viz. - fairy tales

Desiring Histories in The Wolf Among Us

Scott Garbacz — Sat, 04 Apr 2015 22:34:11 +0000

Earlier this semester, I discussed the way Once Upon a Time, particularly in its first season, played with Disney-inspired costuming to evoke nostalgia for Disney-tinged fairytales even as it valorized the present over the past. As a follow-up, and as Viz moves towards consideration of video games, I want to look at a more recent work with similar themes: the critically acclaimed fairy-tale-noir adventure game, The Wolf Among Us. In this game, the player takes on the role of a reformed Big Bad Wolf (known, now, as Bigby), who solves a series of gruesome mysteries with the help of his potential love-interest, Snow White. Specifically, I will look at three costumes associated with Snow. Like those worn by Once’s Snow White, these costumes each present a different way in which we can view the past. Unlike those in Once, these costumes trouble any clear distinction between our modern lives and the medieval-themed fairy tales that underwrite them. Instead of encouraging us to celebrate our modernity, The Wolf Among Us troubles our neat divisions between the present and the past, asking us how we use the past to think about, or act in, the present. (Content Warning: the discussion below, like the game, deals with prostitution and disturbing sexual power dynamics.)

Image credit: Gamespot

The first—and primary—image of Snow White in The Wolf Among Us balances carefully between the game’s two primary visual referents. Physically, she largely echoes her fairy-tale legends; perhaps more tanned than her namesake, she nonetheless wears white earrings that contrast with her “lips as red as blood” and “hair as black as ebony.” Similarly, her snowflake-decorated blouse coordinates with her blue skirt, perhaps echoing the dramatic blue coloring of the Disney Snow white’s costume, but certainly reminding viewers of her fairy-tale-princess heritage. Over that, however she wears a fitted, short blazer, its tan color and stylings evoking the trench coat of Bogart-era crime films. She thus bears on her body the generic hybrid that plays out over the course of the game’s narrative: fairy-tale characters stuck in a gritty noir universe.

The noir stylings may be incidental, but the snowflake pattern is central to the character’s self-fashioning, since they remind other Fables (fairy-tale creatures) of her high status in their world. Indeed, her relative privilege is one of the game’s central themes. While the game’s backstory posits a general amnesty that allows all New-York dwelling fairy tale characters to live harmonious lives unaffected by past crimes, those of noble birth tend to occupy the town’s upper crust. Snow herself works as the secretary for the town’s mayor, often serving as a gatekeeper determining whose concerns will and will not be heard by the government. Her authority is made more secure by a strict division between those characters whose natural form is nonhuman, and those who can naturally blend in among normal humans. The latter exclusively occupy elected positions, and often demonstrate ignorance of or hostility to the concerns of other characters. Snow’s outfit echoes her status as a recipient of considerable privilege and power, while expressing a continuity between her present position and her fairy-tale nobility.

Image credit: Gizorama.com.

The game’s first image of the medieval Snow White places her in a far less privileged position. Her plain dress hints, perhaps, at a modest income, while her sorrowful gaze at an already-bitten reminds viewers that her original, fairy-tale self is already well-acquainted with evil. Life may have been simpler, the game argues, in the fairy-tale world, but even the pasts evoked in chilrden stories are not immune to violence and sorrow.

The apparent simplicity of the game’s medieval history is closely tied to its portrait of gender. Strikingly, Snow’s outstretched arm serves as a visual echo of the Big Bad Wolf’s snarling mouth. The contrast falls upon stereotypical lines: the Wolf’s powerful, unreflective masculine violence contrasts with Snow’s thoughtful expression. The visually powerful, angry, masculine force of the Wolf is, literally, the flip side of Snow’s contemplative femininity. The modern world, where the Big Bad Wolf wears a collared shirt and Snow is quite capable of playing hardball politics, offers a far more complex vision of gender.

Image credit: fables.wikia.org.

The final costume associated with Snow White offers the darkest interpretation of fairy-tales. In the sort of sordid twist demanded of the game’s noir atmosphere, Snow’s boss (a craven version of Ichabod Crane) has an ongoing relationship with a prostitute, a troll who wears the clothing and (thanks to magic) physical appearance of Snow herself, and who is murdered at the end of Episode 1. The clothing in question is far more complex than Snow’s medieval outfit in the earlier tapestry: its skirts, bodice, corset, and complicated sleeves hint that this is far more the product of sophisticated medieval or renaissance fashion than of an idylic childhood. Yet this dress is explicitly based on an illustrated children’s story found in the hotel where Crane staged his assignations. The third “Snow White” outfit, then, represents the present-day desire of her boss to seduce her, bizarrely re-routed through a children’s book that itself draws on medieval history.

An early interpretation of Snow White by Alexander Zick (1845-1907). Image credit: Wikimedia commons.

If the first two costumes paint a sharp contrast between a fairy-tale prehistory and a relatively muddled, gritty present, this third hints that our real-world uses of the past are similarly more complicated than we might expect. For Crane, childhood fairy-tales and medieval history are not incomplete or innocent ancestors of the present, but rather objects of desire that shape the way he imagines his employee and expresses his sexuality. Crane’s “Snow White” costume is closer to what one might expect of the princess described by the Brothers Grimm, and is very similar to the illustration inserted above, which seeks to evoke medieval aesthetics both in its costume and its mis-en-page. Yet for Crane, historical studies serve not to document the past, but to support the sordid world of his present imagination.

Of course, the game is unapologetic in its insistence that Crane is a despicable coward, and his use of children’s literature is disturbing precisely because it diverges from standard, expected uses of such works. Yet I also wonder how much Crane’s engagement with history reflects that of our own age. On the domestic, premium-cable front, Game of Thrones presents “medieval” female nudity to its audience to great financial success, reinforcing our linkage between the medieval and a male gaze pointed towards female bodies. Abroad, ISIS presents itself as a revival of medieval Islam even as it arguably deploys “profoundly modern” philosophies of statehood and violence. Perhaps the complex interweaving of modern desires and historical imagination that Crane demonstrates, then, is closer to our modern world than we might want to think.

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Historiography

costume

video games

Telltale Games

Fables

fairy tales

medievalism

Veggie Tales Tackles Body Diversity

Aubri Plourde — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 17:38:31 +0000

For those of you who did not grow up with the unparalleled glory that is VeggieTales, I give you Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber.

Image Credit: Big Idea, via business wire

These figures were such a staple of my childhood that I sometimes forget that they weren’t as commonly watched as Disney’s Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. Big Idea, the company behind Bob and Larry, began producing these videos in 1993, to spread moral tales of Christianity through anthropomorphized vegetables. Until that point, Christian children’s media had simply retold Bible tales on an archaic loop. For whatever reason, the veggie idea worked, and Tales became one of the most successful Christian franchises within only a few years. Now, Big Idea has partnerships with DreamWorks and Netflix, and has produced over fifty videos.

I do not recommend VeggieTales for the voice acting. In fact, the dulcet tones of Junior the Asparagus will probably haunt your dreams. As highly visual children’s media, though, the video vegetables have clearly surpassed themselves. Each episode centers on a theme—consumerism, lying, greed, gossip, and (in the focus of this post) negative body images. The videos open with a letter or a videogram from a child viewer, usually asking a question with moral undertones. Then co-hosts Bob and Larry tell a tale meant to dramatize the moral through costumed vegetables and elaborate scenes.

In Sweetpea Beauty, the veggies take on fairy tale culture, shamelessly adapting Cinderella and Snow White—I would argue, Disney’s versions of the tales in particular—to redirect body image concerns toward a focus on God. The amalgamated animation here is a veritable circus of influences. The veggies are dressed in a sort of pseudo-French style—a nod to Perrault’s versions of the tale?—and the narration is inarguable Dr. Suessian. The parade of produce mimics the look of any piece of princess culture: lots of pink and purple, sparkles, amalgamated “fairy tale” costuming that obscures historicity, tiny waists (where we can see them), gaudy jewelry, and of course, crowns. The visual presentation—with the possible exception of the vegetables—tries to blend in with more mainstream girls’ culture.

Image Credit: Veggie Tales

Big Idea even produced a collection of “Princess Stories,” not unlike Disney’s.

Image Credit: Veggie Tales

In fact, the religious story’s aim in some way aligns with the feminist goals of mitigating the devastation of girls’ body images through different kinds of media. In a rare convergence of goals, this video joins us in wanting to rid adolescent girls of ridiculous and unattainable image goals. In “Snoodlerella,” for example, the squashes and asparagus parody “Cinderella” to emphasize that the mystical change of appearance enacted by a Berry Godmother is actually not essential, because the King (God) loves Snoodlerella for her internal qualities. The episode ends with no romantic reunion, and Snoodlerella continues to look like a gangly teenager.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

The problem with this episode is that it cannot directly address the sexuality of the beauty industry. Prince Charming is converted to the King—a painfully obvious Dumbledorian God-figure, who echoes highly-repeated Bible verses—“You were wonderfully made,” “I knew you before you were born,” and so on—to quite literally dance around the topic of puberty.

Image Credit: Sweet Posh Baby

Anthropomorphizing the vegetables, in this case, has taken the sting out of the satire. Because VeggieTales is committed Christian media, which cannot appropriately address the sexualization of girls that I mentioned in my last post, and because the vegetables themselves can be makeupped and made over but never fully made into young female bodies, these images of “awkward” vegetables who do not fit some kind of standard of beauty get lost in the other colors, shapes, and novel details. What could be a savvy take on princess culture, the Lolita Effect, or on fairy tale adaptations’ presentations of female body image becomes a sanitized but empty lesson for prepubescent girls.

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