Adaptation: Literature, Film and Society

Content Objectives

Joseph Campbell and The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Joseph Campbell was a professor of literature who developed the concept of the monomyth. This concept refers to the journey of the hero in storytelling, both oral and written. Campbell studied myths from around the world. He found striking commonalities between the stories he studied. Despite coming from cultures as varied as the times and locations from which they had arisen, the stories all followed a similar trajectory. Campbell was able to break the stories into twelve separate stages. These stages form the monomyth. The twelve stages are grouped into three overall story arcs. These three arcs are the departure, the initiation, and the return. Teaching kindergarten, I recognize the inadvisability of teaching all twelve stages in the monomyth. However, the three arcs would be an appropriate amount for my young students to take in. The three arcs also align very nicely with the teaching of plot as containing a beginning, middle, and end. I will be focused on the departure, the initiation (though I may use the word change), and the return with my students.

The departure includes a call to adventure (often met with reluctance), an eventual accepting of the call, and a crossing of the threshold. The crossing of the threshold is when the character leaves their regular life (ordinary world) behind and enters the unknown. Examples of the departure can be found in many stories. In The Hobbit, the wizard Gandalf sets into motion the call to adventure for Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo wants little to do with the quest of the dwarves but is none-the-less inspired to join their journey. He crosses the threshold when he leaves his homeland of the Shire and follows the dwarves on their trip to Lonely Mountain. In another example from the movie Rocky, the title character receives his call to adventure when he is offered a chance to challenge Apollo Creed for the heavyweight championship. Rocky Balboa does not believe he is worthy of such an opportunity but he does accept and leaves behind his life of obscurity for an uncertain future. Campbell’s monomyth applies not just to literature or film. It can also be applied to any person’s life. In this case, imagine you were offered a great career opportunity that would require a move across the country. You may go back and forth on the issue as you debate the pros and cons of such a transition. You could even follow the heroic path by overcoming fear and comfort, and stepping into the unknown as you drive a U-Haul to a new, unfamiliar life.

The initiation is the second major arc of the monomyth. During the initiation, the hero is challenged by obstacles. These roadblocks may come from other characters, from the environment, or from within. Often, the hero will find a helper that may offer aid in the face of these new challenges. This is a time when the hero is forged into something different. The character is transformed into a stronger version of themself. By the end of initiation, the hero is granted a boon, something that will serve them well as they move on in life. Bilbo is initiated through his battles with trolls, goblins, and even an encounter with a dragon. He finds assistance with the aid of a powerful talisman in the form of a magical ring. Bilbo also suffers through the loss of companions during his journey. He gains a wisdom and strength of character that he did not have prior to his adventures. Rocky trains and learns. He finds determination and perseverance as he prepares for his epic encounter with Apollo. He is aided by his trainer, Mickey, and supported by his girlfriend, Adrian. In his boxing match, Rocky is physically dominated by the more experienced and skilled Creed. Still, he does not give up and sees it through. He becomes a much more confident person as a result of his journey. I would imagine that after a move across the country, you may face challenges both large and small. Finding a place to live, developing a support structure, and learning to be proficient at your new position could be trying. Hopefully, during the process of settling in, you would find friends or supportive new coworkers. Much like Bilbo and Rocky, the initiation could force you to develop new skills and mindsets.

Finally, the hero returns to some sense of normalcy. The hero is now the master of both domains. They could return to their old life, but they will carry with them the learning or the knowledge they have gained over the course of their adventure. The pre-adventure character is replaced with a new, stronger character at the end. Bilbo returns to the Shire with wealth from his adventure and his desire for excitement sated. Rocky calls out to Adrian and is able to return to his life head held high and with a greater sense of self worth (of course in the following five movies or so he revisits the stages of the monomyth.) You yourself may eventually reestablish your life in your new location. You may also be all the better for the move as you have gained new skills and will not be haunted by wondering what might have been had you not heeded the call to adventure.  

I will be guiding my students through an exercise of evaluating our Disney heroes. Did the heroes undergo this transformative journey? Did they go on an adventure, learn something through struggles, and in the end become a stronger person due to that learning? Did they truly go from “zero to hero”² or are they merely the person that saved the day?

Adaptation, Literature, Film, and Society

“Tales evolve and one generation adjusts the stories of the past to the present time and to its modern needs and ways of story telling.”³ An adaptation is a change. Stories change when they are transferred into a new time, culture, or medium. The works of Shakespeare can be used to demonstrate these changes. Shakespeare’s great works were written between 1589 and 1613 in England. His plays were to be performed live in the theater. Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been translated into languages of cultures around the globe. It has also been adapted to suit these varying cultures. The Throne of Blood is Macbeth adapted to the Japanese culture. The three witches in the tale were replaced with an evil spirit. The Scottish castles were replaced with Japanese fortresses. There were many adaptations to the original play to make it more relatable to the Japanese audience while still retaining the overall drama of the piece. In 1996, Romeo and Juliet was adapted to reach modern young audiences. This version of the story takes place in Verona Beach, California. While it retains the original dialogue, the costumes, weapons, and other trappings of the times have been updated to the 20^th century. In Shakespeare’s day, theater in the round was the platform of presentation. Many of his works have been taken from the stage and placed on the screen. Movies allow for a different form of storytelling than does theater. Movies allow for grander productions. They lend themselves to quick and simple transitions between scenes. They let the audience get up close to the characters. They can certainly change the way the message is received.

There are three broad types of adaptation; loose, faithful, and literal.⁴ A loose adaptation takes the major elements of the source material and reworks those elements into a story that fits the needs of the new storyteller. A loosely adapted story is very dissimilar to the original. Faithful adaptations try to remain close to the original. There may be some tweaks but the heart and soul of the source shows through. Literal adaptations mostly refer to performing a play for the camera. It is the source material just delivered to the screen instead of the stage. Through my research I have found that mostly all Disney movies are loosely based on other material. Specific examples will be given in the upcoming sections.

In class we will practice adaptations of our own. My students will be adapting the written words of some Disney Stories into illustrations. We will then be able to compare our illustrations to the visuals of the Disney motion pictures to evaluate how we did.

The Disney Formula for Success

The Disney Company has grown from a mouse to a lion that owns multiple billion-dollar franchises. A part of their success stems from the fact that they have developed a formula for making a successful animated movie. Most of their animated features seem to have certain commonalities. The stories focus on a young protagonist. This protagonist is easily relatable to Disney’s target audience. They are naïve and innocent. These lead characters do not go through the narrative alone, they most always have a loyal sidekick who aids them along their way. Magical helpers are also regular additions in Joseph Campbell’s journey. The antagonist is typically a scary villain. Another key feature of the Disney film is magic. There is always a magical moment, event, or character that aids or hinders the protagonist. Disney characters undergo some form of transformation. They may be physically changed or find that some character trait has been strengthened or changed all together. Music plays a large part in the Disney feature. Many lead characters are infected with a strange need to belt out songs as they proceed on their journey. A central theme of Disney is love. This is not to say that every movie features romantic love (though many do), it could be the love of parent to child, the love of siblings, or the love between close friends. When Campbell spoke of heroes, Walt was listening. Each character must undertake risks, overcome setbacks, and ultimately offer a sacrifice of some sort. Finally, the Disney animated characters earn a well deserved happily-ever- after by the close of their tale.

Disney Adaptations and Heroes

Disney has in some ways become synonymous with fairy tales. That is because they have frequently started with stories from the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen. These stories in their original form don’t really fit the Disney mold. The Brothers Grimm wrote (pun intended) grim tales and Andersen often included many similarities in his writings. These stories regularly feature torture, mutilation, and horrific death. This may have worked when putting children to bed in the 19^th century but it may not sell many movie tickets to the parents of today. Still, there were elements in these tales that capture the imagination and Disney takes them, (very) loosely adapts them, and creates something new. I will demonstrate this adaptation by exploring how they changed Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Snow Queen into box office gold.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The Brothers Grimm developed the Snow-White story around the title character. In their story Snow is a seven year-old girl whose mother dies in childbirth. A year later her father, the king, remarries (and is never referred to again in the story.) Snow’s stepmother, the new Queen, is jealous of Snow’s good looks. This doesn’t become a problem until a magic mirror informs the Queen that Snow has surpassed her in beauty. At that point the Queen commands a huntsman to take the girl into the forest and murder her. Snow goes with the huntsman to pick flowers deep in the wood. The huntsman, however, cannot kill such an innocent girl. He tells her about the Queen’s plot and directs her to flee deeper into the forest. He then kills a boar and returns the heart to the Queen as proof of deed done. The Queen is delighted and promptly has her chef cook the organ, which she then devours. Snow meanwhile stumbles across a cottage in the woods. There she comes across seven dwarfs. The seven invite her to stay in their home in exchange for cooking and maid services. Snow accepts and settles into her new life. The Queen discovers the huntsman’s subterfuge and takes it upon herself to dispatch of the young beauty. She approaches the cottage three times with attempts to kill Snow. On her third trip, she presents Snow with a poisoned apple. When Snow takes a bite, a bit of apple becomes lodged in her throat and she falls over seemingly dead. The dwarfs discover her body and build a glass coffin for the girl. They visit the coffin every day to mourn their friend. On one day, an unknown prince is traveling through the forest. He is captivated by the beauty of the girl in the glass coffin and asks the dwarfs to sell her to him. They decline the offer. He insists that they “let me have it as a gift, for I cannot live without seeing Snow-White. I will prize her as my dearest possession.”⁵ At this request the dwarfs agree he can take her. As the coffin is moved the apple bit is jarred loose of her throat and Snow-White awakens. She and the prince are married. The Queen is invited to the wedding celebration. When she arrives, she is forced into red-hot iron shoes and made to dance until she falls over dead.

Since marrying seven year olds to random travelers in the forest isn’t all that acceptable to modern sensibilities, Disney adapted this tale. In the new version, Snow is a maiden (probably somewhere in her teens) who is outside singing aloud as she dreams of marrying her prince. A prince just happens by and joins in for a song. The Queen oversees this exchange and asks the magic mirror to identify the most beautiful of all. When the response is Snow the Queen calls for the huntsman and the story follows along pretty closely with the source material for a bit. Except for the cannibalism, that choice is decidedly un-Disneyish. Where the adaptation reappears is that the Queen only goes to the cottage once, disguised as an old woman as she gives Snow the apple. Snow falls into a sleep from which she will only awaken at a true love’s kiss. The dwarfs return home to find the Queen fleeing the scene. They give chase and during the pursuit the evil Queen falls from a mountain and meets her end. The dwarfs build the glass coffin and again the Prince appears. In this version the Prince does not ask to buy her or promise to treasure her as a priceless possession, but he does give her a single kiss. At the kiss Snow awakens and the two ride off to live happily ever after. Snow’s prince did indeed come.

I can clearly see that Disney began working on their special formula for plotting out a film. There was a young protagonist, who had seven loyal helpers. Together they faced off against a scary villain who used magic to harm the lead character. There was singing and love and ultimately a happy ending for the good guys. However, when held to Joseph Campbell description of the heroic journey, there is no true hero in the story. Snow does depart from home as she flees to the forest. She faces some scary moments in that flight, but is not transformed by her experience. She is basically the same girl throughout the feature. The prince isn’t the hero (in Campbell’s terms) because we know so little about him. He is riding through the wood, but is he leaving home? Was he transformed in some way by his experience? Did he return home with some new ability or understanding? I’d have to say no because he is a flat, undeveloped character with too little backstory. The dwarfs behave heroically at the end but the don’t depart from anywhere. Nor do they change. Nor do they return in a different form.

Disney let their princess have her prince, but they did not develop a hero in this story. The character that “saved the day” was paper-thin. All I can say of him for sure is that he can sing, ride a horse, and apparently isn’t averse to kissing a seemingly dead young woman.

Frozen

Hans Christian Andersen wrote the story entitled The Snow Queen. This story relates the adventures of young friends by the name of Kay and Gerda. It begins long before the time of Kay and Gerda with a magician. The magician crafted a mirror. This creation was no ordinary looking glass, it possessed magic. When a person gazed at the image in the mirror, everything beautiful and attractive was minimized to nothing while all things hideous and ugly were magnified and highlighted. It so happened that one day the mirror was shattered into countless pieces. Each of these shards retained the properties of the whole. If a part struck someone in the eye they would only see ugliness. The shards could also lodge in a person’s heart. When this occurred the victim’s heart would freeze like a lump of ice and they would become uncaring and cruel. In time Kay and Gerda came along. They were the best of friends and loved each other very much. By chance, Kay was struck both in the eye and heart with shards from the cursed mirror. Kay changed and became hard and distant from Gerda. He then encountered and was taken by the Snow Queen. She was covered in clothing made of snow and seemed to draw the snow to her. The Snow Queen noticed that Kay was very cold in her presence. She pulled Kay towards her and kissed him. When this occurred, Kay forgot he was cold-- in fact, he forgot everything, he lost the memory of his sled, his grandmother, and even his friend Gerda. Kay disappeared with the Snow Queen. Gerda meanwhile never forgot her dear friend, so she set out on a grand adventure to find Kay. Over the course of her travels she encountered an enchantress, was helped by a prince and a princess. Gerda ran afoul of robbers and she made her way to the frozen world of Finland to the very dwelling of the Snow Queen. The Queen’s abode was made entirely of snow and ice. Within this frigid palace she found Kay. He was almost frozen to death and his heart was as a lump of ice due to the shard. Gerda was so distraught when she saw Kay that she broke into hot tears. The tears reached Kay’s heart and melted the shard found there. When feeling returned to Kay he broke into tears himself, and his tears washed his eye clean of the other shard. The two friends began the long journey home. By the time they arrived, they had grown to adulthood but they forever remained children at heart.

Disney HEAVILY adapted this story when developing Frozen. The Snow Queen morphed into Elsa, a princess born with powers that allowed her to manipulate snow and ice. Although she could manipulate cold, she struggled to control her abilities. Elsa had a sister by the name of Anna. Anna did not have powers. When they were children, Elsa accidentally struck Anna in the head with a bolt of her cold. Anna was rushed to a tribe of trolls who assured the parents that matters of the head they could fix but that it would be worse if she had been struck in the heart. The trolls also wiped any memory of Elsa’s abilities from Anna’s mind. The king and queen directed Elsa to keep her powers hidden and to never let them out. Years pass and Elsa ascends to the throne. During the celebration, she loses control of her powers and everyone sees what she can do. She flees the kingdom for the wild and unbeknownst to her sets off eternal winter in her wake. Once out on her own Elsa is relieved to be free to be herself for the first time in a long time. She creates a castle of ice and is content to remain alone and be true to herself. Anna goes on a journey to bring Elsa back and correct the weather at home. On her journey Anna befriends Kristoff and Sven (an ice salesman and his pet reindeer) and an animated snowman by the name of Olaf. This team faces many difficulties, finds Elsa, and attempts to get her to return home. The encounter doesn’t go well and Anna is struck again by a cold blast, this time in the heart. Anna’s health begins to deteriorate and she is returned to the trolls. It is explained that only an act of true love can melt a frozen heart. In the climax, as Elsa is about to be struck down, a dying Anna surrenders her chance for a true-love kiss and sacrifices herself to save her sister. The act of sisterly love melts Anna’s frozen heart (returning her to health) and also allows Elsa to gain control of her abilities at long last. Anna and Queen Elsa return home with friends in tow and live happily ever after. At least until the sequel is released.

Unlike Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Frozen contains heroes in the classic sense. Both Elsa and Anna depart from their regular lives and their town as they go into the wilderness. Both princesses face danger. Elsa is endangered by fearful and power-hungry men, intent on striking her down. Anna faces dangers from ravenous wolves, a giant snow monster, and inadvertently from Elsa’s magic. Both sisters are changed by their experiences. Both heroes return home greater than when they left. Both characters are full and rounded with compelling stories.