WEBVTT - Little Mermaid Part 2: The Fairytale Twist 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:20.396 --> 0:00:24.156 In his best known work The Uses of Enchantment, the 0:00:24.276 --> 0:00:29.236 late Austrian psychoanalyst Bruno Bedelheim asks us to consider the 0:00:29.396 --> 0:00:36.036 genius of the children's tail. Three little pigs. You remember, 0:00:36.076 --> 0:00:36.956 three little pigs. 0:00:37.956 --> 0:00:41.596 The first little pig was very lazy. He didn't want 0:00:41.596 --> 0:00:44.276 to work at all, and he built his house out 0:00:44.276 --> 0:00:48.316 of straw. The second little pig worked a little bit harder, 0:00:48.756 --> 0:00:51.516 but he was somewhat lazy too, and he built his 0:00:51.556 --> 0:00:55.716 house out of sticks. Then they sang and danced and 0:00:55.756 --> 0:00:59.196 played together the rest of the day. The third little 0:00:59.196 --> 0:01:03.196 pig worked hard all day and built his house with bricks. 0:01:03.916 --> 0:01:07.596 It was a sturdy house, complete with a fine fireplace 0:01:07.636 --> 0:01:13.036 and chimney. It looked like it could withstand the strongest winds. 0:01:14.516 --> 0:01:17.316 The wicked wolf visits the first pig with the straw 0:01:17.356 --> 0:01:21.356 house and says he's going to eat him. Not by 0:01:21.396 --> 0:01:24.196 the hair on my chinny chin chin, the little pig says. 0:01:24.716 --> 0:01:28.316 The wolf replies, I'll huff and i'll puff, and I'll 0:01:28.316 --> 0:01:32.236 blow your house down, And so he does easily. The 0:01:32.276 --> 0:01:35.156 little pig escapes to his brother's house, the house built 0:01:35.156 --> 0:01:38.876 of sticks. The wolf gives chase blows that one down too. 0:01:39.196 --> 0:01:42.356 Then the two little pigs escaped to their big brother's house, 0:01:42.516 --> 0:01:44.916 the one made of bricks, and this stam the wicked 0:01:44.916 --> 0:01:46.596 wolf can't blow it down. 0:01:47.796 --> 0:01:51.316 The wolf danced about with rage and swore he would 0:01:51.356 --> 0:01:54.156 come down the chimney and eat up the little pig 0:01:54.196 --> 0:01:57.756 for his supper. But while he was climbing onto the roof, 0:01:58.076 --> 0:02:01.676 the little pig made up a blazing fire and put 0:02:01.716 --> 0:02:05.196 on a big pot full of water to boil. Then, 0:02:05.836 --> 0:02:08.476 just as the wolf was coming down the chimney the 0:02:08.516 --> 0:02:12.596 little piggy he pulled off the lid and plump in 0:02:12.796 --> 0:02:15.316 fell the wolf into the scolding water. 0:02:18.716 --> 0:02:22.476 Oh yes, the three little pigs. I'll huff and I'll puff. 0:02:22.836 --> 0:02:26.556 Everyone knows the story of the three little Pigs. Bruno 0:02:26.596 --> 0:02:30.916 Bettelheim's question was what works in a fairy tale the 0:02:30.956 --> 0:02:35.276 three little pigs works, and what doesn't work? The fable 0:02:35.396 --> 0:02:38.756 of the Ants and the Grasshopper. Do you even remember it? 0:02:38.996 --> 0:02:44.796 I don't think you do. Here's the story. The ants 0:02:44.916 --> 0:02:48.556 spend the summer working NonStop, preparing for winter. Meanwhile, the 0:02:48.596 --> 0:02:54.396 grasshopper fretters away his summer entertaining himself, and now he's hungry. 0:02:55.396 --> 0:02:56.996 What cried the ants? 0:02:57.036 --> 0:02:57.636 In surprise. 0:02:58.436 --> 0:03:02.236 Haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in 0:03:02.276 --> 0:03:06.276 the world were you doing or last summer? I didn't 0:03:06.316 --> 0:03:10.196 have time to store up any food, wine, the grasshopper. 0:03:10.876 --> 0:03:14.716 I was so busy making music that before I knew it, 0:03:15.076 --> 0:03:20.196 the summer was gone. The ants shrug their shoulders in disgust. 0:03:21.236 --> 0:03:22.076 Making music? 0:03:22.236 --> 0:03:22.756 Were you? 0:03:23.156 --> 0:03:28.356 They cried very well, Now dance and they turned their 0:03:28.396 --> 0:03:31.996 backs on the grasshopper and went on with their work. 0:03:33.996 --> 0:03:37.436 That's it. That's the end of the story. Now, this 0:03:37.476 --> 0:03:40.316 one has the same basic lesson as three little pigs. 0:03:41.036 --> 0:03:44.796 Life favors the hard working and the prepared. Both stories 0:03:44.836 --> 0:03:47.596 have cute animals who just want to have fun. Little 0:03:47.636 --> 0:03:51.756 pigs grasshoppers playing music. And the story of the Ants 0:03:51.876 --> 0:03:55.196 and the Grasshopper should be lodged in our memories because 0:03:55.196 --> 0:03:58.716 it was written by Aesop of Aesop's Fables, the same 0:03:58.796 --> 0:04:03.436 legend who brought us the Tortoise and the hair pedigreed storytelling. 0:04:04.236 --> 0:04:07.916 But we don't remember it. Why because we love the 0:04:07.916 --> 0:04:11.596 grasshopper and the ASoP just throws them to the ants. 0:04:16.276 --> 0:04:19.676 Deep into my investigation of the Little Mermaid, I realized 0:04:19.756 --> 0:04:23.636 that we make Asop's mistake all the time. We don't 0:04:23.716 --> 0:04:27.036 understand how seriously children take their fairy tales. We think 0:04:27.076 --> 0:04:30.356 we can satisfy them with a few sternly worded lessons. 0:04:30.756 --> 0:04:33.836 Oh but we can't. Think of the three little pigs. 0:04:34.236 --> 0:04:37.156 There's a chase scene, some trash talking, not by the 0:04:37.196 --> 0:04:39.916 hair of my chinny chin chin, no fewer than three 0:04:39.996 --> 0:04:43.396 home invasions, and a brilliant plot twist with the vat 0:04:43.476 --> 0:04:45.876 of boiling water at the bottom of the chimney, just 0:04:45.956 --> 0:04:47.596 waiting for the impetuous wolf. 0:04:48.876 --> 0:04:52.356 So the little Piggy puts on the cover again, boil 0:04:52.476 --> 0:04:55.556 the wolf up, and the three little piggies ate him 0:04:55.676 --> 0:04:56.236 for supper. 0:04:57.316 --> 0:05:03.196 You swing at the pigs, you best not miss. My 0:05:03.276 --> 0:05:06.076 name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my 0:05:06.236 --> 0:05:12.116 podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This is part two 0:05:12.276 --> 0:05:16.516 of my three part forensic analysis of the blockbuster princess 0:05:16.556 --> 0:05:23.236 movie The Little Mermaid. In part one, we heard from 0:05:23.276 --> 0:05:26.636 a law professor who argues that the Disney company fumbled 0:05:26.636 --> 0:05:28.836 the tale of the young mermaid who wanted to trade 0:05:28.836 --> 0:05:32.396 her fins for feet. In this episode, I want to 0:05:32.436 --> 0:05:36.236 talk about the theory of fairy tales, why they matter, 0:05:36.996 --> 0:05:40.916 why they work and why sometimes they don't work at all. 0:05:44.716 --> 0:05:48.236 The closest modern equivalent we have to Bruno Bettelheim is 0:05:48.356 --> 0:05:52.396 a literary scholar named Angus Fletcher. Fletcher is not a 0:05:52.396 --> 0:05:56.556 psychoanalyst like Bettelheim was. He trained as a neuroscientist. Are 0:05:56.596 --> 0:05:59.636 you the first person in history to leave neuroscience to 0:05:59.636 --> 0:06:00.836 get a PhD English? 0:06:00.916 --> 0:06:03.836 Yes? Tragically I went in exactly the opposite direction from 0:06:03.836 --> 0:06:07.156 everybody else. And this is why I am bankrupts. Everyone's saying, 0:06:07.196 --> 0:06:10.716 went from English to neuroscience, And yes, I like that. 0:06:10.796 --> 0:06:13.556 I am somewhere. Your parents are just like crying. This 0:06:13.676 --> 0:06:14.636 is like definiliating. 0:06:14.876 --> 0:06:17.116 It's even worse because you can't tell because I've lost 0:06:17.116 --> 0:06:18.716 my accent. But I'm an immigrant and so you know, 0:06:18.756 --> 0:06:22.756 like all immigrant families, my parents are just obsessed with science, 0:06:22.796 --> 0:06:25.316 and they wanted me to be a doctor, and you know, 0:06:25.316 --> 0:06:27.196 they were disappointed when I only went into science. But 0:06:27.236 --> 0:06:29.316 they're like, well, I guess that's okay. And then you know, poetry. 0:06:29.316 --> 0:06:31.756 It's humiliating for them. You know, they've disowned me. 0:06:32.756 --> 0:06:35.236 I wanted to talk to Fletcher because of a book 0:06:35.236 --> 0:06:38.916 he wrote called wonder Works. The twenty five most powerful 0:06:38.956 --> 0:06:42.116 inventions in the history of literature, which is this strange 0:06:42.156 --> 0:06:45.916 and captivating work, full of twists and turns and fascinating asides. 0:06:46.396 --> 0:06:48.316 It's the kind of book that makes you want to 0:06:48.356 --> 0:06:50.876 talk to the author just to make sure there aren't 0:06:50.916 --> 0:06:54.236 more bits of wisdom out there to be had. Anyway, 0:06:54.316 --> 0:06:57.236 I'm on the phone with Angus, struggling to understand what 0:06:57.396 --> 0:07:01.716 went wrong with the Little Mermaid, and Angus, since he's Angus, says, oh, 0:07:02.076 --> 0:07:04.596 the thing you have to understand is that there's actually 0:07:04.836 --> 0:07:08.876 two categories of fairy tales, the original kind and the 0:07:08.956 --> 0:07:12.356 modern kind. And then Angus starts talking about some of 0:07:12.396 --> 0:07:15.996 the earliest recorded fairy tales, like the stories collected by 0:07:15.996 --> 0:07:21.996 the sixteenth century Italian writer Giovanni Straparola. Straparola published a 0:07:22.036 --> 0:07:25.516 two volume set known as The Facetious Knights. Puss in 0:07:25.596 --> 0:07:27.436 Boots is a Straparola story. 0:07:28.156 --> 0:07:30.556 So yeah, So there are these two amazing things that 0:07:30.596 --> 0:07:33.076 we start to see in Straparola's fairy tales, which again 0:07:33.116 --> 0:07:34.996 are the kind of most ancient ones we have written down. 0:07:35.276 --> 0:07:37.636 The first is that good luck happens to people who 0:07:37.676 --> 0:07:40.876 are fools, so a fool might find a lucky fish 0:07:40.996 --> 0:07:42.716 and by a fool, I mean an actual fool, I 0:07:42.756 --> 0:07:45.636 mean somebody who is so dense in the story that 0:07:45.676 --> 0:07:48.116 he says terrible, rude things to everybody he meets. Is 0:07:48.156 --> 0:07:51.156 an inept fisher person has no apparent positive qualities whatsoever, 0:07:51.196 --> 0:07:53.636 and then ends up a prince. And it can go 0:07:53.676 --> 0:07:56.276 even further than that. It can happen to people who 0:07:56.316 --> 0:07:56.836 are bad. 0:07:57.716 --> 0:08:00.356 A classic example of this kind of story is an 0:08:00.396 --> 0:08:03.876 ancient fairy tale about a girl named Adam and Tina. 0:08:07.116 --> 0:08:09.996 Adam and Tina's family is starving and she's sent by 0:08:09.996 --> 0:08:12.516 her older sister to buy food at the market. 0:08:13.316 --> 0:08:16.596 Adamantina goes to the market with the family's last money 0:08:16.796 --> 0:08:19.396 and does she buy food. No, she makes a whimsical 0:08:19.396 --> 0:08:21.996 purchase of a doll that she sees because she happens 0:08:22.036 --> 0:08:24.356 to like this doll, and she takes this doll home 0:08:24.396 --> 0:08:26.916 with her, and her older sister is so distraught that 0:08:26.956 --> 0:08:29.116 she has this breakdown. Is oh, my goodness, this is 0:08:29.156 --> 0:08:30.876 the end of the family. You have ruined the family. 0:08:30.916 --> 0:08:33.956 It's all over and lo and behold, the doll turns 0:08:33.956 --> 0:08:36.556 out to be a magic doll, and it spits forth money, 0:08:36.996 --> 0:08:39.116 and this is the beginning of a series of just bizarre, 0:08:39.116 --> 0:08:42.676 improbable happenings that occur in the story, and adam Antina 0:08:42.756 --> 0:08:44.796 does not deserve them at all. She's not virtuous, she's 0:08:44.836 --> 0:08:46.676 not smart, she's not nice, she's not kind. 0:08:46.956 --> 0:08:48.156 The doll is a lottery ticket. 0:08:48.276 --> 0:08:50.396 The doll is a lottery ticket. That's exactly right. 0:08:50.556 --> 0:08:56.556 Yes, Fletcher calls these kinds of stories fairytale twist stories. 0:08:57.436 --> 0:09:00.316 If you look at all the stories collected by Straparola, 0:09:00.436 --> 0:09:05.156 they almost always end with fairytale twists. For thousands of years, 0:09:05.396 --> 0:09:08.836 people sat around the fire and listened to storytellers, And 0:09:09.196 --> 0:09:11.636 what are the narratives that survived the evolution of centuries 0:09:12.316 --> 0:09:15.436 Stories in which heroes did not deserve their fate. 0:09:18.236 --> 0:09:24.356 Audiences wanted to believe that life could suddenly go from 0:09:24.516 --> 0:09:25.076 bad to good. 0:09:26.116 --> 0:09:30.196 It's not simply that life could suddenly go from there 0:09:30.236 --> 0:09:32.636 could be a sudden twist. Is that the twist would 0:09:32.636 --> 0:09:37.396 be unrelated to the disposition and character of the protagonist. 0:09:37.596 --> 0:09:40.596 That I didn't have to meet a certain qualification to 0:09:40.636 --> 0:09:44.516 be eligible for this good fortune. It was bestowed on anyone. 0:09:44.916 --> 0:09:45.196 Yeah. 0:09:46.036 --> 0:09:49.156 But then in the seventeenth century, fairy tales took a 0:09:49.236 --> 0:09:53.316 dramatic turn. The key figure was the French writer Charles Perrault. 0:09:53.676 --> 0:09:55.836 He read the fairy tales that had been collected by 0:09:55.876 --> 0:09:58.996 earlier writers and loved them wanted to share them with 0:09:59.076 --> 0:10:02.716 the world. But Peraut thought they needed a little tweaking. 0:10:03.396 --> 0:10:05.836 He said, you know what, these tales are so primitive. 0:10:06.316 --> 0:10:09.556 They were written before the age of reason. They were 0:10:09.556 --> 0:10:13.516 written before the enlightenments, and reason tells us that all 0:10:13.556 --> 0:10:17.476 these instances in which good things are coming from bad 0:10:17.636 --> 0:10:21.236 it can't happen because life follows this logic that's been 0:10:21.276 --> 0:10:23.836 created by God. And I want these stories to instill that. 0:10:24.076 --> 0:10:26.316 So I'm just going to make these changes. I'm going 0:10:26.356 --> 0:10:28.876 to change it so that good things only happen to 0:10:28.916 --> 0:10:31.836 good people, and bad things happen to bad people, and 0:10:31.876 --> 0:10:36.036 so there's no more good happening to bad. There's only 0:10:36.076 --> 0:10:37.116 good happening to good. 0:10:38.156 --> 0:10:41.996 Fletcher calls these kinds of fairy tales poetic justice stories. 0:10:42.516 --> 0:10:46.316 The classic example of this second type of story is Cinderella, 0:10:46.556 --> 0:10:49.036 an ancient tale which Charles Perrault revised. 0:10:49.636 --> 0:10:49.876 Later. 0:10:50.156 --> 0:10:52.116 The brothers Grimm did their own version of the tale 0:10:52.156 --> 0:10:59.396 in Germany. Here's how it begins, with our introduction to Cinderella. 0:10:59.836 --> 0:11:02.436 The wife of a rich man fell sick, and when 0:11:02.436 --> 0:11:05.196 she felt that her end drew nigh, she called her 0:11:05.236 --> 0:11:08.756 only daughter to her bedside and said, always be a 0:11:08.796 --> 0:11:11.396 good girl, and I will look down from heaven and 0:11:11.476 --> 0:11:14.916 watch over you. Soon afterwards she shut her eyes and 0:11:15.036 --> 0:11:18.156 died and was buried in the garden. And the little 0:11:18.156 --> 0:11:20.796 girl went every day to her grave and wept, and 0:11:20.956 --> 0:11:23.876 was always good and kind to honor her mother. 0:11:24.676 --> 0:11:29.356 Cinderella's father remarries. Cinderella gets an evil stepmother and two 0:11:29.556 --> 0:11:32.876 evil stepsisters, but no matter what they do to her, 0:11:33.556 --> 0:11:35.796 Cinderella remains pious and good. 0:11:38.836 --> 0:11:40.876 It happened once that her father was going to the 0:11:40.916 --> 0:11:43.876 fair and asked his wife's daughters what he should bring 0:11:43.916 --> 0:11:49.076 to them. Fine clothes, said the first. Pearls and diamonds, 0:11:49.596 --> 0:11:53.876 said the second. Now child, said he to his own daughter, 0:11:54.196 --> 0:11:58.396 what will you have the first brig Dear father, that 0:11:58.476 --> 0:12:00.956 rubs against your hat on your way home, said she. 0:12:02.236 --> 0:12:05.476 So the father brings the evil stepdaughters all manner of finery, 0:12:06.036 --> 0:12:08.356 and Cinderella gets as requested. 0:12:10.876 --> 0:12:13.196 He gave it to his daughter. Then she took it 0:12:13.276 --> 0:12:15.596 and went to her mother's grave and planted it there, 0:12:16.196 --> 0:12:19.836 and cried so much that it was watered with her tears, 0:12:20.356 --> 0:12:23.156 and there it grew and became a fine tree. 0:12:23.716 --> 0:12:27.956 Oh, come on, Cinderella is an angel. And what happens 0:12:27.996 --> 0:12:31.316 to this angel? You know the story? A magic bird 0:12:31.396 --> 0:12:33.916 gives her a beautiful dress, and off she goes to 0:12:33.956 --> 0:12:37.156 the ball. The handsome prince falls in love with its mysterious, 0:12:37.276 --> 0:12:40.956 unknown beauty. She leaves behind her slipper. The prince says, 0:12:41.396 --> 0:12:45.356 whosoever fits into the slipper will be his queen. Her 0:12:45.396 --> 0:12:50.756 evil stepsisters try to fit and fail. Cinderella tries it on, 0:12:51.076 --> 0:12:54.596 and it fits perfectly, and she lives happily ever after 0:12:55.436 --> 0:13:02.316 virtue is rewarded. Meanwhile, what happens to her evil stepsisters? 0:13:02.676 --> 0:13:04.556 When the wedding with the prince was to be held, 0:13:04.876 --> 0:13:08.116 the two false sisters came, wanting to gain favor with 0:13:08.156 --> 0:13:10.476 Cinderella to share her good fortune. 0:13:10.996 --> 0:13:15.516 But they get attacked by pigeons that peck out their eyes. 0:13:16.316 --> 0:13:20.156 And thus for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished 0:13:20.156 --> 0:13:22.036 with blindness all their days. 0:13:24.036 --> 0:13:29.396 That's poetic justice. Thus, for their wickedness they were punished. 0:13:42.716 --> 0:13:45.836 The Cinderella story gets adapted for the screen by Walt 0:13:45.876 --> 0:13:49.476 Disney in maybe the most famous of all of his 0:13:49.516 --> 0:13:50.356 animated movies. 0:13:51.596 --> 0:13:57.596 The dream that you wish will come. 0:13:58.916 --> 0:14:03.836 True, but it's only the dreams and wishes of the beautiful, 0:14:03.996 --> 0:14:08.756 angelic Cinderella that come true. With Cinderella, Disney went all 0:14:08.796 --> 0:14:10.356 in on poetic. 0:14:10.156 --> 0:14:12.756 Justice, the famous movie that so many of us saw 0:14:12.796 --> 0:14:16.956 as children, Cinderella, that rescued the Magic Kingdom from bankruptcy 0:14:16.956 --> 0:14:20.156 and became the logo of Disney. And ever since then, 0:14:20.316 --> 0:14:23.916 all of Disney's fairy tales have had that same story 0:14:23.996 --> 0:14:27.876 model of good coming from good, or virtue rewarded or 0:14:27.956 --> 0:14:31.996 poetic justice. It's this inheritance of the Enlightenment. 0:14:32.516 --> 0:14:35.236 A few years ago, Angus Fletcher was approached to do 0:14:35.276 --> 0:14:39.676 a project on measuring children's emotional reactions to the stories 0:14:39.716 --> 0:14:40.116 they heard. 0:14:40.476 --> 0:14:43.556 We actually have a technology here which can track how 0:14:43.676 --> 0:14:47.876 interested kids as young as four are in things. You know, 0:14:47.876 --> 0:14:50.596 if we have ten or twelve or fourteen kids enough 0:14:50.596 --> 0:14:53.596 of arrange, we can actually tell you very specifically whether 0:14:53.676 --> 0:14:55.236 kids like the ending or not and how much they 0:14:55.316 --> 0:14:57.436 like it. But the overall thing is. 0:14:57.636 --> 0:15:00.476 This eye tracking? Is this eye tracking stuff? How are 0:15:00.476 --> 0:15:00.916 you doing that? 0:15:01.076 --> 0:15:02.756 It's secret and I'm not kidding. 0:15:03.556 --> 0:15:07.276 So Fletcher does his top secret analysis of little kids 0:15:07.316 --> 0:15:10.796 watching Disney movies, and he thinks he knows what he's 0:15:10.836 --> 0:15:14.556 going to find. The kids prefer Cinderella. They don't want 0:15:14.596 --> 0:15:17.636 the moral anarchy of the fairy tale twist. And sure 0:15:17.716 --> 0:15:21.716 enough the kids squeal with delight. They love the songs. 0:15:22.556 --> 0:15:26.036 But then it all falls apart. There's a kind of 0:15:26.116 --> 0:15:27.796 post Disney hangover. 0:15:28.276 --> 0:15:30.756 There's been this whole history of condemning Disney fairy tales 0:15:30.796 --> 0:15:33.996 because they're not realistic, or because they advance kind of 0:15:34.356 --> 0:15:38.276 stereotypes or kind of unrealistic expectations about what princesses should be, 0:15:38.396 --> 0:15:40.516 and so on and so forth. But it turned out it 0:15:40.556 --> 0:15:42.436 really wasn't any of those things that was going on. 0:15:42.756 --> 0:15:43.916 It was the narrative structure. 0:15:44.636 --> 0:15:47.756 The kids like the characters, the adventure, the humor, the 0:15:47.836 --> 0:15:50.116 idea that mice and other animals could do all manner 0:15:50.116 --> 0:15:53.676 of cool things. But they struggled with the idea that 0:15:53.676 --> 0:15:57.996 good always comes from good and bad from bad. Why 0:15:58.676 --> 0:16:02.556 because your child is perfectly capable of extrapolating what all 0:16:02.636 --> 0:16:03.236 this means. 0:16:06.116 --> 0:16:10.076 What your brain processes is, well, bad things are happening 0:16:10.076 --> 0:16:12.996 to me. Why are bad things happening to me? There 0:16:13.036 --> 0:16:16.036 happened to me clearly because I'm bad, and if bad 0:16:16.076 --> 0:16:18.716 things happen to bad people and I'm bad, then worse 0:16:18.796 --> 0:16:20.636 things are going to start to happen because there's no 0:16:20.676 --> 0:16:22.636 way for me to turn this train around. And what 0:16:22.676 --> 0:16:26.036 we see is that these stories generate what's called catastrophizing, 0:16:26.636 --> 0:16:28.916 and catastrophizing is when you become convinced that there's no 0:16:28.956 --> 0:16:32.756 way to break the cycle of bad feeling. And this 0:16:32.876 --> 0:16:36.436 is masked in Disney fairy tales because the immediate emotional 0:16:36.476 --> 0:16:38.996 effect of watching a Disney story is to feel good, 0:16:39.356 --> 0:16:41.436 is to feel happy because the ending is so sentimental 0:16:41.476 --> 0:16:44.436 and so positive, but over time it has this corrosive 0:16:44.476 --> 0:16:45.316 negative effect. 0:16:48.276 --> 0:16:51.996 Now, by contrast, what happens when a child hears a 0:16:51.996 --> 0:16:57.156 fairy tale twist story. Those kinds of stories defeat catastrophizing. 0:16:57.516 --> 0:16:59.316 They short circuit that, and they say, no, no, no, 0:16:59.316 --> 0:17:02.916 no no. Bad doesn't always come from bad, Good can 0:17:02.916 --> 0:17:07.316 come from bad. Just relax. Life is not logical. 0:17:09.236 --> 0:17:13.676 For fairytale twists to poetic justice. They prefer Adam and 0:17:13.716 --> 0:17:21.236 Tina to Cinderella. Now, why does this matter to our 0:17:21.236 --> 0:17:25.436 discussion of the Little Mermaid film? Because the Little Mermaid 0:17:25.876 --> 0:17:30.036 is poetic justice on steroids good things happen not just 0:17:30.116 --> 0:17:33.116 to good people, but to rich and powerful and beautiful people, 0:17:33.396 --> 0:17:35.996 and bad things happen not just to bad people, but 0:17:36.236 --> 0:17:45.996 ugly bad people. When Prince Eric wanted to claim his 0:17:46.036 --> 0:17:48.556 beautiful bride, he got to take the law into his 0:17:48.596 --> 0:17:52.876 own hands, become a vigilante kill Ursula in cold blood 0:17:52.996 --> 0:17:57.516 with no legal consequences whatsoever, because he's a handsome prince, 0:17:57.996 --> 0:18:02.796 no other reason. Handsome entitled Eric gets away with murder, 0:18:05.676 --> 0:18:10.156 and Ariel, our beautiful, spirited mermaid who wants to marry 0:18:10.156 --> 0:18:14.156 a prince. She gets to marry a prince without really 0:18:14.196 --> 0:18:16.636 having to lift a finger. By the way, in the end, 0:18:16.996 --> 0:18:18.036 Daddy does everything. 0:18:18.556 --> 0:18:22.676 Oh then I guess there's just one problem left. 0:18:23.356 --> 0:18:25.116 And what's that, your majesty? 0:18:26.356 --> 0:18:28.676 How much I'm going to miss her? 0:18:29.956 --> 0:18:33.156 Daddy gets at as golden trident and turns Ariel into 0:18:33.236 --> 0:18:39.396 a female human in a sparkly dress. This is unearned 0:18:39.436 --> 0:18:43.836 poetic justice. It's one percent poetic justice. I'm still waiting 0:18:43.876 --> 0:18:46.956 for the Disney sequel where Ariel gets into Stanford as 0:18:46.996 --> 0:18:50.676 a legacy admission after her dad endows the King Triton 0:18:50.796 --> 0:19:00.996 Institute of Aquatic Governance. One of the things I realized 0:19:01.036 --> 0:19:04.276 in talking to Angus Fletcher was how difficult it was 0:19:04.316 --> 0:19:08.156 to make the transition from poetic justice thinking back to 0:19:08.276 --> 0:19:13.036 fairytale twist, thinking it doesn't feel right. Bad must be 0:19:13.116 --> 0:19:16.076 met with bad so that good can be met with good. 0:19:16.556 --> 0:19:19.436 It feels awfully wrote When you watch the movie, you 0:19:19.556 --> 0:19:21.036 just feel from the beginning like you know what's going 0:19:21.076 --> 0:19:21.516 to happen. 0:19:22.236 --> 0:19:27.556 So Ursula has great power under the sea and decides 0:19:27.556 --> 0:19:29.036 at the end of the movie that what she wants 0:19:29.076 --> 0:19:32.036 to do is to disguise herself as Ariel and or 0:19:32.076 --> 0:19:36.356 A as a beautiful princess and mary Eric right the prince. 0:19:36.756 --> 0:19:40.876 But what if Eric is revealed to be actually kind 0:19:40.876 --> 0:19:45.756 of dull and nasty, and so Ariel realizes, Oh, let 0:19:46.596 --> 0:19:48.516 her marry him, you know, if that's what you want. 0:19:48.796 --> 0:19:51.036 It turns out the guy's bit of a jerk. I 0:19:51.116 --> 0:19:54.036 wanted to give Angus my ideas for fixing the Little Mermaid, 0:19:54.476 --> 0:19:57.316 but I was struggling. Or what if the idea of 0:19:57.316 --> 0:20:02.476 the outside of the water. She loses her power, so 0:20:02.556 --> 0:20:07.796 she becomes Eric's bride, but she is now just a 0:20:07.916 --> 0:20:11.636 normal person who's stripped of all of the because she's 0:20:11.756 --> 0:20:16.196 chosen the terrestrial world over the underwater world. She's now 0:20:16.196 --> 0:20:20.556 just an ordinary, hapless citizen. Now, I suppose what we're 0:20:20.596 --> 0:20:23.796 doing there is we are we're giving a bad ending 0:20:23.836 --> 0:20:28.956 to a bad person. But at least it's it's a 0:20:28.956 --> 0:20:30.236 more interesting bad edding. 0:20:30.356 --> 0:20:32.716 I suppose, yes, it's more creative. 0:20:33.596 --> 0:20:38.036 I hear a distinct lack of enthusiasm in Angus's voice. 0:20:38.556 --> 0:20:40.836 I don't know if there's any way not to. We 0:20:40.916 --> 0:20:43.836 do have to kind of put Ursula in her place. 0:20:45.996 --> 0:20:46.916 No, you do not. 0:20:47.996 --> 0:20:50.436 I still couldn't get it out of my head that 0:20:50.556 --> 0:20:52.996 bad had to come from bad. It was as if 0:20:53.116 --> 0:20:56.156 everything Fletcher had tried to tell me had sailed right 0:20:56.196 --> 0:21:00.316 over my head. That's how deeply embedded poetic justice is. 0:21:00.716 --> 0:21:01.716 It's in our bones. 0:21:02.516 --> 0:21:04.116 I mean, we have the obsession in the moner world 0:21:04.116 --> 0:21:05.436 that somehow, if you do something bad, you have to 0:21:05.436 --> 0:21:07.316 be punished for it. No, if you do something bad, 0:21:07.556 --> 0:21:08.796 we just have to make sure you don't do that 0:21:08.836 --> 0:21:12.676 bad thing again. It's rehabilitation, it's medicine. I mean, you know, 0:21:12.876 --> 0:21:15.156 we don't. We don't punish diseases. We don't. You know, 0:21:15.236 --> 0:21:17.196 once we've removed cancer from the body, we don't. We 0:21:17.236 --> 0:21:19.036 don't then send it to jail and punish it. 0:21:19.076 --> 0:21:20.516 You know, it's just like we So you think we 0:21:20.556 --> 0:21:22.996 should be able to we should fix her, Sila. 0:21:23.676 --> 0:21:25.676 Well, I think we should just stop her from doing 0:21:25.676 --> 0:21:27.516 whatever she's doing. We should have a conversation with her 0:21:27.516 --> 0:21:28.916 about maybe why this isn't helpful. 0:21:32.316 --> 0:21:36.156 Fletcher's point was that making Ursula bad and then punishing 0:21:36.196 --> 0:21:38.556 her for her badness is what you do if you 0:21:38.596 --> 0:21:41.516 don't care about the story you're telling. You don't think 0:21:41.556 --> 0:21:44.436 about the audience, the little girl who's trying to understand 0:21:44.476 --> 0:21:47.636 the way life really works. No, you've turned into ASoP 0:21:47.956 --> 0:21:50.636 who says there's a boring ant out there and a 0:21:50.676 --> 0:21:53.356 grasshopper who wants to make music. And I'm sorry, but 0:21:53.436 --> 0:21:56.396 that means the grasshopper has to starve to death. If 0:21:56.396 --> 0:21:59.276 he were alive today, ASoP would have a bungalow on 0:21:59.356 --> 0:22:01.436 the Disney lot. He'd be their rewrite. 0:22:01.516 --> 0:22:01.756 Man. 0:22:04.356 --> 0:22:07.716 It's not just that I think that Disney has sent 0:22:07.796 --> 0:22:09.476 a lot of fairy tales in the world which have 0:22:09.556 --> 0:22:13.196 overall made us less happy. I think it's also that 0:22:13.236 --> 0:22:17.516 they are a force against innovation and change and growth 0:22:17.596 --> 0:22:20.836 in storytelling as a whole, and they are destroying our 0:22:20.876 --> 0:22:26.076 capacity as a people to think of new directions and 0:22:26.156 --> 0:22:28.956 new paths and new plots. I mean, my kids love 0:22:28.996 --> 0:22:32.036 Disney plots. I'm not going to pretend it's like I've 0:22:32.076 --> 0:22:33.756 some my manage to keep it out of my own house. 0:22:34.156 --> 0:22:37.876 But you know, I mean, I really think that we 0:22:38.116 --> 0:22:41.876 have reached a point in our society where we're repeating 0:22:41.916 --> 0:22:45.956 the error of the Enlightenments, and we're allowing this one 0:22:46.116 --> 0:22:48.636 institution that thinks it knows the right way to do 0:22:48.716 --> 0:22:52.996 things to crush out the basis of our nature, which 0:22:52.996 --> 0:22:59.876 is creativity, change, spontaneity, and like you said, possibility. 0:22:59.956 --> 0:23:03.476 So I went back and watched The Little Mermaid again, 0:23:04.116 --> 0:23:07.756 only this time with Angus Fletcher's words ringing in my ears, 0:23:08.316 --> 0:23:22.436 and I began to I think we can rescue this movie. 0:23:22.676 --> 0:23:25.876 How old were you when you first saw Little Mermaid? 0:23:25.996 --> 0:23:26.876 You saw this as a kid? 0:23:28.116 --> 0:23:30.076 Oh yeah, I saw it as a kid, and it 0:23:30.196 --> 0:23:32.876 was my favorite of all What the Princess? 0:23:33.196 --> 0:23:33.636 Oh yeah? 0:23:34.316 --> 0:23:37.396 I needed a screenwriter, a good one, to try their 0:23:37.396 --> 0:23:40.676 hand at fixing the dumpster fire that was Disney's The 0:23:40.716 --> 0:23:44.956 Little Mermaid, And I thought, why not Brit Marling, the 0:23:44.996 --> 0:23:48.876 co creator with Zolbupmanglage, of one of my favorite TV 0:23:48.956 --> 0:23:52.836 shows ever, The OA on Netflix. Britt Marling struck me 0:23:52.876 --> 0:23:55.076 as the kind of person who could live inside the 0:23:55.116 --> 0:23:58.396 imagination of young Ariel, our little mermaid who longs for 0:23:58.436 --> 0:23:59.236 a better life. 0:23:59.876 --> 0:24:02.916