All posts by scarlett

Real Life Disney Girls

Egg, Fairhaven College, Bellingham, WA. Photo by Scarlett Messenger
Egg, Fairhaven College, Bellingham, WA. Photo by Scarlett Messenger

Finnish artist Jirka Väätäinen renders popular Disney heroines in a realistic style His portraits give these characters something more than the cookie-cutter bodies and perfect faces they usually get in their idealized state. Belle has the furrowed brow of a thinker, Merida has the ruddy complexion of a girl who loves the outdoors, and Snow White oozes with naïveté.

‘REAL LIFE’ DISNEY GIRLS

Envisioning what the girls of Disney might look like in real life.
This is a personal project and has no affiliation with Disney in any way.

The Initiation/The Belly of the Whale

Library Fountain, Lummi Island, WA. Photo by Scarlett Messenger
Library Fountain, Lummi Island, WA. Photo by Scarlett Messenger

The Initiation/The Belly of the Whale

In this week’s reading, both Campbell and Estes discuss the concept of the Belly of the Whale, or the place where the the hero/heroine is finally severed from their mundane life and reborn as the hero. This place or state is the chrysalis where our caterpillar becomes a butterfly. An interesting fact about the metamorphosis of butterflies: most people think that the worm goes into its cocoon, grows a pair of wings, etc. and then comes out transformed. In actuality, the caterpillar dissolves completely into cellular sludge and its raw biological material is used to build a completely new creature. The Belly of the Whale is not a friendly place, it is often violent and bloody. These stories demonstrate that personal transformation for the hero/heroine is psychic wetwork. It is terrifying to experience. What I found most interesting about the specific stories I read and watched this week was that in most of them it was the heroine’s world or those around her who were transformed more than she was.

Estes discusses the story of Bluebeard and claims that the bride detests Bluebeard initially because her inner wolf nature instinctively knows that he is a villain, but that her culturally coaxed “good girl” nature convinces her not to trust her instincts. This hit a flat note with me. I would argue that this interpretation of the bride as a naive pawn is the path of least resistance. In this scenario, the bride is either condemned to marry a murderous psychopath because of her culturally conditioned accommodating nature or her inner wild woman snarls and cowers from the journey like a beaten dog. For some reason we can accept the notion that the male hero can be pulled toward adventure by deliberately marching towards the danger, but a woman must be tricked or misled toward hers. The true heroine does not hide from her journey, no matter what her misgivings. Without her willing participation, we have no story.

Bluebeard is often told as a cautionary tale to woman against what our society considers to be some of their more undesirable female traits: curiosity, disobedience, and treachery. However, it is her inner animal instinct that actually draws her to Bluebeard, not the blundering wonder of a woman-child. Our heroine willingly seeks adventure rather than shying away from it. She can smell the evil within him and senses that he is a worthy opponent. Her exploration of the house and subsequent entering of the bloody chamber is a literal crossing of the threshold into the belly of the beast. She is not randomly nosing about, her senses are guiding her towards her discovery. She must reveal the villain before she can vanquish him. And in the end, he is indeed vanquished. She is the predator in this story, subconsciously hunting and eliminating a dark blight upon the land thanks to her feral nature. Bluebeard’s heroine isn’t so much transformed as she is awakened. She already has these skills and this knowledge at her disposal, but she seems to be realizing this as the story unfolds.

In the animated film Coraline, our heroine is also presented with a secret room and distinctive key. This tiny door in the parlor of her new house is a huge temptation to the curious and neglected girl. When she finally opens the door and travels to the otherworld to meet her “Other Mother”, everything seems to be her greatest wish come true. The Other Mother cooks and takes an interest in her activities, the yard is planted with hundreds of flowers, just like she had been begging her parents for, and everything is warm and filled with whimsy and light. Eventually, things turn sour, and the Other Mother is revealed to be a monster. Coraline eventually returns to her original family having slain the beast and saved the souls of the Other Mothers victims. Unlike many heroines, Coraline does not just return home more accepting of her circumstances, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz coming to terms with a dreary existence in Depression-era Kansas. Coraline brings some of the “Belly of the Beast” with her, convincing her parents to plant the garden she wants and building an extended family from the eccentric characters that live in the apartments around them. Her transformation is not into a more accepting and passive creature, but into someone who is more capable of seeing what works in her world and changing the things that don’t.

In Mirrormask, Helena is a young girl who lives and works in her parents circus. After a particularly cruel argument her mother collapses and falls ill with what appears to be a brain tumor. Eventually, Helena enters the otherworld, a disturbingly phantasmagorical place where everyone wears a mask and shadows threaten to destroy everything. At one point, we bear witness to what has become a common theme in many heroine stories: the literal transformation of the heroine into the dark counterpart. We see her ritually dressed and transformed into The Princess, her sinister analogue from the otherworld who has taken her place in the real world. She briefly takes her place next to the Dark Queen until her companion reminds her of her true identity. In most of these stories this transformation seems to resolve itself when something or someone reminds the heroine what her true nature is. We see this happen to Lily in the film Legend, Willow from TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Katherine from the horror movie The Cell, to name a few. The heroine then has to decide which path she should take, and invariably decided to return to her true self. To remain in her negatively transformed state is to remain trapped in the otherworld and literally lose her self.

Because I was focused on getting caught up, I did not have much of an opportunity this week to explore Campbell’s Guardian of the Threshold, but it is a subject that I know will come back around in future readings. Hopefully I can address it then. I also would like to return to the “Nega-Heroine/Mother” concept as well.

References

Selick, H. (Director). (2009). Coraline [Motion picture on DVD]. United States: Focus Features.

McKean, D. (Director). (2006). Mirrormask [Motion picture on DVD]. Sony pictures home entertainment.

Grimm, J., Grimm, W., & Tatar, M. (2004). The annotated Brothers Grimm. New York: W.W. Norton.

Campbell, J. (1972). The hero with a thousand faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Murdock, M. (1990). The heroine’s journey. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Estés, C. P. (1992). Women who run with the wolves: Myths and stories of the wild woman archetype. New York: Ballantine Books.

The Call to Adventure/Separation from the Mother

Baker Preserve, Lummi Island, WA. Photo by Scarlett Messenger
Baker Preserve, Lummi Island, WA. Photo by Scarlett Messenger

The Call to Adventure/Separation from the Mother

For this ISP, I deliberately selected two books that I have been meaning to read but never gotten around to it. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I have read excerpts from them for various classes, but this is the first time I have sat down and read the books in their entirety. In addition I am reading The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock, at the behest of my sponsor. Since this is my first ISP, and every adventure has a beginning, that is where I am starting: the beginning of each book discussing how adventures begin.

What is different about the path of the heroine and the hero? Campbell’s work discusses the journey from an almost exclusively male point of view. In fact, in the first two chapters, female characters are primarily described in the section discussing the refusal of adventure. He speaks of the hero in terms of his inner, Freudian-inspired motives and drives. Estes, rather than specifically discussing the beginning of adventure, chooses to use the archetype of La Loba, or Wolf Woman, as the actual source of the call. Murdock takes the issue in yet another direction by emphasizing separation from the mother and reconciliation with the concept of the feminine as the critical first step. For Campbell, the mythologist, the call comes from the spiritual world. For Estes, the Jungian analyst, the call comes from archetype within, from the collective unconsciousness we share. For Murdock, also a Jungian psychotherapist, she finds the answer in the personal dynamic between the heroine and society’s expectations placed on women.

Campbell mentions The Herald, a figure who’s job it is to call the hero to his destiny and initiate the journey. This figure is often portrayed as grotesque or feared. Estes La Loba is certainly a fearsome figure, described as the Bone Woman who raises the dead, a feral and earthy creature. The Herald of the heroine’s journey seems to manifest in a friendlier but no less anxious way. We can see a different example of The Herald in The White Rabbit of Alice in Wonderland. Although few would argue that the bunny is grotesque, his preoccupation with time, authority, and death at the hands of the Queen certainly makes him a awesome figure for the adolescent Alice. He is Adulthood, he has obligations, his time is limited. Her decision to follow him is not reckless, it is her decision to heed the call of her own curiosity in spite her fears. Similarly, Toto from the Wizard of Oz is another Herald, although again of a far less frightening countenance than La Loba. In the film version of the tale, he is the reason Dorothy is caught outside in the tornado that carries her to Oz, and her motherly concern for his safety is the impetus for many different plot points in the journey. Toto is her child, another glimpse of impeding Adulthood leading her onward. Neither The White Rabbit nor Toto provides any guidance or advice as to how their heroines should proceed. While they share similarities, The Herald should not be confused with The Guide, which we will be discussing later in this class. The Herald’s only job is to beckon, not to inform. In some cases, the Herald will share the duties of the Guide, but they are not the same role.

This week’s films were Kevin Smith’s comedy Dogma and The Wachowski’s dystopian V for Vendetta. In both films, the heroine is called to service for a greater cause. In Dogma, the heroine Bethany is informed by The Metatron (voice of God, who appears as a pillar of flame initially, before douses him with a fire extinguisher, revealing him to be Alan Rickman) that she is the Last Scion, or descendant of Christ, and is the only one who can stop the apocalyptic actions of a pair of fallen angels, thus saving the world. She naturally refuses such a dangerous and terrifying responsibility, as most people would. She states that she is not worthy of such a task, due to her loss of faith over being incapable of having children. The Metatron informs her that she needs to put her resentments aside, as she is being offered the chance to become mother and protector to the entire world instead. Bethany eventually relents and sets off to New Jersey, which is where most apocalypses take place. But this act is what differentiates the hero/heroine from the rest of us. It isn’t bravery, strength, or magic powers. It is the willingness to follow The Herald, even if you aren’t certain of what lies ahead.

In V for Vendetta, the heroine Evey is pressed into service against a tyrannical British police state by a masked man who seems almost inhuman in his combat abilities and tolerance for pain. For the first half of the film, she refuses to do little more than the bare minimum to help his cause, although she expresses sympathy with his beliefs. She openly claims her fear, says she wishes she could be strong but she isn’t. After the masked man orchestrates her staged imprisonment and torture, she discovers the fortitude within herself to transcend her fear and follow The Herald. Although the movie is primarily concerned with her transformation into the heroine, her future trajectory as the heroine is implied by her actions as she takes place of the masked man after his death.

Interestingly, all of these women share something that Murdock alludes to in her book: the Absent Mother. Dorothy, Evey, and Bethany are orphans. Alice’s mother is unknown, and in fact a text search of the online version of the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland reveals not a single reference to the word “mother”. These are all girls on the cusp of puberty who have been separated from the mother, for better or for worse, and are on their way to discovering themselves as the future women they will become. This is, at least in part, at the core of the heroine’s journey: who will you be when you finally have to stand on your own?

In each of these examples, the heroine is called by The Herald to address an injustice (although in Alice’s case, her confrontation with the Queen is less motivated by the urging of others as it is her own impatience with the bully and self-preservation.) Her fear and reluctance may or may not be a clearly stated issue, but in the end she realizes she has to confront that fear to protect the weak and disenfranchised. She might refuse the call with an “it ain’t me” moment, like Evey and Bethany, before heeding The Herald. She might go willingly toward adventure out of curiosity and boredom with society’s restrictions on young girls, like Alice. She might go out of love and concern, like Dorothy. In the end, however, in order for us to have a journey, she has to put aside her fear and say yes to The Herald.

References

Smith, K. (Director). (1999). Dogma [Motion picture on DVD]. London: Cinema Club.

V for vendetta [Motion picture on DVD]. (2005). USA: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Baum, L. F., Denslow, W. W., & Hearn, M. P. (2000). The annotated Wizard of Oz: The wonderful Wizard of Oz. New York: Norton.

Carroll, L., Carroll, L., Gardner, M., & Tenniel, J. (1960). The annotated Alice: Alice’s adventures in Wonderland & Through the looking glass. New York: C.N. Potter.

Campbell, J. (1972). The hero with a thousand faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Murdock, M. (1990). The heroine’s journey. Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Estés, C. P. (1992). Women who run with the wolves: Myths and stories of the wild woman archetype. New York: Ballantine Books.