Breaking the Disney Spell

Jack Zipes, in his essay "Breaking the Disney Spell", directly addresses the issue of what happens when a story is taken from its original oral form and written down. Zipes discusses in depth what Walt Disney has done to fairy tales and the consequences of Disney's actions. Zipes addresses many issues, including those of context, society, and alteration of plot. He accuses Walt Disney of attacking "the literary tradition of the fairy tale" (344). While many scholars disagree with Zipes' accusations, his essay makes very solid and well-presented points that he promptly backs with fact. Regardless of what the scholars say, Zipes was right: Oral tradition is important, and Disney's representations of historical folktales damaged fairy tales as we know them.
When Walt Disney began his cartoon and film career in 1927, he might have been unaware of how the American public would rush to purchase his "original" creations. His first cartoon, a re-creation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that added a comedic spin, began his career in the cartoon industry and eventually spun his company into a billion dollar enterprise (Funding Universe). As Disney's popularity grew, he continued to expand his film creations, but generally by copying or "re-creating" fairy tales or other historical literature. Many Americans believe that Walt Disney was the first person to create fairy tales, and Disney failed to recognize the original creators of the stories that made him so popular: the folk.
Historically, fairy tales were told amongst people that historians and folklorists refer to as "the folk." That is, the stories were shared orally, in what is commonly referred to as "sacred space" (Curry). Fairy tales were not intended to be read alone, in silence. Rather, they were created to be shared in a group of people, and, while fairy tales were saturated with meaning, that meaning could vary based on the storyteller. Fairy Tales were also often the holders of a warning or