Jack David Zipes, Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota, is a highly regarded scholar in fairy tale studies. His work, which my students find challenging and useful, is intellectually rigorous, yet wholly accessible. I could not teach my class on fairy tales without his books -- and that is not an exaggeration. His work has influenced my enjoyment, teaching, and understanding of fairy tales.Recently, Dr. Zipes graciously agreed to answer five questions for this blog. I hope students and my non-student D&T friends will enjoy the results. It's an honor for Diamonds and Toads to be able to feature an interview with a scholar of Zipes's caliber and reputation.
1) Fairy tales have, for very good and obvious reasons, been analyzed and written about from a feminist perspective for some time. These efforts remain useful for scholars and fairy tale devotees. I'm aware that other approaches are out there as well. Do you see some new perspectives coming on the horizon? Is there any new, big trend in fairy tale studies that you see developing?
In recent years, some critics who have been influenced by social Darwinism and evolutionary psychology have been exploring new approaches to folk and fairy tales. Two books that typify this approach are Joseph Carroll's Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature and Jonathan Gottschall and David Sloan Wilson, eds., The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative. Though I sympathize with their perspective, I find their works to be somewhat reductive and positivist because they exclude other approaches and try to make literary criticism into a science. The most interesting and fruitful studies in this "new" camp is Brian Boyd's On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. His work is more sophisticated than the other books I have mentioned. I myself have been drawn to this approach in Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre, but I am wary of drawing the kind of "scientific" conclusions that the social Darwinists and evolutionary psychologists draw. Otherwise, there have been some splendid sociological, feminist, historical, linguistic, and psychological studies that have appeared in recent years. (I shall mentioned them below.) All of these approaches demonstrate a greater interdisciplinary awareness and knowledge of the intertextual relationship between folk and fairy tales. There have also been several books on fairy-tale films that have explored the interconnections between oral, literary, and visual traditions.
2) So often in popular culture, fairy tales are blamed for putting dangerous ideas into women's heads -- ideas about "happily ever after," finding "Prince Charming," "rescue fantasies." Do you see them as dangerous for women? Or are current interpretations that reflect our own societal pressures really behind the "fairy tales are bad for women" attitudes?
I don't think any fairy tales are necessarily harmful for women or men. What causes harm are the actual behaviors and practices in the relations between men and women. The artworks that we produce will reflect critically and/or reinforce uncritically those comportments and customs that create conditions that allow one gender (males) to dominate the other (females). All fairy tales have an ideological significance, and insofar we have lived in and still live in a patriarchal society, they will tend to support notions and interactions that reproduce the dominant forms of behavior in all social institutions. What I find interesting about fairy tales, even when they may be termed sexist, is that they raise important questions and have contradictions. They even posit roles for me to play that are ridiculous -- most men can't be and don't want to be a prince on a white horse, fighting serpents and beasts, and rescuing princesses. That's a tough job, and there are better jobs in the world. In the last forty years or so, many writers, male and female, have turned the traditional tales upside down and fractured them to question the sexism and racism of the older tales. They have created new and fascinating fairy tales that open up even more questions about male domination. Some more conservative readers might find them harmful because they undermine the so-called moral values of American society. But, like I said, the notions incorporated by the tales can only be harmful if we believe that they must be carried out in practice.
3) If you had to build a library of just five books of or about fairy tales, which books would it include? (You should know that the library for my class has no fewer than five of yours!)
There are, of course, many books I could recommend, collections of fairy tales, or studies of fairy tales. So, this is a difficult question to answer, and I think I'll limit it to some important studies. Here are seven titles: Anderson, Graham. Fairytale in the Ancient World. London: Routledge, 2000. Bacchilega, Cristina. Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. Benson, Stephen. Folklore, Literature, and Cultural Theory. New York: Garland, 1995. Schacker, Jennifer. National Dreams: The Remaking of Fairy Tales in Nineteenth-Century England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Tiffin, Jessica. Marvelous Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tale. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009. Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairytales and their Tellers. London: Chatto and Windus, 1994. Ziolkowski, Jan. Fairy Tales from Before Fairy Tales: The Medieval Latin Past of Wonderful Lies. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 20006. I also recommend subscribing to and/or reading on a regular basis Marvels & Tales: A Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, edited by Donald Haase.
4) What are you working on now? Do you have a new book coming out and if so, what is its focus?
I have just published a book with Princeton University Press called Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales by Kurt Schwitters. This book is part of a new series called "Oddly Modern Fairy Tales," which I am editing for Princeton University Press. Next year I shall publish a second book in the series, Chinese Fairy Tales by Béla Balázs, the famous Hungarian film critic. Some other books will be edited by Marina Warner and Maria Tatar. At present I am finishing a huge book on fairy-tale films tentatively titled The Enchanted Screen, which Routledge will publish in the fall of 2010.
5) I have found that my students and I see a real connection between fairy tales and music and how each helps us appreciate the other. Example: Every time I listen to anything by Fairport Convention, sooner or later, I start thinking about fairy tales. Is there any music, of any kind, that you connect to the enjoyment of fairy tales? Why?
Since I am much older than you are and probably a bit more conservative when it comes to taste in music, I rarely associate pop music with fairy tales or even the music from musicals with the possible exception of the music from Into the Woods. I am a classical music fan, and I do indeed love to hear music from fairy-tale operas such as Mozart's The Magic Flute, Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, Dvorcak's Russalka, etc. There is a very long tradition of fairy-tale operas and fairy-tale ballets, and a friend of mine, Stephen Benson, may finally write a book about fairy-tale operas.
36 comments:
Thank you for this interview! I look forward to reading Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales.
Always great to hear from Jack Zipes and thanks for bringing us this update on his work. His observations about the work of scholars in the field of evolutionary psychology were fascinating. And The Enchanted Screen will, I hope, inspire many new courses or units in courses.
Thanks for this interview! It's brilliant to get a list of the books Jack Zipes would include in a limited fairy tale library, I've read some but there were several to add to my reading list. I enjoyed Lucky Hans and I hadn't realised it was part of a series, looking forward to the rest!
i would love to have jack zipes job. i find fairy tales endlessly fascinating.
you asked me how to follow my blog. i'm new to using blogspot & so i just now put a follow tab on my page.
An excellent interview, Professor Zipes is as engaging and thorough as always.
I was especially impressed by his critique of commentators whose works he finds to be "somewhat reductive and positivist because they exclude other approaches and try to make literary criticism into a science."
In my mind, Zipes here hits the nail on the head, so to speak. One of the most fascinating things about fairy tales is the extent to which they're open to interpretations from all points of view; where one might see in Snow White a tale draped in layers of sexism and patriarchy, another might become immersed in a world where strong female figures use their sexuality as weapons in a fatal battle for the highest office in the land.
And both could come away with very valid points. Although Professor Zipes focuses his wrath on the fairy tale interpretations preformed by social Darwinists, I feel he very succinctly (if somewhat indirectly) highlights the dangers of becoming too committed to reaching "scientific conclusion" when approaching fairy tales.
Because their very nature lends them to a myriad of fascinating interpretations, however sure one may be of their conclusion, to ignore the viability of other interpretations or conclusions is perhaps just as dangerous as attempting to reduce fairy tale interpretations to a science.
What I found to be the most interesting answer that he gave was to question 2. I am always interested in writing from the feminist point of view…getting into the female character’s shoes and also finding what the story is trying to tell women readers to look and act like is something that I always have a lot of fun with. It was very shocking to have that perspective turned around on me. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a male saying that the stories they read try to place them into impossible roles that they cannot and do not want to fulfill. I found that to be an incredible eye opener. I think that many people when talking about advertising or movie stars and what not only focus on what those impossible to reach standards of perfection do to women and neglect what they do to men as well. Now when I read any story, not just a fairy tale, I will not only look at the women characters and their personalities but I will pull some of that focus onto the masculine side of the story as well. Before reading this and taking this class I had no clue that someone named Jack Zipes even existed but now I’m excited to look into his works and also the books that he recommends.
Wonderful interview, thank you for posting it!
When reading Dr. Zipes' response to question 2, I started thinking about how being a patriarchal society shapes its versions of fairy tales. While I assume there have been many studies on this, I am interested in finding fairy tales that have came out of the traditions of matriarchal societies. I think it would be very interesting to read or do a study that examines whether the character's roles in the story differ from the patriarchal versions.
I wonder if there would be less of a necessity for female characters that are used as bargaining tools, currency or in other words, objects. Would there be more instances of men filling these roles?
Having these types of questions, I would love to know if anyone could direct me to sources of collections of scholarly fairy tail studies?
Prince Charming may indeed be a difficult role; however, I feel that each girl may have their own conditions or ideas on who their own Prince Charming should be depending on their personal opinions and needs. It is just the same as a man may seek his own "princess" based on his opinions and his personal views. This leads me to the idea that Jack Zipes is correct when he says in his interview that "The notions incorporated by the tales can only be harmful if we believe that they must be carried out in practice." That is to say that if a girl is looking for particular characteristics in a male and has made her own conditions based on the way that she was raised, or based on her own morals and values than it is probable that she may find what she could call her own personal Prince Charming and find her own personal, and hopefully happily ever after.
Julia C.
Prince Charming may indeed be a difficult role; however, I feel that each girl may have their own conditions or ideas on who their own Prince Charming should be depending on their personal opinions and needs. It is just the same as a man may seek his own "princess" based on his opinions and his personal views. This leads me to the idea that Jack Zipes is correct when he says in his interview that "The notions incorporated by the tales can only be harmful if we believe that they must be carried out in practice." That is to say that if a girl is looking for particular characteristics in a male and has made her own conditions based on the way that she was raised, or based on her own morals and values than it is probable that she may find what she could call her own personal Prince Charming and find her own personal, and hopefully happily ever after.
Julia C.
I’m going to have to agree with Zipes about fairy tales not injecting dangerous pressures on their readers. The fairy tale is an art form, just as a painting or a song, that expresses certain thoughts, motives, themes, societal and psychological universalities, etc—any idea really. Unless parents use the tale as an ideology or philosophy to instill a moral or precept into their children (which is what religion does), any interpretation of the fairy tale will likely remain that: an interpretation. The tale itself, read as any other form of art or entertainment, should not naturally give children a juggernaut of unrealistic ethics or skewed modes of consciousness. Though I will concede that it could in some aspects depend on the individual.
Also, I’m very impressed with the class so far, and I find the new field of social Darwinism that Zipes mentions, conflated with the concept of folklore and the fairy tale, to be fascinating. But I don’t think Zipes is lauding the fusion with the proper merit. To me, there really seems to be something in evolutionary psychology for fairy tales; I mean, to start, just look at the myriad of archetypes in all of them! Perhaps he’s only criticizing the authors and not the field—
J. BISIG
Interestingly enough, Jack Zipes’ response to question 2 is what I think about it as well. Fairy tales are written by people who have had life experiences, whether they are good or bad, and choose to express them in a story. Zipes also said in his book, Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre that “What the fairy tale does – and it does this perhaps more efficiently and effectively than any other genre – is represent basic human dilemmas in tangible metaphorical forms that reflect how difficult it is for us to curb basic instincts” (131). In my humble opinion, I think he is right. Taking his words on how it is difficult for us as humans, or in other words tamed animals, to curb basic instincts, one can see how an idea about beauty in fairy tales could be dangerous, especially for children. Children run on imagination just as cars run on gas. Influencing the framework of a child’s imagination through basic ideas about reality from fairy tales, cartoon shows or any other form of entertainment can be dangerous. Unconsciously, the child could be forming attitudes and behaviors that reflect their perception on reality because of what they see, hear or read. Realistically speaking, how many people were dangerously influenced by the idea that they could find their partner in life and live happily ever after? Or that their partner will be as beautiful as the Ugly Duckling in just a few years? Those ideas are good and wholesome. Put into practice in the real world, however, can have mixed results. These results then combined with already formed (and unwilling to transform) attitudes and behaviors then can have dangerous consequences. In my mind, the ideas of beauty in fairy tales are not dangerous. There are many other factors that are outside the realm of fairy tales that have the ability to influence a person.
DC
I really considered his answer to number 2. It goes along with what we are discussing in class about whether fairy tales are giving the wrong impression of beauty to young girls. I agree with Jack Zipes that fairy tales are not what is putting the wrong impression in girls’ heads. They take more from what they get from the TV and movies. They know who plays those characters and look up to them. When they read a fairy tale they understand that it’s just a story, it’s make believe. When they see people who are real and that they look up to portraying what everyone is calling beautiful, such as super skinny and plastic surgery they believe that is what they must do to be beautiful to. If we are getting from the fairy tales that we must be beautiful maybe we are taking the wrong message from them and look and them again to see what it’s really trying to say.
After reading the interview with Jack Zipes I found that I wanted to really respond to his answer on question 2, like many others. What I found so interesting was really the question. I personally find it odd that any woman, or any man for that matter would actually feel the pressure of living up to any character from a fairy tale. It seems that they're getting the actual tales confused with the Disney versions, and in that case I think it shouldn't really be referred to as someone getting that fairy tale ending; it should be the Disney ending. Also I realize that (maybe) men and (definitely) women feel the need to look amazing, that beauty is of the most importance in these stories. However from what I've read so far, the beauty really doesn't seem to bring them anything but bad stuff. Sure Snow White is lovely, but her life really sucks and in the end when things are finally better she either changes or she shows her true colors to the reader and seems to become next in line for being the next evil queen. One can only assume that she'll go down a similar path as her (step)mother. As for Sleeping Beauty, she pricks her finger, sleeps for a hundred years or more and then marries a complete stranger. The Little Mermaid(though from Anderson) doesn't get her happy ending either though she's also supposed to be very beautiful. To me it just seems like these girls have crap lives, from the beginning to end, and the storyteller feels bad and has to give them something. So they get beauty-kind of like Harry Potter lost his parents, his life sucked for the most part until Hogwarts and even then he suffered a lot, so J.K. Rowling said because of all that he would luck out and never have zits. How good the fictional characters have it.
I loved Mr. Zipes’ comment about the social Darwinist’s work being “reductive and positivist.” I must admit that I had to look up these words. In doing this, it has led to two discoveries. First, I have now increased my vocabulary. Second, I realized that before taking this class I probably would have fallen into the category of being “reductive” myself in regards to fairy tales.
Many people, like me, have relegated fairy tales to just being children’s stories with not much relevance to real life. With just the few weeks that we have met for class, I have discovered quite the opposite. Mr. Zipes points out that there are terrific “sociological, feminist, historical, linguistic, and psychological” studies done in analyzing fairy tales. Who knew? What a rich source of study in which I have been missing out.
I was most intrigued by the offering of an “evolutionary psychology” paradigm as one of the “new approaches to folk and fairy tales.” This has been a subject of relatively scandalous debate in the world of psychology as well. (Though my delving into the subject of psychology may seem well off topic, I promise to tie my psychological musings to fairy tales in the end.)
Evolution has been recently proposed as a solution to finally integrating psychology into something cohesive. Thus far, psychology has broken apart into divisions that have a hard time talking to one another (developmental, cognitive, humanistic, behaviorist, and yes even “Jungian”). Evolutionary psychology does tie many of these together; you can look easily view developmental, cognitive and behaviorist psychology through an evolutionary lens. It looks as if at last an environment in which psychologists can work together, rather than creating theories that compete against one another and fragment the discipline.
However, the more qualitative versions of our discipline must be diluted and set aside in light of embracing evolution as “the answer.” Qualitative psychology looks to the examination of words as a resource in which to understand humans, often referred to as “the narrative study of lives.” This is awfully “fairy tale -ish” to me, looking at the epic story of the person in our strivings to understand who they’ve become seems essential.
Suddenly, Zipes’s concern about this overly “reductionistic and positivistic” approach is all too familiar. In our strivings for the empirical, it seems the story itself could be lost. And to me the story is the essence of true understanding.
Melissa L.
"...most men can't be and don't want to be a prince on a white horse, fighting serpents and beasts, and rescuing princesses."
I found this an interesting quote. While I cannot think of this as a man would, I don't think the 'knight in shining' armor has it as bad as he makes it sound. While risking your life for a woman you don't even know doesn't sound all that appealing, being the 'pretty little thing' locked up in the castle doesn't sound that great either. If given the choice between traveling the world and completing great tasks OR sitting around all day, while you are most likely abused by someone in your family, waiting for someone to sweep you off your feet, I'd most likely go with the first option. While this may just be a reflection of my personality, it seems to me like the 'princesses' get the short end of the stick. While you may argue that in the end they usually get the happy ending and the prince is the one who had to risk his life or put up with a less than genius beauty, I would rather have that deal than the one who gets sold off by her parents or abused her entire life.
I think it would be very interesting for some of the classic fairy tales to be written from the prince’s point of view, almost like a 'prequel' to the heroine’s story.
Christina R.
I recently read a article for my Fine Arts class, and it happened to be about fairy tales. The first thing that caught my attention was the title, "The Return of Enchantment." The article was written by Kathleen Agena and published in the New York Times Magazine November 27, 1983. I was glad to read something that I could relate to another class, and it helped me to understand more about fairy tales. As I read the Zipes article, bits and pieces of Agena's article kept creeping into my mind.
Agena gives reasons why science fiction movies and fairy tales have become so prominent in past years. Mostly, she blames the rise in technology for putting more stresses on people at work and at home, and they need something other worldly to look to. Hence, fairy tales and science fiction movies are on the rise. At the time of the article, "Star Wars" was the big hit, but today there are still more and more science fiction movies set in other lands and in future generations. People want to step outside of their everyday lives and step into a world filled with magical powers and happily ever afters.
Abbey H.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this interview on here-- I really love reading Jack Zipes. What he has to say has helped me not only understand fairy tales but interpret the world around me as well as history to a great extent.
What he says in #2 also struck me like others. It's a very generally simple way of looking at something. To just accept that ideology is usually built into whatever is expressed, consciously or unconsciously. ANd then to look at it and ask if it reinforces or does it subvert something's predominance in society.
Excellent interview by both Professor Wolford and Dr. Zipes with great questions and answers.
I did not realize how much there was to fairy tales. Dr. Zipes made me think outside the box of fairy tales and how much you can go deep into research with fairy tales.
In the number two questions that Dr. Zipes answered, I was surprised with his answer about how fairy tales and happily ever after do not affect women and men. I always thought they did because there is not happily ever after and everything is not perfect. I can see what Dr. Zipes means when different fairy tales have different significance but I believe it will hurt women and men in the future.
I am glad Professor Wolford had the opportunity to ask Dr. Zipes questions. It was a great way to hear from another scholar about fairy tales. I am looking forward to hearing more about Dr. Zipes research and his books!
Ashley G.
In this interview with Jack Zipes, the part that I found both the most interesting and the most beneficial was the part about fairy tales putting dangerous ideas into women’s heads. Even though we have already written a paper about this for the class, I believe that what Mr. Zipes talks about is very beneficial. I really agree with what Mr. Zipes says about how the “artworks” that we make often time reflect the reality around us and although I do believe that sometimes fairy tales might reinforce these outdated ideas of male dominance, like Mr. Zipes said, I think that it is just as much our fault, as a society, for letting these ideas become part of our reality and in turn letting this reality be reflected through our artwork. I think that this is a beneficial way of looking at some of the problems that our society has with regards to discrimination based on sex. I think that this show us that in order for things to change, we have to stop blaming everything around us and start taking responsibility for ideas that we are reinforcing because until we understand where these ideas are coming from, we aren’t going to be able to change them.
Alyssa H.
They always say that real life is stranger that fiction. With fairy tales I’m not so sure that’s the case. Tales like Red Riding Hood were meant to warn children and young women from the dangers of getting lost and tame wolves. While Red Riding Hood is about getting lost and kidnapped, it can also be seen as a cautionary tale to young women. Rapists, murders etc all may seem nice on the outside but on the inside but young women need to watch out for these tame wolves. While they don’t have to fear being eaten (necessarily) girls like Red often half to strip and sleep with wolves before cleverly escaping or killed. Real life stories like the Jaycee Dugard story are stories that would have prompted authors and mothers to tell tales like Red Riding Hood so that their children don’t meet the same fate.
After reading the Zipes interview, I liked the way he answered question #2. It was a question that was asked of us in class and we spent many days talking about it. He brings up some good idea like how us men dont want to be the prince charming, or go fighting beasts. It seems that they expect us to want to take on this role and like he says we dont want it. Its a tough job to try to handle and most men cant be that person. He goes on talking about the question of male domination in fairy tales. It brings up another good thing and that men on average doesnt want a women we can control and dominate, most men want a stronger person to be a partner.
John J
I agree whole-heartedly with Zipes' belief that, by the by, fairy tales (or, at the very least, their 'original' versions) are rather ineffectual and relatively harmless in their creation of male and female expectations, particularly when it comes to notions of romance.
Like Zipes, I feel that the forgotten element in fairy tale literary criticism is that of the male figure. True, the majority of fairy tales seem to be centered on female protagonists (and antagonists), but doesn't this, too, reflect something about our society? While indeed some fairy tales cast their women as wilting violets who are unable to control their own destiny, isn't the largest onus (and one that, in modern times, is nearly impossible to meet) placed on the hero and not the heroine?
As Zipes suggests, fairy tales (or, at the very least, their Disney mutations) have so infected our cultural psyche that seemingly every woman -- at least, the ones I've managed to date -- has come to expect the impossible.
We all have standards, I realize this, but doesn't the problem lay with the culture that adopts them, and not the fairy tales themselves? Isn't this the reason that fairy tales and all their varied incarnations have been able to have such a lasting impact? That they serve as merely blank templates for which every society and culture ascribes their own unique set of expectations and cultural mores?
Sometime men need to be rescued, too.
I find Jack Zipes's answer to the question about fairy tales being dangerous interesting. Zipes says, "still live in a patriarchal society, they will tend to support notions and interaction that reproduce the dominant forms of behavior in all institutions." I completely agree that this is a wonderful reason for the domination of male characters in fairy tales. The only thing that I wonder about is the father figures in fairy tales. Many times they are not influential at all. They seem to be a non entity in many fairy tales. For instance in Hansel and Gretel the father submits to the mothers horrible idea. Where are the dominating fathers in fairy tales? There are tales like Beauty and the Beast where Beauty does everything for her father, but her father is not a dominating character. He does not demand things of her. We do not really see dominating fathers in fairy tales despite the idea that there is plenty of female submission. This is interesting since in our society the fathers are the head of households and are the dominant figures.
Heather V.
The interview with Jack Zipes was interesting. I enjoyed the second question and his answer best because it was focused on a his views of fairy tales putting dangerous ideas into women's heads. This is the main focus of the first paper in class and to get a male perspective was interesting. Jack Zipes brings up an good point about how a lot of males do not want to fill the shoes that fairy tales have implicated upon them. He explains how "most men can't be and don't want to be a prince on a white horse." I realized that we put so much emphasis on what women think and feel that we fail to look through the males' point of view. Today society focuses so much on the empowerment of woman that it is almost as if the thoughts and feeling of men are disregarded. Reading Jack Zipes answer to question number two was an eye opener for me since I fail to look at a male perspective of roles men play in fairy tales.
It was definitely interesting to see the viewpoint of one of the top fairy tale scholars from our time, but I found some of his answers a bit misdirecting. Maybe he didn’t understand the question. Or maybe I didn’t. In the first question Diamonds and Toads asked Mr. Zipes if he saw any big, new trends developing in fairy tale studies, and this led him to a rambling answer about social Darwinism and evolutionary psychology. I don’t know, maybe I’m missing the point, either in his answer or in the question itself, but the response given by Mr. Zipes just doesn’t seem to answer the question. Other than that it was an intriguing look into the workings of this gentleman’s mind.
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The part of Jack Zipes interview that I liked the most was that he pointed out that most men do not want to be the guy that carries out the prince charming role. They do not want to be the tough guy that has to be constantly rescuing the princess. I don’t think most people think of the way the guy is portrayed as much as the girl in fairy tales. It’s isn’t fair to make that assumption of that’s what makes an ideal prince charming. I could see how it could be exhausting to be helping a “damsel in distress.” I don’t want my relationship to be a constant needy one. I want an equal partnership. When one side becomes a constant weakness, it’s tiresome. Of course, relationships are about balance. You should be able to count on and lean on your partner. However, when one person is at a constant lean, it must be expected that the other one is going to get tired and fall down. I want to be able to find a guy that is able to take care of himself, without needing me constant. Otherwise, I’d probably be better off on my own. On a total side note: for those of you who are wanting great resources for fairy tales. I really do love and find Jack Zipes books very helpful.
Colleen B.
Thanks for posting the interview with Jack Zipes. Even though I don’t know much about fairy tales, I enjoyed reading it and was very interested. I love how he thoroughly answered the five questions asked.
I would like to say I agree with the comment posted by Julia C. on September 13, 2009. I completely agree when she said, “Jack Zipes is correct when he says in his interview that ‘The notion incorporated by the tales can only be harmful if we believe that they must be carried out in practice’.” She explanation after is exactly what I believe, I don’t think I could say it in better words.
Another part of the interview I especially liked was the last question. I enjoy listening to many different kinds of music and I do believe some music makes me think of fairy tales. I am also a person that loves ballets and would love to go to an opera. I had no idea that there were fairy tale operas and fairy tale ballets. Now that I know there are fairy tale ballets, I will definitely have to make some time to find out where one is and go. I think it would be a wonderful experience and would probably be a lot of fun to see!
Like many before me I would like to address Jack Zipes’ answer to the second question and specifically, “what causes harm are the actual behaviors and practices in the relations between men and women”. This struck me because I feel he is absolutely right. I do not see danger in stories of a man who rescues a fair maiden and lives happily ever after. The danger comes in when a woman expects a man to save her and support her and does not think instead of doing those things for herself, or as Zipes put it when a man is expected “to fight serpents and beasts”. That is not fair for a woman to expect of him or for him to feel obligated to do. This seems to almost set the person up for failure and an impossible task because when does it end and does it ever end?
Like Zipes I have never associated pop music with fairy tales but I am not a fan of pop so maybe that is why. I do associated many of my favorite songs by Queens of the Stone Age with fairy tales but Zipes probably has not heard of them.
I would like to address Jack Zipes' answer to question two. I thought the question and answer were very interesting. I'm glad Kate Wolford asked Jack this question. I completely agree with Jack Zipes that fairy tales do not portray dangerous ideas for women. In today's society, anything and everything is portrayed in our entertainment. Our entertainment tends to insinuate certain things, but we can choose to not agree. Everyone has their own opinions and ideally everything is left to interpretation or the imagination. Most of the time, fairy tales state that the female characters are beautiful, but no physical descriptions are mentioned. That is left to our imagination. Also Jack Zipes states "All fairy tales have an ideological significance, and insofar we have lived in and still live in a patriarchal society, they will tend to support notions and interactions that reproduce the dominant forms of behavior in all social institutions." I have noticed that most fairy tales portray a matriarchal society like in "Hansel and Gretel." It seems the mother runs the household and the husband follows like a lost puppy. In a lot of the fairy tales, the father isn't necessarily present throughout the tale leaving the mother or stepmother in charge. All in all I enjoyed this interview with Jack Zipes. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have survived the semester!
Whitney M.
I really agree with him in his point that fairy tales are not harmful to people, but essentially people are harmfull to other people and themselves. When reading a story or "tale" and interpreting it all kinds of ideas race through our minds about what every little thing might mean for our lives. The stories may project certain morals and ideas that were relavant when they came about just as in our modern times the new stories and movies that we are creating reflect some of the views and ideas of people today. For example women in fairy tales are, for the most part, passive and do not really take action to accomplish anything for themselves, the highlight of their life is to be married. In today's movies and stories we see women working along side men, women owning companies and so on. Because in our time these are things that women do. In any case of stories i beleive that they always reflect some ideals of the time in which they emerged, but I do not believe that stories and movies can harm a mind, it is how the mind handles what it is being fed.
Sherry B.
I would love to address the answer to question no.2 as many people before me did. It is great how Jack Zipes answers the question which completely agrees with my theory that there are no “happily ever after” endings. I might not completely agree with him that it is not dangerous to place those ideas into someone’s head because I know several people who still believe that happily ever after exists and it is very hard for them to achieve the state of mind to understand it. I hope he can revise that question just a little more, because I deeply believe that it might change the second time around.
In regards to question two, I would also have to agree that fairy tales themselves do not place outlandish and contrary ideas about life into the minds of women and men (yes, I do believe that men can develop a “happily ever after” notion after reading such tales). While some fairy tales offer up moral conclusions for actions taken in tales and often imply proper actions individuals should take within their text, I still do not believe that they (the tales) should be held responsible. It is my belief that any conclusion that an individual reader develops after reading a fairy tale is purely based off of the beliefs that they already hold on the subject. This being said, it is the readers decision as to whether or not they will take this conclusion to heart and let it control aspects of their real life (like women focusing on finding their “knight in shining armor” that will sweep them off their feet and excluding any men that do not fit into this “prince charming” category or even men fixating on being this knight.) -Holly G.
At first I thought it was going to be a link to an interview with Zack Zipes until I realized that it was YOU asking HIM questions now that is pretty freaking AWESOME!
I like what he said at the end of his response in question 2 about how fairy tales are harmful if we believe we need to practice them it’s a good point. I believe it to be true on a few levels and not true on other levels. Because it’s hard for a kid not to practice something when they don’t know any better or don’t realize they are practicing what they learned in the tales.
It is of course obvious that he is a fairy tale lover and so on but I still find myself chuckling at question 3. When you ask for 5 books and he gives you 7. Although everything he suggests is smashed together so it looks like it is more than 7 and a journal.
I did learn that there is such a thing as fairy tale operas and ballets never thought of that. I will have to look that up, but mainly the operas I have always liked musicals so I am curious about the operas.
silvaan c.
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