrad researchers of the universe, are you with me?!

And who doesn't like raspberry truffles?

One of my "general question" posts.

I didn't think my Facebook friends would respond well to an academic thesis post. Instead, I've been posting a series of very general questions like, "Who has read Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol? Tell me what you think about his writing." and "What's your favorite part of Ella Enchanted?" I found that these questions probably resulted in more responses than a specific thesis would have.

The most useful comment was a link to a book/movie review from my cousin. So awesome. I wouldn't have even known she had written it.

People care. Not just about what I am about writing about, but what I have to say about what they're writing about. On this group blog it's been neat to read posts with my name in them. It makes me feel like I really am helping other people with their papers. People want their opinion to be heard. This process has been fulfilling and validating for me.

I received some helpful comments on my tweethis statement blog post from Sophie and Annalee. Sophie suggested that I look at the literary techniques each author uses and how it affects their portrayal of decision-making and control. Awesome! I really liked that idea. Annalee also commented and suggested that I relate the idea of their lack of control to the male main characters.

Combining these comments made me think about how the gender of the writer plays a role in the perspective they each have on womanhood. From the beginning I have wanted to avoid feminism but it keeps cropping up and I'm considering it some more before I dismiss it entirely. I'm going to ask the Facebook community about feminism in young adult and children's literature and see what they have to say about it! #gettingexcitedaboutsocialproofs

At the beginning of this process, I've learned that ideas can fluctuate in importance. They come and go and create new ideas with different concepts. Sometimes I have to let an idea go so that a better one can take shape. Sometimes we need to pass up truffle in order to make way for a raspberry caramel turtle truffle.



This blog and the associated activities have already taught me a lot about how ideas work. 

They don't happen alone.

Embarrassed About Sharing

PR is not my strongest quality. I'm sure many people can relate to this sentiment--I just don't like sharing with others. It's not that I don't like people, I really really do. But I don't like handing out fliers, I don't like talking about my feelings, and I don't like asking for help. In fact, I'm kind of afraid of it. Robbie talks about something similar in his blog post about sharing music lyrics with his band mates. Sometimes, the prospect of sharing part of your soul with others is absolutely mortifying. So most of the time, I just don't. As a soft-spoken younger sibling of someone who was always happy to take the spotlight, and with a group of avid book-readers for close friends, I've gotten away with this for most of my life. Nobody has asked me to do anything too terribly far outside my comfort zone.

However, as an English major, I've discovered that writing is all about finding an audience and sharing, so I've reluctantly started to turn myself over to the inevitable. But even so, my first attempts to circulate and share my ideas for this paper online and with friends have been halfhearted. I posted my tweethis statement as a Facebook status and then indifferently left it there to die. I did get one comment from Tori on my blog post suggesting a change in wording to help clarify, which I really appreciated. I read her tweethis statement in return, where she talks about control issues in Ella Enchanted and Alice in Wonderland. Reading it sort of busted me out of character comparisons, which is my go-to strategy for literary analysis.  As I thought about it, I started to consider another, much more interesting topic for me to write about. I've even started to get excited about it, which is a huge relief because it's hard to write about something you don't care about.

I really appreciate the help that I've gotten from reading the thoughtful, insightful posts of other members of the class, and as I've started to share with a little more enthusiasm and vigor, I've started to get more of a response from friends and family. The feedback I've gotten from others and giving feedback myself has helped me decide what it is I really want to write about, which I'll share with you all soon :)