Sleeping Beauty likes submission

In the article "Intellectual Smut: The role of Tradition in Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty" Sarah Lash discusses a few things. To summarize, Anne Rice wrote a trilogy of erotic novels based upon the events that followed after Sleeping Beauty was rescued. In the novel Beauty turns into a sex slave for the prince along with other characters, and she likes it. Lash tries to explain why Anne Rice uses sleeping Beauty and not a character of her own.

Lash starts off with an analysis of the Fairy Tale Sleeping Beauty, basically describing the original story and what others think of it. She also states what other folklorist believe the underlining meaning of sleeping Beauty to be. For example, Bruno Bettoheim believes Sleeping Beauty is a coming of age story, basically telling kids that all things pass with time. Max Luthi thinks the story is more based on the time and timelessness, basically that time is not to be feared (because sleeping Beauty slept for 100 years before her prince saved her). Others focus on the sexual and passive aspect of the story, obviously Beauty is passive while asleep and needs to be saved by a man, that kind of thing. She then goes on to tell what Anne Rice wrote about, which I have already summarized.

She also states that Beauty is not the only sex slave, there are many others. These could be a representation of fairy tale characters in general. How they are all slaves to us in a way. She states that in the book Beauty was sent to a village where the sex slaves were sent for the amusement of the villagers when they acted badly. The slaves here consistently expressed a feeling of belonging, they pretty much enjoyed being someone else's property and being passed around. Lash states this could is in a way similar to how we use fairy tale characters, how we shape them and mold them in a sense for our own amusement, passing them around the campfire so to speak. Lash says that Anne Rice could have been making this general statement about fairytales. She ends the article saying that by thinking about the sexual aspect of the stories we all may find that we like the stories more than we thought. I think it can be an interesting idea, what happens after "ever after"? Anne Rice takes it to a bit of an extreme with her sex slaves and bondage and such but nonetheless she did explore it.

I agree with Lash totally in her analysis of Anne Rice's books. Fairy Tales are definetly passed around by the common folk the same way Beauty was passed around in the village. We take these characters and use them for our own motives, whether it be trying to teach someone morals or keep children away from certain places that are dangerous. Sleeping Beauty was originally raped by her rescuer but obviously Disney wouldnt show that, so they changed the story along with her character to suit our modern needs.

Another thing is the sexual implications of Sleeping Beauty, and most fairytales for that matter. Lash makes a good point in saying that fairytale females are projecting this idea of domestication and submissiveness in a way. Sleeping Beauty for example, she needs to be saved by the prince in order to live. Basically she is entirely dependent upon him. She is sleeping which means she is in her most passive state, as Lash said and she is entirely submissive to him in every version of the story that i've seen. This is pretty much saying that for a society to function properly women have to be domestic housewives? In most fairytales the woman is completely dependent upon the prince or the king (usually her father). Now if fairytale characters change according to our needs and society, will these fairytale woman change? In 50 years will they be more independent then they were in the 1950's? It is an interesting idea to think about.

Fairies and Humans don't mix...

Once upon a time not so different from our own there lived a beautiful fairy woman named Lily. Now like all the fairies do, Lily lived in the forest of Blue. The forest of Blue was not blue really, it was like any other forest you have ever seen or heard of, big trees, happy animals, blah blah blah, the whole nine. Only real difference was the fact that no man had ever seen or been to the forest, making it the most beautiful place left on Earth. And this, where no man had been, is where our cute little fairies reside.

Now despite popular belief, most fairies aren't like Tinkerbell. Take Lily for example, (for this imagine there is elevator music playing, a spotlight is shining on Lily, shes standing on a slowly turning platform and an announcer that sounds like what can only be described as Isaac Hazes hosting a bidding auction says) Our beautiful Lily stands at 5 feet 2 inches. She has long flowing red hair and the prettiest biggest bluest eyes you've ever seen. Aside from the fact that she has wings on her back, not so different from a butterfly, you'd think she was human. (And the bidding starts at 100$, do I hear 100$... No, just kidding, back to the story, sorry.)

One day while Lily was sitting in a pond bathing when a group of what seemed to her to be fairies who lost their wings started walking toward her. She tried to run but the men were too fast and captured her, and took her back to their van. She cried and cried but the men just stared at her and wrote notes in little note pads, all but one man. This one man, who goes by the name of John, looked at her frowning. Once the van stopped moving the men threw Lily into a big cage and went into their tents for the night.

In the middle of the night John came out to speak to Lily. "Hey, I'm John, Whats your name?" He said to her. Lily, still whimpering, raised her head and replied "I'm Lily. Please help me, I'll do anything." John looked at her with that same frown before he said "I don't know if I can. Your a fairy, if we bring you back home we could make millions. No one has ever been to this forest before, and it seems this is the only place fairies live from what I've seen." At this Lily paused, she didn't know what to do or think. Then it hit her. "I'M A PRINCESS! If you save me, you can be my prince and live here with me and we can be happy forever. My father is king and he will be indebted to you if you save me."

So, John, being the human he is, took her up on the offer. First he had to make sure his co-workers would never find him or tell anyone else of this forest, so while they all slept that night he burned each and every tent. Then he freed Lily and returned to her Castle deep within the forest where they were married. The princess was so happy about being saved and getting married, she was more excited than she had ever been in her whole life.

After the wedding (which was huge, everything that lived in the forest attended) the prince and his princess went on their honeymoon (the pond where they captured her. In the forest, there are not many options for a honeymoon). Sitting under the moon light, Lily looked at John and said "This is beautiful. I'm so glad to have met you my prince." John looked deep into her eyes, "Yeah." was all he said, but it was enough for Lily. And they lived happily ever after....

Except that "ever" only lasted about 10minutes. See, As John and Lily were going to do what newlyweds do on their honeymoon, John noticed something... Fairy woman and Human men have very different parts down there, parts that are not compatible. In his rage at the situation John grabbed Lily and carried her back to the van (they left it with the now burnt tents) and took her to his world. Lily cried and cried, even as John sold her to a Zoo of some kind where they promised to take good care of her. After making his millions off her, John lived happily ever after... The End.

Project Proposal

So for my project I think I want to study the people who go to Starbucks. It sounds weird but they are most definitely worth studying, especially the regulars. First of all, i work it should be easy to "go into the field" so to speak. Secondly, It gives me something to do while I'm working so I don't get bored at work (two birds with one stone). And third, its something I've always wondered about.

Basically, I want to study to Folk who come into Starbucks regularly along with the people who work there. Why are these people willing to pay 5$ for a cup of coffee? Is it really just the fact that the coffee is that good (I doubt it, it really isnt all that great)? Many of the customers come in religiously and get genuinely upset if you dont happen to have what they want that particular day, almost as if it will ruin everything about their day. Do the people who come in see Starbucks as almost some type of elitest coffee group? If so, why?

I hope to answer all of these questions and come up with more as I do more research. I can interview people while I'm at work, customers and coworkers alike. I have seen many odd things since working at Starbucks which I have never addressed. Things like how certain people come in around the same time every morning and form groups and friendships while waiting on line for their drinks together, but the second they leave the store its almost as if they never met. Or how the customers view us (the employees). Do they consider us friends because we see each other every day? Also i want to see why employees stay with starbucks and how they view the customers. I know many people who are very unhappy with the job but stay with it anyway, is there some reason why?

Obviously I need to refine my project a bit, be more specific with the study but there is alot to study. The groups formed and the traditions of coming every day are interesting. I will obviously have my biases as I am an insider, but that only makes it more interesting. I could even interview the people who no longer work for Starbucks, do they still see themselves as part of that culture? This is a very doable project and one that I find relativley interesting. The only concern I have about this project is how my boss reacts to me interviewing customers while making their drinks...

Changing of Fairy Godmothers

After reading "A wave of the magic wand: Fairy Godmothers in contemporary American Media" by Jeana Jorgensen, I kept thinking about how the image of your traditional fairy tale godmother has changed over the years. As Jorgensen stated in older versions of fairytales the sexual aspect of the fairy godmothers simply were not there. They were seen as strictly magically beings whose only role in life was to help the heroin. They had no real background, no real story of their own, nor did they have a hidden agenda. Jorgensen also makes a good point about the more recent fairy godmothers, and how they seem to have not only more of a background but a sexual aspect as well.

In Shrek 2 the fairy godmother has not only a sexual aspect but also a background and a hidden agenda. She wanted he son to marry Princess Fiona. She also advertised herself in a sexual way and expected her clients to do the same if they were to find that "happily ever after." They even gave her a background involving the King and her own arrangements as to what would happen to the princess from a very early age. (As i did not see the movie, or i did and simply dont remember, the latter more likely, im taking all of this from the article) In The Fairy Godmothers its the same idea. The godmother Elena has her own story, her own background, and her own agendas. She is described as good looking and she is actually looking for love. It is also told that she was formally a Cinderella herself.

All this reiteration of the article leads me to my point, that fairytale characters change with time. As the audience viewing the fairytale changes, the characters change in order to appear more approachable to the audience. For a long time fairytale godmothers had no real depth, nor did they have any agenda of their own. As time passes we find the idea of magic harder and harder to believe, even as a child, so a character who is stictly a magical being (such as a fairytale godmother) is incredibly hard to relate to. When these fairytales first started to be told (LONG LONG AGO) the idea of magic wasn't so far fetched, making these characters much easier to relate to. In the Fairy Godmothers Elena seems to be very approachable, I use the word "seem" because I myself have not read the book, but from what I take she seems very much like a normal person. She has likes and dislikes (such as the prince who she turned into an ass) just like the rest of us do. Also, while she was a cinderella, the reality is that there was no suitable prince charming for her, so she adjusted her plans and became a fairy godmother. Things not going as they should is an idea everyone can relate to.

The whole point is that as time passes people and cultures change. In order to stay in our current culture, fairytale characters have changed as well. As the movie Shrek makes evident, Fairytales are no longer always about prince charming getting the princess and everyone living happily ever after (as Shrek is far from prince charming and both him and Fiona end up as ogres at the end of the first movie). The image of the Fairy Godmother has changed to suit the needs of the audience, they are no longer always this magical being whos only purpose is to help the protagonist. They have backgrounds and stories of their own, as Jorgensen points out.

Two parts of self

In "Transformations- Fantasy of the Wicked Step Mother" we can see how children kinda divide themselves into different people. Not just themselves but their parents, grandparents or anyone close to them. Fairy Tales helps show children how to do this in a sense. It helps them use their imagination as a way of getting through difficult times in their early life. The example of the girl seeing her mother as both her mother and a martian is the perfect example. The girl's mother yelling at her and treating her badly wasn't really her mother at all, but a martian in the girls eyes. You can even use the example of the kid wetting his bed and saying that someone else wet his bed. Both show how a child will try to separate themselves from the reality of a situation.

Children arent the only ones who use their imagination to escape from reality, adults do it too. Think about it this way, don't adults who are following religious practices use their imagination to help them get through life. Most have never seen god or spoken to god nor do they believe they have, but they all come together and in a way escape from reality. (I by no means wish to offend anyone... just objectively speaking) The same way a child will use his/her imagination to escape from reality, so does an adult.

Another thing is the morals of these fairy tales. One of the morals discussed was that its not good to have ill wishes or be impatient but thru good deeds you can make things better. These are morals that have been passed down from generation to generation. I remember watching things like "The Lion King" and getting these same messages. In a way, these morals in of themselves are tradition. They get passed on from old to young, who then pass them on again and so on and so forth.

"Transformations- Fantasy of the Wicked Step Mother" does a good job of showing how fairy tales do more than simply entertain. Fairy Tales teach kids how to use their own imagination and also pass on morals to live by. The child seeing his mother as two separte entities is only one example of how fairy tales help kids get through difficult times in their lives. The morals on the other hand are morals that have been passed down long before Fairy Tales, and the morals themselves could be considered a tradition.

Emergence of New Media

With the way blogs and new forms of media are changing the world lately certain definitions or preconceived notions need to be changed. The one I would like to focus on is the idea of a folklore and how it has changed because of this new media. Folklore is anything and everything dealing with people, their customs, rituals, groups, etc... That's to put it simply. It is the expression of culture. With new medias such as facebook or myspace or any blog the expression of culture has changed. People from all over the world can communicate with each other and never meet. They can discuss everything and anything, become the best of friends, share experiences, yet may never know each others real names. This new media formed a new kind of folkgroup and a new kind of tradition.

The new folkgroup is related to each other because they share the expeirence of being online and participating in online activities. In this sense, nearly everyone is part of this new online folkgroup. They communicate with each other using medias like facebook or blogspot and even the act of using these can be considered a tradition or ritual so to speak. Many people check their facebook or myspace religiously, on a daily or every few days basis. In that sense, just the act of constantly checking your facebook would be considered a tradition. Granted, not everyone does use the media as often as this, but many do.

The internet and these new medias make forming folkgroups and traditions much easier on a more massive scale. The internet brings people together from all over the world, geography is no longer an issue when it comes to blogs. Any blogger can be from anywhere around the world. Cultures, previously formed based on geographic location and influence, no longer have these boundries set upon them. Medias nowadays make it so that you can be part of any culture or folkgroup regardless of where you live.

This blog was a little scattered but the main idea is that due to new medias, the previous rules of folklore and folkgroups hold less weight. Cultures and traditions that would form in a group of people close to each other no longer has those geographical limitations. Just being on the internet is a new tradition and forms a new culture. Not only that but it also connects people to other cultures and traditions all over the world. Like I said, anyone can form a folkgroup with anyone else all over the world. They can become best friends and not even know each others real names. The new forms of media, like blogspot, facebook, myspace, or even the world wide web in general brings people together who would never have met or spoken otherwise. In a sense, it makes the world a much smaller place.

Vernacular Web Blog

A few things kept on coming to mind while reading "Electronic Hybridity: The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web" by Robert Glen Howard. One of these things was the idea of class distinction, which is also the most obvious. There are two distinct classes, those, I guess the word I'm looking for would be participating, in the Institutional and those participating in the vernacular. The vernacular being in a sense the less powerful class while institutional is the dominant class. The most obvious example taken from the article would be the Kerry-Edwards Blog example. To get directly to the point, "The controversy began in July 2004, when the Kerry-Edwards Official Blog announced it was removing all links to a very popular blog named Daily Kos. On Daily Kos, a Kerry supporter named Markos Zuniga made incendiary comments about American contractors who were videotaped as they were burnt, dragged from their car, and hung on a bridge during the military conflict in Iraq. The Kerry campaign dubbed Zuniga’s comments “unpresidential language” and removed all links from Kerry’s site to Daily Kos" (p8). In this example the vernacular, on the surface anyway, appeared to have a voice and through that voice power. Unfortunatly they did not, once that voice was no longer in favor of the Institutional the links to the blog were cut. The events to follow should've and probably were foreseen, if those participating in the Vernacular could not voice themselves on that blog, they would do it on closely related blogs, and their entries would not be favoring.
To some degree this could even be compared to what James C. Scott was discussing in "Dominance and the Arts of Resistence." While it is not as drastic as the slave/master relationship, it is compareable. The idea of a blog gives people another form of that "backstage discussion" that Scott talks about. People can anonamously speak openly about what they disagree with and such.

Another idea that crossed my mind while reading the article was the idea of groups and folk. I could be wrong, but couldn't you consider those participating in their respective sides, the Vernacular and the Institituional, to be groups. Along this same line of thought, couldn't a folklorist analyze what brings these respective groups together? Even if I'm wrong and they couldn't... I'm going to do it anyway. As already stated the Vernacular (or the everyday speech of the people) is in some ways compareable to slaves or surfs, even if not to such an extreme extent. Those participating in it could be considered the less powerful of the two classes and this is probably what draws these people together to form the group. The common trait here is the idea of going against the institutional, even while your going along with it as stated in the Kerry-Edwards Blog. The institutional would be considered the more powerful class. Obviously if its a lack of power that brings the Vernacular group togetherm then it is the having of power that brings the Institutional together to form their respective groups. The Institutional, in cutting off links to certain blogs in the Kerry-Edwards example would be similar to putting down a revolt of sorts. Again, all this being not to such an extreme extent, but at its "grass roots" so to speak.

Basically, while reading the article the idea of classes crossed my mind quite often. I could be wrong in my train of thought but where there are classes, there are groups, and where there are groups there are people. (If that makes any sense...) The vernacular would be similar to the lower class while the institutional would be similar to the more powerful class. As always, it would appear the powerful are acting in the best intrest of the weak, but the Kerry-Edwards example shows that once you go against the best intrest of the strong, the powerful can easily turn on you, or away from you.