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Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

storica.club

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Re: Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

#71

Post by golemotron »

arjie wrote: post #15

When I was a child in India, the fairy tale books that you could get easily were a bunch of Eastern European ones: Russian, Karelian, that sort of thing. And they were full of crazy stuff, man. The cossacks were constantly getting their heads cut off and this and that. I went back to India a year ago, and one of the things I made sure to bring back were my copies of those books (and the Journey to the West translatio…

Those old stories may have been full of crazy stuff, but look at children's programming over the past 30 years. SpongeBob characters, under the ocean, jumping off a diving board into a pool, again, under the ocean. It isn't violent, but it is crazy.

I think that children's authors primarily amuse themselves knowing that it will pass right over the heads of their target audience. It sure seems true of Collodi.

Re: Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

#72

Post by blks »

Russian/Soviet version of Pinocchio called “Buratino” is much nicer. Pinocchio is very individualistic and moralising, everything is a moral lesson or a bible reference. Buratino is very light and kind, main hero learns valuable lessons and defeats main bad guy with his friends, frees them from slavery and they end up getting their own theatre.

Re: Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

#73

Post by larodi »

Like many other children’s books whxih stood the test of time, those we assume are written for children are more a cautionary tales for adults that children also tend to like as they (still) are lacking understanding of notions such as humility, compassion and all the abstract stuff we now know forms after age 10-12.

The good Tom and Jerry episodes are completely devoid of tact and care, yet marvellous as entertainment .

Re: Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

#74

Post by s_dev »

junto wrote: post #31

I’ve never seen the Disney film. As a child I hated that story. My own children have no love for it either. If I was to guess, I’d say that there isn’t much of a character in that story to get behind and to empathize with as a child. Pinocchio is a selfish little shit. I can’t like him. As an adult I feel for his father’s desperation but even then I could never understand the story’s popularity appeal.

Did you watch Guillermo del Toro version? I'm enchanted by it.

Pinocchio is a selfish brat and that's a central tenet of his redemption arc.

Re: Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

#75

Post by yowo »

> This is, again, a children's book.

Children are capable of understanding cruelty, pain, death, suffering, in young age, overprotectiveness is why we have many >20 y/o people who can't speak for themselves and are overly shy.

Re: Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

#76

Post by madaxe_again »

arjie wrote: post #15

When I was a child in India, the fairy tale books that you could get easily were a bunch of Eastern European ones: Russian, Karelian, that sort of thing. And they were full of crazy stuff, man. The cossacks were constantly getting their heads cut off and this and that. I went back to India a year ago, and one of the things I made sure to bring back were my copies of those books (and the Journey to the West translatio…

You’d love the original sleeping beauty. It’s got rape, infanticide, cannibalism, all of it.

Oh and of course little red riding hood before they got rid of the cannibalism. And the rape.

Oh and of course the Grimm tale - “How some children played at slaughtering”. Murder, suicide, child abandonment - just… good grief. We live in a safe world today.

Re: Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

#78

Post by razakel »

kdheiwns wrote: post #60
jimbob45 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s just no reason to traumatize kids that early. It’s perfectly fine to be a happy Disney kid until 10 and then find the trauma gradually. It’s not like Bridge to Terabithia didn’t exist for the previous generation either.

As a kid, I liked the "traumatic" stuff. The world isn't all sunshine and roses and a lot of the scary elements are there to instill kids with an awareness of danger so they don't become a victim of something horrible. Most of us today live in a world where we don't get eaten by wolves and kidnapped and sold into slavery anymore, but our society is fragile. All it takes is a few bad economic disasters, war, or a fami…

Roald Dahl would agree with you. Fiction is the perfect place to explore complex emotions around the unsavoury parts of life, in a safe manner where the reader is in control.

Re: Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

#79

Post by Joker_vD »

junto wrote: post #34
Joker_vD wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We decided at some point that these themes were no longer fit for children despite generations having been raised with it. On one hand, if we want the children to grow up into the better world, and for them to keep making it better as adults, perhaps we should set up in their minds more examples of the better world, than of the worse kind of the world. Sounds somewhat reasonable? On the other hand, there is this "s…

There are cultural differences here though. Brüder Grimm aren’t quite as toned down in Germany as we see in US stories being Disney-fied. The U.S. was born out of Puritanism. That prudishness and absolutism continues to echo through into its modern culture. Most people don’t even realize it does.

> The U.S. was born out of Puritanism.

That reminds me: apparently, the Puritans have actually managed to ban the celebration of Christmas and other church feasts in the Britain during the English Interregnum (An Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals, June 1647):

    Forasmuch as the Feasts of the Nativity of Christ, Easter and Whitsuntide, and other
    Festivals commonly called Holy-Dayes, have been heretofore superstitiously used and
    observed Be it Ordained, by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled, That the
    said Feast of the Nativity of Christ, Easter and Whitsuntide, and all other Festival
    dayes, commonly called Holy-dayes, be no longer observed as Festivals or Holy-dayes
    within this Kingdome of England and Dominion of Wales, any Law, Statute, Custome,
    Constitution, or Cannon to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding
Talk about the war on Christmas!

Re: Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered

#80

Post by ffsm8 »

kombookcha wrote: post #70
michaelscott wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a partner who was a teacher in very rough areas; the school principal was routinely called by the local gang leader to let school out early because rival gangs planned to have a shootout in the afternoon. Kids there were abused in more ways than I want to remember or recount, babies were sometimes found in dumpsters, and the whole thing had this constantly oppressive and hopeless atmosphere. My partner did her…

It's important to remember that these stories are orignally an oral tradition that only fairly recently began to be written down. They would have had a myriad of differing versions depending on the preferences of the storyteller, their community and the intended effect on specific audiences. In a way, retelling these stories in a way that's meaningful to the listeners is the way it always has been. We just have to re…

Isn't that the other way around? People back then had more contact with the darker reality we live in - hence it was more relatable.

Current generation of people in the west have been completely sheltered and protected by the establishment for all their life and have completely forgotten that isn't something natural. With every generation since WW2 this has gotten more pronounced, and at this point people unironically go onto the streets to demonstrate for counties with "less then clandestine governments". They cannot comprehend the reality of living as a powerless victim in a world which will callously destroy them- for no reason whatsoever - because they've been protected from it all their lives.

Or maybe I'm just reading your comment wrong and you meant the same, idk

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