Beyond the Disney spell, or escape into Pantoland

Introduction

This article examines the contemporary status of the fairytale, as seen in the light of Jack Zipes's socio-historical approach, according to which the existence of the genre is contingent on the culture industry: the fairytale becomes another mass-mediated commodity. Yet, one can discern a tendency to create texts challenging canonical works and interpretations. This article presents such a tension on the example of the Disney fairytale being interrogated by Angela Carter's short-story "In Pantoland," in which the carnivalised character of Pantoland emerges as a parody of Disneyworld. [1] Commenting on his Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Walt Disney said, "We just try to make a good picture. And then the professors come and tell us what we do" (Tatar 1992, 229). Indeed, the animated tales made by Disney himself, as well as those produced by his followers, are simply flawless, as evidenced by the enthusiasm with which several generations of viewers have been relishing the animators' technical brilliance. What the importunate critics wish to point out is most probably the fact that across the world "children from seven to seventy" (Rushdie 1992, 18) predominantly relate such fairytale characters as Cinderella or Snow White with their cartoon versions created by Disney. These automatic associations are reinforced by the readily available Disney paraphernalia (T-shirts, mugs, watches, posters, books, etc.), which attract hundreds of buyers. One of the most spectacular examples of this mercantilisation, apart from Disney amusement parks, is the fusion of Disneyfication and McDonaldisation--you can visit a McDonald's restaurant and have a snack as well as receive a free soft and huggable Tigger or Winnie the Pooh. As Robert Wiszniowski rightly points out, the primary aim of such a business practice is "to awaken in the addresser a sense of gratitude, obligation, and conscious or semi-conscious loyalty" that will pass from one generation to another (Wiszniowski 1999, 105). [2]

In other words, the Disney fairytale is no longer confined to the sphere of the imaginary, but enjoys an alternative world, continually spilling from the fantastic fairytale realm into a real one, Disneyland. At the same time, it has started to overshadow the literary fairytale, which in practice means that for many it is now equivalent to the entire genre. How can one cast light on the spiralling popularity of fairytales from the House of the Mouse? Is it just Disney's fabulous animation that mesmerises audiences? How do we explain why Disney has become a household name all over the world? How do we interpret the persistence of the enchantment Disney gives to the genre? Finally, is it possible to envisage a fairytale beyond the categories of the fairytale canon, in which Disney conventions exert marked domination?

In this article, I attempt to use Jack Zipes's political and socio-historical approach to the cultural phenomenon of the fairytale as a springboard for my exploration of Disney wizardry and the cultural significance of Disney productions. It is within this framework that I will discuss Angela Carter's short story, "In Pantoland," a subversive fairytale, providing interesting parallels to the lineaments and dimensions of Disneyland. The manner in which this text radically infringes the limits of the classical fairytale tradition, while also resisting the pre-eminence of Disneyland as a fountain of spellbinding, saccharine and illusory images, will also be addressed. To conclude, I position Carter among a host of other writers for whom the fairytale not only provides a haunting commentary on both the standard aesthetics and politics of the genre, but also problematises the "ordinary," and encourages readers to creatively question their own reality.

The Disney Fairy Tale as a Cultural Institution

To introduce this concept, I begin, in this section, with the work of Jack Zipes, discussing in particular his theory of "contamination." In a later section, I use the theory to examine Carter's reconfiguration of "the standard values and dream package" (Bacchilega 1997, 143). Adopting Frederic Jameson's concept of an individual literary work as a symbolic act of inscribing social values within the text, Zipes concludes that both the fairytale and its oral predecessor are not so much an expression of communal values or general humanist themes, but rather, indicate a particular social reality and reflect attitudes embraced by their originators in regard to their social environment. [3] Moreover, in the case of the fairytale, a given text is also the symbolic outcome of a writer's interactions with folklore, with other fairytale authors, and with implied or unimplied readers. [4] In other words, the fairytale is radically intertextual, as its meaning not only results from a self-contained linguistic system, but also emerges against a background of complex inter-relationships between the author's dialogue with him/herself, "language, audience, text, other texts, and the socio-cultural determinations of significance" (Stephens 1992, 85). In his recent book, Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature (2000a), Zipes vividly describes this complex interaction with "the sociocultural web" around the fairytale (Zipes 1999, x) as "contamination," a process through which a fairytale author introduces motifs, themes, or messages into a traditional tale. [5]