Wednesday 3 February 2010

Proper Cambridge

Here are a few train sketches from my journey to Cambridge.





The man in pencil was bragging about his new axe. He sounded so excited I was starting to feel concerned about what plans he had for it!
Anyway, today we had a class with the lovely Paula Metcalf, who's going to be with us all this semester - good news.

This afternoon, we actually went to Proper Cambridge University, for the first of this semester's lectures. I was really excited about it, because I'd read the speaker's work before, and it being at Proper Cambridge and all that. But in a whingeing British type of way, I must report that the auditorium was freezing. Also it was not at all "borderline agoraphobic" friendly (something I don't expect you normal people to understand!).

The speaker spoke really quickly, whizzing through foreign names he obviously thought we would know and I soon gave up trying to take notes. The lecture was about the "Disneyfication" of fairytales - films, in particular. (We saw some non-Disney adaptations). He said that the homogenised, sexist, patriarchal, formulaic Disney films wreck children's view of fairytales and ruin their appreciation of other art. Now to a certain extent, I agree - but, I remember going to see a Disney film at the cinema as a child and coming home, getting in bed and quickly shutting my eyes, trying to dream the whole magical thing over again. I hardly think I would have done that if I had just watched a jerky, blurred black-and-white film featuring rape.

I enjoyed Disney films as a child and still do, and recognise them as fun, family films, as I think I always did. But, I also absolutely love the original fairy and folktales in all their gory detail. So Disney didn't ruin my perception of traditional folk tales at all. (On the other hand, I think the world would be a better place without all the Disney merchandising and of course the truly terrible books!)

That concludes my probably wildly inaccurate recap of the lecture. Here's a train sketch from the journey home. Thank you and goodnight.

2 comments:

malu said...

hello, i´m marisa and i´m from spain, i love your pictures, are very wanderfull.if you want you send me a picture to spain but after paid you, ok? thank you.

Liza said...

Thanks Marisa! x