Aside from the predictable dialogue and less than stellar music, I found myself laughing. A lot. Maybe it was because kids' laughter is unbelievably infectious, or maybe it was so predictable that I laughed at the jokes both coming and going. I really don't know. And it's beside the point. Watching this movie made me think about how different Tangled is from the Rapunzel story I heard growing up, yet somehow the story manages to be both recognizable and nostalgic.
Which begs the question, when does a story go from being a retelling to being a completely different story? And if it’s labeled a fairy tale, how closely does it need to stick to folklore before it becomes fantasy?
In lit classes, a lot of professors like to say that there are only a handful of stories that are told over and over. You have the creation, the epic journey, the love saga, the family drama—depending on who you talk to, the archetypes are slightly different. While this might be one of those intellectual quandaries designed to make you think about what you’re reading, I mostly think it’s a cop-out to pave the way for comparative essays.
Ever storyteller uses unique skills to make a story their own. How many boy-meets-girl stories can there really be? Yet each rom-com keeps us wondering how the two hopeless cases will ever get together in the end. And what more can we possibly do with man vs. man? But every time the underdogs sacrificially face an army twice their size, we always cheer when they manage to defeat their foes. Shakespeare often based his stories on mythology and local legends, and even Jesus Christ quoted past prophets and familiar allegories to teach the people in his day. So maybe a story is found more in the audience than the teller.
Throughout the entire movie, my friend’s 7-year-old daughter never batted an eye at the horse who acted like a dog or wondered how simple lanterns could fly or took pause at how a man could jump from a castle tower and not get hurt, nor did she once question how Rapunzel could cart around all that hair without it getting dirty, knotted or broken. What she didn’t buy into was how a tear could heal someone after magic hair had failed. The irony being that it was Rapunzel’s tears the healed the prince in the original story—the Grimm’s Brothers never mentioned there was anything magic about her hair. My young friend was shocked when I told her that was basically the only thing Disney kept from the original.
The next day I gave my friend a copy of Paul O. Zelinsky’s Rapunzel so the family could read a more scholarly version of the fairy tale. But just because it’s based more closely on the Italian folklore doesn’t make it any more valid of a story. After all, how strong can human hair really be?
by Lloyd Alexander
by J.R.R. Tolkien
by C.S. Lewis
and 
by Edmund Spenser
(author unknown)
and 
by Homer
were the first to popularize retellings. Newcomer Jessica Day George re-examined their stories in 
and 
. Gail Carson Levine made a name for herself with 
and now has an entire collection of fairy tales retold. Shannon Hale takes retellings to a new level by pushing past the "...happily ever after" and seeing what happens after the after like with her 
and 
. Though she wrote 
and several 
, Robin McKinley is best known for her fairy tale retellings, including 
, 
and 
. Alex Flinn gives Grimms' tales both a modern twist and a new perspective with male protagonists in 
, 
and 
.
(Grimms' Rapunzel), 
(a Chinese Cinderella-esque fairy tale) and 
(the Greek myth of the Sines). But she is the only author I know who has examined the Viking legend of the captive Irish princess in 
. She has duel citizenship in the United States and Italy, which might account for her love of exploring Italian legends, including her newest novel 
. One of the best parts of her books? The "...happily ever after" is rarely what you would expect.
received a Newbery Honor last year that Grace Lin burst onto the scene as the authority on Chinese fairy tales. Her traditional illustrations and knowledge of Chinese culture makes her a stand-out among all the other authors writing Asian-inspired fantasy.
, 
and 
, Robin Hood is a mainstay in Anglo-Saxon folklore. Best known for her contemporary work, Cynthia Voigt wrote the Robin Hood-inspired Kingdom Series, Beginning with 
. The Kingdom series tells the tale of a link of brave women who do more than just steal from the rick and give to the poor--they gain the trust of kings and change a nation.
to Meg Cabot's 
, a lot of authors have gotten in on the mid evil action. (Of course you can't forget Monty Python's 
and the much more tragic real-life story of 
.) Winner of both a Newbery Medal and the Newbery Honor, Susan Cooper's 
provides one of the most captivating interpretations of the Camelot tale.
set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Pamela F. Service has written sci-fi versions of many fairy tales and legends. 
has to be one of my favorites as in brings together the mythical legends of Norway, Russia and America. I also just heard about another Scandinavian fairy tale retelling--
by Erin Bow.
), Robin Hood (
), Grimms (
). I mean, this woman even wrote an anthology called 
and wrote the forward to 
(one of my personal favorites). And that doesn't even begin to touch on the original fantasy books and numerous picture books she had written. She's like the Grimm brothers, Hans Christian Anderson and J.R.R. Tolkien all rolled into one.
