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[fanfare music playing]
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[narrator] Once upon a time,
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there was a beautiful, downtrodden girl
with an evil stepmother.
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Then a fairy godmother
granted her wish to go to a ball,
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-where, at the stroke of midnight…
-[clock chimes]
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…she lost her glass slipper.
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-But a prince found it…
-Huh.
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[narrator] …and when
he finally tracked her down,
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they fell in love
and lived happily ever after.
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You know the story.
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Or maybe you know this story.
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There was a beautiful, downtrodden girl
with an evil stepmother.
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Then some magical fish bones
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granted her a wish
to go to the New Year's festival,
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where she lost her teeny tiny golden shoe.
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-But the king found it…
-Hmm.
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…and when he finally tracked her down,
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they fell in love
and lived happily ever after.
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-And her evil stepmother…
-[growls]
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…was crushed to death by stones in a cave.
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And in Greece,
a similar story was once told.
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Except this beautiful, downtrodden girl
was bathing in a river,
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when an eagle swooped in
and stole her sandal,
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which it then serendipitously
dropped right into the lap of a king.
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Spoiler alert:
When he finally tracked her down,
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they fell in love,
and they lived happily ever after.
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And there are plenty more.
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Downtrodden girl.
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Magical intervention.
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Loses her shoe, meets her love.
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Girl, magic, shoe, love.
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Back in 1893,
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a folklorist recorded
345 different versions of Cinderella
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told all around the world.
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Today, we think that number
is in the thousands,
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and it's not just Cinderella.
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Many of the fairy tales you know and love
exist in dozens of different countries.
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Why do we keep
telling versions of the same story?
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What is it about fairy tales?
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Ready? Let's go.
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[man 1] Between these covers,
we find these immortal favorites.
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[man 2] Do you remember
when you were small
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hearing the story of Red Riding Hood?
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Remember, when the clock strikes 12:00,
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you must be home by then.
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[man 3] Remember the lovely princess
who was bewitched into a deep slumber
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until her Prince Charming
came to break the spell?
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Come on, wake up! Wake up!
You lazy good-for-nothing!
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Come on, wake up!
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When we talk about fairy tales,
often we use the term
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to think about things
that are unrealistically good.
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[Negga] You know the image,
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reproduced in so many movies,
TV shows, advertisements.
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[Grady] And the camera sort of freezes
on this impossibly beautiful moment.
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And often we're hearkening
specifically to the idea
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of the ending of a Disney movie.
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[Negga] In 1937, Walt Disney,
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animator extraordinaire,
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co-inventor of Mickey Mouse,
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released Snow White, the rollicking story
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of a beautiful girl, her evil stepmother,
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and seven adorable dwarfs
of varying temperaments.
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What?
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[Negga] It was his first ever
full-length animation movie
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and made in Multiplane Technicolor,
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as they boasted in the movie's marketing.
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[man] More than 250,000 paintings
like these
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were created by Walt Disney
and his staff of artists.
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[Negga] Many copied frame by frame from
a recording of these reference actors,
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so the characters looked and danced
like real people.
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As opposed to,
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well, cartoons.
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Like these earlier Disney films.
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Production was so ambitious
that newspapers labeled it his folly.
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But when Snow White came out,
they changed their tune.
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It became an international sensation.
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You could buy Snow White accessories,
Snow White dolls,
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a vast array of dwarf-inspired hats,
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and the first movie soundtrack ever sold.
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If you adjust for inflation,
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Snow White still ranks among
the highest-grossing movies ever made.
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And it created the playbook
for many Disney hits that followed.
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[Grady] This fantasy of ball gowns,
and castles,
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and a poor young girl
who has to find her happy ending,
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probably by marrying a prince.
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There's nothing wrong with any of that,
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but it's doing a very different thing
from the earlier fairy tales.
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[Negga] If you want to know
what fairy tales are really about,
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you have to ask the true experts.
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It's a thing
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that, uh, might be on movies,
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might be on books.
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It needs a main character. It's magical.
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Um…
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A fairy tale is basically a story
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which has
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pretty characters
who say beautiful speeches.
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A fairy tale is
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not real.
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It's just a story.
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[in Spanish] That comes
from another world, a world of magic,
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full of creativity, of many colors.
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I mean, a completely different world
from the one we know.
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[Negga in English] And those definitions
are pretty accurate.
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It might make sense
to think of these stories
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as tales about metamorphosis
and transformation.
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[Negga] Cinderella's rags
turn into a beautiful dress.
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Snow White comes back to life
with a true love's kiss.
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Jack's beans sprout a plant tower
that stretches beyond the clouds.
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All fairy tales
have mystery and magic in them.
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[Negga] But so do a lot of stories
that aren't fairy tales,
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so it might help to know
what a fairy tale isn't.
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First, a fairy tale is not a legend.
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Legends are all stories
with historical basis,
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set in a real time, a real place.
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A fairy tale setting should be ambiguous,
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which is why they often start with
"Once upon a time."
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Or in Czech,
"Beyond seven mountain ranges,
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beyond seven rivers."
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Or in Arabic,
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"There was, oh, what there was,
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or there wasn't, in the oldest
of days and ages and times."
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A fairy tale is also not a myth.
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Which is often a sacred story,
or a foundational story.
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A charter narrative
about how a civilization began.
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-[Negga] In other words a religious story.
-[hissing]
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And lastly, a fairy tale is not a fable,
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which are stories told specifically
to convey a moral or message,
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often by way of a pair of talking animals.
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Like The Hare and the Tortoise,
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which shows us, you know,
slow and steady wins the race.
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[tortoise] I am not afraid.
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I'll race you, and I'll win.
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[Negga] Fairy tales can have
a moral element,
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but it's not always that clear what it is.
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Jack and the Beanstalk
appears to be pro-stealing.
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At least from ogres.
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It's a simple story. It's skeletal.
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The forces of good and evil.
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Not much nuance in there at all.
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[Negga] And they tend
to follow a similar arc.
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The hero and their world is established,
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then the villain enters
and does something villainous,
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the hero comes up with a plan to fix it,
gets some magical help.
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There's a struggle,
they escape, get rewarded. The end.
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There are a lot of stories
that follow this arc.
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And only a small subset
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involve a pretty princess who's rescued
by a prince and then gets married.
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Folklorists are Disney haters.
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It's a corporate fairy tale.
It's top-down.
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And in some ways, what it has done
is to give us a standardized version
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that has erased
all of these local variants.
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[Negga] Like all those Cinderellas.
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Japan had its own Cinderella, Hachikazuki,
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and her story was uniquely Japanese.
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She's protected by a magic bowl
stuck to her head,
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a Buddhist symbol.
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But when Disney's version
of Cinderella came to Japan,
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she became a cultural phenomenon,
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featured in movies, books, accessories,
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and the All-Star Dream Cinderella
wrestling tournament.
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Or take the Russian version of Snow White,
preserved in this Soviet-era cartoon,
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which has the famous magic mirror,
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and the poisoned apple,
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but the seven dwarfs are seven knights.
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And their relationship
to Snow White is a little different.
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[in Russian] As you know,
you're our sister.
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All seven of us here are in love with you.
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[Negga in English] But even before
Disney's Snow White conquered the world,
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the tale it's based on
had pulled off a similar feat.
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A somewhat darker German folktale,
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Sneewittchen,
which Disney clearly nods to.
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The dwarfs' house
is a classic medieval Germanic design.
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So is the castle,
with its rounded towers and iron finials,
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and Snow White's upturned collar,
and puffy, slashed sleeves.
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That original German version
had become so famous
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because of one of the great
marketing coups in literary history.
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Turning fairy tales
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into kids' stories.
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[bouncy music plays]
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Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
were librarians and amateur folklorists
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living in Prussia, now Germany,
in the early 1800s,
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a period when Napoleon's empire
was rapidly expanding,
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threatening, they thought,
to eclipse German heritage entirely.
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So they traveled the country,
collecting folk stories.
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[Tatar] They wanted to capture
the remnants of a storytelling tradition
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before it disappeared.
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Stories that had been told
by adults to other adults,
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with children present at times.
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[Negga] In 1812,
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they published a book titled
Children and Household Tales,
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because the tales were about children,
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not for children.
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Well, this is their version of Rapunzel.
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There's a beautiful girl
with magical hair,
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who's imprisoned in a tower
by an evil sorceress,
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Mother Gothel.
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One day, a prince climbs up her hair
to enjoy her company.
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-Rapunzel gets pregnant and has twins…
-[babies crying]
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…so Gothel banishes them
to the wilderness.
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They got terrible reviews.
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The book was panned.
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[Negga] A leading critic called it
"pathetic and tasteless."
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And they decided, "Okay,
we're gonna listen to these critics."
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"We're gonna make
those stories more child-friendly."
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[Negga] By their final edition,
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the prince just chats to Rapunzel.
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Nobody gets pregnant.
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And then the prince's eyes
get poked out by thorns.
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[groans]
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Child-friendly in 19th-century Germany
meant more violence.
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A book called Shock-Headed Peter
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was a best seller at the time,
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with stories like a boy
who sucks his thumb,
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and gets it chopped off by giant scissors.
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Or a boy
who doesn't want to comb his hair,
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so he ends up looking like this,
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and his parents stop loving him.
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These were cautionary tales
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warning them
about the dangers of curiosity.
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Becoming a manual of manners for children.
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[Negga] In the Grimms' version
of Cinderella,
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the stepsisters
cut off chunks of their feet
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to try to jam them into the slipper,
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but they're thwarted by a pesky pigeon.
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And it says, "Coo-coory coo,
there's blood in the shoe."
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It's a rhyming couplet.
I don't actually remember it.
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[Negga] It's actually…
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Rook di goo, rook di goo!
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There's blood in the shoe.
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The shoe is too tight.
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This bride is not right!
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[Negga] Later, the birds come back,
and peck out their eyes.
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I have this very clear memory
of being about three,
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and just being, like, super into it,
and being like,
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"Yes, this is what
these evil people deserve. Get 'em."
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[Negga] As the book
spread internationally,
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editors added illustrations.
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[Tatar] That is a real inflection point.
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They became part
of what we now call bedtime reading.
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[Negga] Inspiring other writers,
like Denmark's Hans Christian Andersen,
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to make up fairy tales of their own.
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But in their prologue,
the Grimms made a pretty magical claim.
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00:12:08,227 --> 00:12:10,479
Their stories were ancient,
245
00:12:10,563 --> 00:12:13,566
linked to the earlier
and simplest forms of life.
246
00:12:13,649 --> 00:12:18,529
There had often been the assumption
that a lot of these stories were very old.
247
00:12:18,612 --> 00:12:23,951
And that's because we find many
of the same stories in different cultures,
248
00:12:24,034 --> 00:12:26,996
cultures that we know
are related to one another.
249
00:12:27,580 --> 00:12:29,790
[Negga] More than a century
before the Grimms,
250
00:12:29,874 --> 00:12:33,586
Charles Perrault had published
a hit book of fairy tales in France,
251
00:12:33,669 --> 00:12:36,338
which included a lot of the same stories.
252
00:12:36,422 --> 00:12:38,299
There had been earlier writers too,
253
00:12:38,382 --> 00:12:41,385
and it was possible that
they had actually invented these stories,
254
00:12:41,469 --> 00:12:43,679
and then they spread like wildfire.
255
00:12:43,762 --> 00:12:45,681
A lot of these stories
256
00:12:45,765 --> 00:12:47,683
may just simply be very catchy.
257
00:12:47,766 --> 00:12:49,727
They may just be
really entertaining stories
258
00:12:49,810 --> 00:12:52,730
that people love hearing and love telling,
259
00:12:52,813 --> 00:12:56,275
so therefore may not be ancient
in origin at all.
260
00:12:57,026 --> 00:12:58,944
[Negga] But solving that mystery
261
00:12:59,028 --> 00:13:00,654
was next to impossible.
262
00:13:01,614 --> 00:13:03,616
Take Little Red Riding Hood.
263
00:13:03,699 --> 00:13:08,537
This map is a snapshot of all the times
a version of the story was written down.
264
00:13:08,621 --> 00:13:11,707
By a missionary in West Africa,
a poet in China,
265
00:13:11,790 --> 00:13:13,751
or two brothers in Germany.
266
00:13:13,834 --> 00:13:16,629
But in between
all of those recorded stories
267
00:13:16,712 --> 00:13:19,840
are thousands of miles
and hundreds of years.
268
00:13:19,924 --> 00:13:24,470
Now, that's very similar to the problem
that evolutionary biologists have
269
00:13:24,553 --> 00:13:28,641
in trying to reconstruct
the history of life,
270
00:13:28,724 --> 00:13:31,602
because only a tiny fraction
271
00:13:31,685 --> 00:13:35,481
of all the species that have ever existed
have left any trace at all.
272
00:13:35,564 --> 00:13:38,359
[Negga] But by tracking
a certain trait or gene,
273
00:13:38,442 --> 00:13:41,570
they're able to show how species evolved
274
00:13:41,654 --> 00:13:44,490
and even prove
the existence of shared ancestors
275
00:13:44,573 --> 00:13:46,200
that are long extinct.
276
00:13:46,992 --> 00:13:49,328
And Tehrani took the same approach.
277
00:13:50,246 --> 00:13:53,457
The core DNA
of Little Red Riding Hood is simple.
278
00:13:53,541 --> 00:13:55,042
A child, or children,
279
00:13:55,125 --> 00:13:57,920
is isolated from a parent,
then tricked by a predator,
280
00:13:58,003 --> 00:14:00,589
who is pretending
to be a beloved relative.
281
00:14:00,673 --> 00:14:03,050
But there are also lots of mutations.
282
00:14:03,133 --> 00:14:05,344
In Europe, the predator is a wolf.
283
00:14:05,427 --> 00:14:06,971
In China, it's a tiger.
284
00:14:07,054 --> 00:14:08,764
In Africa, an ogre.
285
00:14:08,848 --> 00:14:11,976
In some stories,
the child wears a red riding hood.
286
00:14:12,059 --> 00:14:14,228
And in others, the child is a goat.
287
00:14:14,311 --> 00:14:17,147
Sometimes, the child dies or…
288
00:14:17,231 --> 00:14:20,150
A passing woodcutter comes
and cuts open the wolf's stomach
289
00:14:20,234 --> 00:14:22,152
and rescues
Little Red Riding Hood from it.
290
00:14:22,236 --> 00:14:23,445
[Negga] And other times…
291
00:14:23,529 --> 00:14:25,447
She doesn't need a man to rescue her.
292
00:14:25,531 --> 00:14:28,826
She figures out a way
to get away from the wolf herself.
293
00:14:28,909 --> 00:14:31,287
[Negga] And based on all those variations,
294
00:14:31,370 --> 00:14:33,872
Tehrani traced
how the story must have spread.
295
00:14:33,956 --> 00:14:38,669
[Tehrani] You get a kind of family tree
of versions of Little Red Riding Hood.
296
00:14:38,752 --> 00:14:40,796
[Negga] Fanning out into three continents,
297
00:14:40,880 --> 00:14:44,925
and splitting off into smaller branches
as details were added or lost.
298
00:14:45,634 --> 00:14:47,928
This tree tells its own story
299
00:14:48,012 --> 00:14:50,139
of the places a tale traveled,
300
00:14:50,222 --> 00:14:53,434
and of the generations of people
who shared and loved it,
301
00:14:53,517 --> 00:14:54,977
and made it their own.
302
00:14:55,811 --> 00:14:57,896
By tracing any branch back,
303
00:14:57,980 --> 00:15:00,774
you can also see
which stories share an ancestor.
304
00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:02,860
Like the Grimms' version.
305
00:15:02,943 --> 00:15:04,695
Their proudly German tale
306
00:15:04,778 --> 00:15:08,115
is a direct descendant
of Perrault's French one.
307
00:15:08,198 --> 00:15:12,119
One of the Grimms' main sources
had actually been a family friend,
308
00:15:12,202 --> 00:15:13,954
the daughter of French immigrants.
309
00:15:14,038 --> 00:15:15,497
Who probably were familiar
310
00:15:15,581 --> 00:15:18,250
with the version
that Perrault had first written down.
311
00:15:18,334 --> 00:15:22,087
[Negga] But Perrault
definitely hadn't invented it.
312
00:15:22,171 --> 00:15:26,091
The original Little Red Riding Hood
predates any famous book,
313
00:15:26,634 --> 00:15:29,595
originating at least a thousand years ago.
314
00:15:30,262 --> 00:15:33,098
But we're not sure from where or when.
315
00:15:33,182 --> 00:15:37,561
[Tatar] We imagine human beings
gathered around campsites,
316
00:15:37,645 --> 00:15:39,688
telling stories to each other.
317
00:15:39,772 --> 00:15:42,358
One, to pass on ancestral wisdom,
318
00:15:42,441 --> 00:15:44,693
and also for the sake of entertainment.
319
00:15:45,277 --> 00:15:48,656
These stories have been passed down
from generation to generation
320
00:15:48,739 --> 00:15:50,240
for a long, long time.
321
00:15:51,116 --> 00:15:53,911
[Negga] Beauty and the Beast,
that's 4,000 years old.
322
00:15:53,994 --> 00:15:56,497
Jack and the Beanstalk is 5,000.
323
00:15:56,580 --> 00:15:59,166
And the oldest fairy tale they studied…
324
00:15:59,249 --> 00:16:03,253
You find in Germany,
and in Western Europe,
325
00:16:03,337 --> 00:16:05,673
and in Eastern Europe,
and in Western Asia,
326
00:16:05,756 --> 00:16:08,884
lots of these different populations
that can be traced way back
327
00:16:08,968 --> 00:16:11,011
to the last common ancestors.
328
00:16:11,095 --> 00:16:13,764
[Negga] Six thousand years ago.
329
00:16:13,847 --> 00:16:17,601
Five thousand five hundred years
before we invented printing.
330
00:16:17,685 --> 00:16:20,521
Four thousand before we invented paper.
331
00:16:20,604 --> 00:16:23,774
Two thousand
before we first wrote a story down,
332
00:16:23,857 --> 00:16:26,318
the Epic of Gilgamesh.
333
00:16:27,069 --> 00:16:31,365
It was first told right around the time
we figured out how to make bronze,
334
00:16:31,448 --> 00:16:33,575
a civilization-changing event.
335
00:16:34,159 --> 00:16:37,413
Which may be why the story
is The Smith and the Devil.
336
00:16:37,496 --> 00:16:43,752
[Tehrani] The blacksmith makes a deal
with a malevolent, supernatural figure.
337
00:16:43,836 --> 00:16:46,755
He wants to be able
to weld any materials together
338
00:16:46,839 --> 00:16:48,882
to be the greatest blacksmith
that's ever lived.
339
00:16:48,966 --> 00:16:52,678
And in return, he will give up his soul.
340
00:16:52,761 --> 00:16:55,597
[Negga] If you haven't heard that story,
you've heard a version of it.
341
00:16:55,681 --> 00:16:58,559
I had to be at that there crossroads
last midnight
342
00:16:58,642 --> 00:17:00,227
to sell my soul to the devil.
343
00:17:00,310 --> 00:17:02,646
I offered my soul to Satan,
344
00:17:02,730 --> 00:17:06,525
if he would raise the Hessian
from the grave to avenge me.
345
00:17:07,526 --> 00:17:09,737
Would you be willing to make a deal?
346
00:17:14,116 --> 00:17:15,159
Name your price.
347
00:17:15,743 --> 00:17:17,119
[Negga] In Christian societies,
348
00:17:17,202 --> 00:17:20,122
it's become a story about
the dangers of ambition,
349
00:17:20,664 --> 00:17:22,332
but in the original version…
350
00:17:22,416 --> 00:17:24,293
[Tehrani] The first thing
the blacksmith does
351
00:17:24,376 --> 00:17:27,963
is sticks the devil to the spot,
so the devil can't move.
352
00:17:28,047 --> 00:17:31,675
So he gets to be
this kind of best blacksmith of all time
353
00:17:31,759 --> 00:17:34,636
and also gets to keep his soul,
so he tricks the devil.
354
00:17:35,596 --> 00:17:38,015
Fairy tales have been
355
00:17:38,098 --> 00:17:40,184
beta tested for a really long time.
356
00:17:40,267 --> 00:17:43,437
They are stories
that have just been honed down
357
00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:47,149
to a series
of very evocative, specific details
358
00:17:47,232 --> 00:17:50,235
over centuries and centuries of retelling.
359
00:17:50,319 --> 00:17:52,654
[Negga]
It's story survival of the fittest.
360
00:17:52,738 --> 00:17:56,200
As a story evolves,
it sheds anything superfluous.
361
00:17:56,909 --> 00:17:59,703
That's why the characters and plots
are so simple,
362
00:17:59,787 --> 00:18:03,040
which means they can be easily
adapted to the times.
363
00:18:03,123 --> 00:18:06,877
There are so many evil stepmothers
because before the 20th century,
364
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:09,838
it was pretty common
for women to die in childbirth.
365
00:18:09,922 --> 00:18:12,925
And Disney's Cinderella
got a pumpkin carriage
366
00:18:13,008 --> 00:18:16,887
because when Charles Perrault
originally wrote that version down,
367
00:18:16,970 --> 00:18:19,014
people were excited about pumpkins.
368
00:18:19,098 --> 00:18:22,893
They were the cool new crop
brought over from the Americas.
369
00:18:24,186 --> 00:18:25,938
Some of the earliest movies
370
00:18:26,021 --> 00:18:29,066
by legendary illusionist Georges Méliès
371
00:18:29,149 --> 00:18:31,819
were versions of Cinderella and Bluebeard.
372
00:18:31,902 --> 00:18:36,657
The not-so-child-friendly story of a woman
who discovers that her new husband
373
00:18:36,740 --> 00:18:39,409
has a habit of murdering his wives.
374
00:18:40,410 --> 00:18:44,081
And then Lotte Reiniger
moved them into a whole new world,
375
00:18:44,164 --> 00:18:46,917
cutting puppets
and choreographing their shadows,
376
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:50,754
producing the true
first full-length animated movie.
377
00:18:52,047 --> 00:18:55,801
And this film,
a 1916 version of the Grimms' Snow White,
378
00:18:55,884 --> 00:18:58,178
played to packed theaters
379
00:18:58,262 --> 00:19:01,932
barely able to hold the crowds of people
desperate to see it.
380
00:19:02,015 --> 00:19:04,560
Including, the story goes,
381
00:19:04,643 --> 00:19:06,311
a young boy named Walt,
382
00:19:07,187 --> 00:19:11,275
who was so enchanted by it
that he grew up to make his own version.
383
00:19:13,277 --> 00:19:17,156
Disney has created
the one story that we all know.
384
00:19:17,239 --> 00:19:18,907
And so, in that sense,
385
00:19:18,991 --> 00:19:24,496
you could say that it's had
a kind of negative cultural effect.
386
00:19:24,580 --> 00:19:27,374
But Disney kept the stories alive.
387
00:19:27,457 --> 00:19:29,334
Were it not for Disney,
388
00:19:29,418 --> 00:19:32,421
many of these fairy tales
might have disappeared.
389
00:19:32,504 --> 00:19:37,384
Fairy tales are very much a product
of the time in which they are made.
390
00:19:37,467 --> 00:19:39,636
If you look at Snow White,
391
00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:41,805
that's a movie made in the '30s.
392
00:19:42,514 --> 00:19:44,224
The feminine ideal at the time,
393
00:19:44,308 --> 00:19:47,352
who is sweet and industrious, and cleans,
394
00:19:47,436 --> 00:19:52,482
and is a sort of passive ideal
of womanhood and of femininity.
395
00:19:53,233 --> 00:19:58,030
[Negga] Disney also famously only hired
white men in creative positions.
396
00:19:58,113 --> 00:20:01,366
As the company
explained in this rejection letter,
397
00:20:01,450 --> 00:20:05,495
quote, "Girls weren't even considered
for their training school."
398
00:20:06,246 --> 00:20:07,831
But times have changed.
399
00:20:07,915 --> 00:20:12,586
Frozen is the first Disney animated movie
to be directed by a woman.
400
00:20:12,669 --> 00:20:17,090
[Tatar] Which was inspired
by Andersen's story of The Snow Queen,
401
00:20:17,174 --> 00:20:20,093
but which becomes a kind of hymn
402
00:20:20,177 --> 00:20:23,222
to the solidarity of sisters,
403
00:20:23,305 --> 00:20:26,642
and the solidarity of women in general.
404
00:20:26,725 --> 00:20:29,728
In many ways, when we rewrite
the fairy tales to be more feminist,
405
00:20:29,811 --> 00:20:33,232
we're not really going forwards
so much as we are going back.
406
00:20:33,315 --> 00:20:35,359
[Negga] The writer Madame d'Aulnoy
407
00:20:35,442 --> 00:20:38,904
gave us the term "fairy tale"
back in the 17th century.
408
00:20:38,987 --> 00:20:42,908
And in her version of Cinderella,
the beautiful, downtrodden girl
409
00:20:42,991 --> 00:20:45,410
is nicknamed "Little Clever Girl,"
410
00:20:45,494 --> 00:20:48,205
because she triumphs
by outsmarting her enemies
411
00:20:48,288 --> 00:20:51,708
and making friends in high places
with the fairies.
412
00:20:51,792 --> 00:20:55,087
[Grady] She spends the whole time
being nice to all of her enemies,
413
00:20:55,170 --> 00:20:57,839
but the moral that you're given
at the end of this version is
414
00:20:57,923 --> 00:21:01,718
it's really funny when you're nice
to people who are terrible,
415
00:21:01,802 --> 00:21:03,720
and then you beat them anyway.
416
00:21:04,805 --> 00:21:07,516
[Negga] As fairy tales moved on
from campfires into homes,
417
00:21:07,599 --> 00:21:10,060
then onto pages and finally screens,
418
00:21:10,143 --> 00:21:12,354
some stories faded into the shadows.
419
00:21:13,355 --> 00:21:15,357
But today more than ever before,
420
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:17,693
we have access to different branches,
421
00:21:17,776 --> 00:21:20,570
different trees,
different forests entirely.
422
00:21:22,281 --> 00:21:25,575
The film Coco introduced millions
to Mexican folklore
423
00:21:25,659 --> 00:21:28,328
about the importance
of remembering your ancestors.
424
00:21:29,037 --> 00:21:31,873
Moana was based
on Polynesian folk traditions
425
00:21:31,957 --> 00:21:34,668
that remind us to care
for our communities.
426
00:21:34,751 --> 00:21:37,004
And Japan's Hayao Miyazaki
427
00:21:37,087 --> 00:21:39,923
has given the world
tales about the horrors of violence,
428
00:21:40,007 --> 00:21:42,467
and respect for the natural world.
429
00:21:42,551 --> 00:21:44,761
A theme shared by the Celtic folklore
430
00:21:44,845 --> 00:21:47,097
that inspired the film Wolfwalkers.
431
00:21:48,223 --> 00:21:50,809
[Tatar] The great thing
about going global is
432
00:21:50,892 --> 00:21:55,230
that we realize that there's
this golden chain of folklore
433
00:21:55,313 --> 00:21:57,107
that unites all of us.
434
00:21:57,190 --> 00:22:01,528
That is, these stories
can get us talking across continents,
435
00:22:01,611 --> 00:22:03,613
across cultural divides,
436
00:22:03,697 --> 00:22:05,323
across linguistic divides.
437
00:22:05,407 --> 00:22:10,912
Fairy tales are stories that have survived
for thousands of years for a reason,
438
00:22:10,996 --> 00:22:13,790
because they help us
think about these problems
439
00:22:13,874 --> 00:22:16,209
that are fundamental
to the human experience.
440
00:22:16,293 --> 00:22:18,086
The very best folktales
441
00:22:18,170 --> 00:22:21,882
are the ones
that are both highly adaptable,
442
00:22:21,965 --> 00:22:27,220
but also ones that really speak
to kind of fundamental truths,
443
00:22:27,304 --> 00:22:30,098
fundamental concerns,
that are going to be relevant
444
00:22:30,182 --> 00:22:33,185
to all humans everywhere
and at every time.
445
00:22:33,894 --> 00:22:37,022
I learned that don't talk to strangers,
446
00:22:37,105 --> 00:22:39,483
and always listen to your parents
447
00:22:39,566 --> 00:22:41,360
or the family you know.
448
00:22:41,443 --> 00:22:45,072
If I saw the wolf, I would
just keep walking, not talk to him,
449
00:22:45,155 --> 00:22:46,865
go to grandmother's house,
450
00:22:46,948 --> 00:22:49,201
and just eat, no stopping.
451
00:22:50,035 --> 00:22:51,995
You don't always have to
452
00:22:52,954 --> 00:22:54,498
wear something pretty
453
00:22:54,581 --> 00:22:56,500
or look pretty
454
00:22:56,583 --> 00:22:59,044
to be pretty from the inside.
455
00:22:59,127 --> 00:23:00,712
If the person liked you,
456
00:23:00,796 --> 00:23:04,800
or they wanted to be your friend,
they will like you for who you are.
457
00:23:04,883 --> 00:23:07,010
[in Spanish] If we believe
and trust ourselves,
458
00:23:07,094 --> 00:23:09,888
we can move forward, no matter what.
459
00:23:11,139 --> 00:23:13,642
[Negga in English] And they lived
peacefully and prosperous.
460
00:23:14,351 --> 00:23:18,063
Or happily and contentedly
until the end of their days.
461
00:23:18,146 --> 00:23:21,441
Or in happiness and luxury
to this very day.
462
00:23:22,067 --> 00:23:23,819
Or happily ever after.
463
00:23:25,028 --> 00:23:27,364
Or snip, snap, snout,
and then the story was out.
464
00:23:27,447 --> 00:23:30,325
[closing theme music playing]