THE READING RHEUM: THE ENCHANTED SCREEN (2011)

I'd read one or two works by Jack Zipes before sampling THE ENCHANTED SCREEN, and to say the least his heavily Marxist interpretations of fairy tales were not to my taste. Still, SCREEN was touted as the first extensive survey of cinematic fairy-tale adaptations, so I couldn't resist giving it a try.

Although the book's subtitle is "the unknown history of fairy-tale films," my word "survey" applies better than "history," which implies a tracing, whether synchonic or diachronic, of developments over a timespan. Zipes' first chapter sets forth his theoretical preferences. Then, in the next four chapters, he (1) excoriates all of the fairy-tale works of the Walt Disney company, (2) champions the greatness of George Melies, and (3) provides quasi-histories of short fairy-tale cartoons and of feature-length animated fairy tale films. Live-action fairy-tale films are discussed in later chapters, but they don't get this summary treatment. The rest of the book is somewhat in the diachronic mode, as Zipes devotes whole chapters to cinematic treatments of particular fairy tales, such as "Cinderella" and "Snow White," or to general topics of academic interest, such as the lugubriously titled "Between Slave Language and Utopian Optimism." In a prologue Zipes admits that he simply didn't have room for some subjects, such as adaptations of the Arabian Nights.

What Zipes finds plenty of room for-- over and over and over again-- are his aesthetically hollow validations of only those works that conform to his Marxist dialectic. On the first page of the book proper, Zipes describes his priorities.

Fairy tales hint of happiness. This hint, what the German philosopher of hope, Ernst Bloch, has called the anticipatory illumination, has constituted their utopian appeal that has a strong moral component to it.

Much in the same vein as a similar Marxist work, Rosemary Jackson's FANTASY: THE LITERATURE OF SUBVERSION, Zipes' survey celebrates fantasy for purely utilitarian purposes, in line with the Marxist project of restructuring corrupt society. Thus, a fairy-tale story that has "a strong moral component" gets the Zipes stamp of approval, but if it in any way supports the bad old bourgeoisie, it gets condemned to commodification hell.

Here's Zipes clarifying that what he doesn't like about the bad fairy-tale films, i.e. almost everything done by Disney, because they're not "carnivalesque" in the sense of the word coined by Mikhail Bakhtin:

Fun is cotton-candy, fluffy, sweet, and without nutrients. It is the staple of all banal products of the culture industry up through the present. Fun has nothing to do with carnivalesque laughter... for the carnivalesque fairy tale ridicules fun and provokes reflection and self-reflection-- p. 56.

The idea that one should divorce "fun" from any concept related to carnivals-- which are, by the bye, a great source of cotton candy-- is not redeemed by such Marxist moralizing as "a questioning of the hierarchical arrangements of society" and so forth.

The real-world history of applied Marxism does not exactly suggest that it can deliver on its "utopian" anticipations. At best, Marxism has provided critiques of particular manifestations of social corruption, but so far its perfect society, like More's original utopia, exists in "no place." Thus, for someone who advocates fairy-tale works that are "reflective," Zipes is pretty unreflective about his discriminations. For instance, he validates most of the Fleischer Brothers' fairy-tale works, particularly those starring Betty Boop, since Betty is the picture of a harried working-girl. But for paltry reasons he dismisses three long Popeye cartoons of the late 1930s-- wherein the sailor-man encounters such entities as Sinbad, Aladdin's genie and the Forty Thieves-- largely because Zipes thinks the Fleischers were trying to emulate the works of Disney, that evil emissary of the culture industry. I would say that there's nothing in the Fleisher history more "carnivalesque" than one scene in POPEYE MEETS ALI BABA'S FORTY THIEVES. Popeye, facing off against the nasty Abu Hassan (Bluto in Arabesque gear), somehow steals the villain's longjohns off his fully clothed body, and then remarks:

"Abu Hassan got 'em any more."


Clearly, Zipes only likes moral arguments he agrees with. Of other non-Disney works that he faults is Jacques Demy's 1970 DONKEY SKIN, because "it is unclear at the end of the film whether Demy winks at the serious nature of incest." Demy's film might have some problems, but I find it ironic that Zipes dismisses it, simply for not being overtly serious about the subject of incest, given that many of the actual oral stories in the "Donkey Skin" tradition don't supply a pellucid moral. Thus, in Zipes's world, the foremost requirement of the carnivalesque is-- seriousness.

The most that I can say for THE ENCHANTED SCREEN is that it should introduce readers to many, many fairy-tale adaptations that aren't well known to Americans. But the tired recitation of nearly every Marxist cliche-- from "culture industry" to "commodification" to "appropriation"-- renders most of Zipes' observations less than illuminating.