Disney Fairy Tales

Reviewed By: Carolyn Moreno

REVIEW

The author of this document is Frank Pilhofer, a Software Engineer. Born, raised, and educated in Germany, he now lives in New Hampshire. By going to his homepage, one can determine that his collection of information about Disney is the result of personal interest. He admits to having been “very active in the online Disney fan club community,” and includes the narrative describing the Web pages associated with Disney under the heading of “Fun.” Other than this deep interest, he has no authority in terms of credentials or impressive association with any particular institution. The information provided seems to be accurate and reliable. Pilhofer has tried to edit the information correctly, and he seems to take care in identifying exceptions to the information he provides about “most fairy tales.” While many of the links to the original fairy tales do not identify the source from which the information comes, some of them do indicate that they are from Project Gutenberg, “an electronic Library for everyone.” Other links identify that the version of the tale provided is from “the funet archive,” but this is a dead link and cannot be investigated. The information found regarding the fairy tales does appear to be closer to the original versions of the actual text of these fairy tales. But, while these items seem closer to the original versions, these renditions still seem to lack some of the qualities associated with the originals such as gruesome details, graphic descriptions, and rich language. An individual wanting to truly authenticate these versions would have to complete research via other avenues. The page providing information about Disney was last updated on April 14, 2002. The page where I located details about Pilhofer was last updated on September 21, 2002. Links provided are current. There is no fee to peruse this site or the sites provided in the links. The document is very plain in nature. While there are no graphics and minimal uses of color (blue links), the information is spaced nicely and ideas are separated effectively. There is no means provided for contacting the author. This site has no sponsor other than the individual responsible for compiling it, Frank Pilhofer. There does not seem to be any pressure to conform to any type of opinion about the information found here or the ventures undertaken by Disney to drastically transform the original fairy tales. There is no advertising or commercial promotion. The information seems to be a straightforward, individual desire to publish to the Web a large quantity of content gathered during personal research and discovery. While this page predominately provides links to more original versions of fairy tales, when one goes to the homepage and navigates through it, there is more information that can be found about Disney: The Feature List, Scripts, and Song Lyrics. The content seems to have been compiled and provided in order for the viewer to be able to evaluate how the original fairy tale was simply a springboard for Disney to create the full-length feature animated movie. Due to the degree of care with which Pilhofer has compile this information, it should be sufficient for perusal and use by the average interested individual. I would recommend this site to someone with a desire to compare one version of the original fairy tale with the Disney blockbuster hit. For many people this site would provide all of the information needed to satisfy their curiosity. Someone wishing to complete detailed research on this topic would have to search further to obtain bibliographic information for many of the fairy tales provided as well as to authenticate their status as the original versions.

Reviewed By: Amy Rosellini

CONTENT/ACCURACY This site contains alternative tales to Disney classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, etc. Though in some cases, the site claims these are the original versions, the story does not agree with what I have learned in this class about the original versions of stories like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Snow White… AUTHORITY /OBJECTIVITY This is a personal web site of German computer software engineer Frank Pilhofer, who used to love Disney stories until he realized their redundancy. He is admittedly biased, but still makes interesting points about the nature of Disney storytelling. He credits all the sources that he knows, but this is limited only to certain tales. He contains endnotes wherever possible that link you to explanations/clarifications of the text. These are actually fairly helpful, giving in some instances scripts and copyright dates of certain movies. ACCESS Pilhofer is pretty liberal with contact information. He gives an email address, name of the company he works for and where he lives. If a web browser wanted to track him down by phone or address, it would only take a few clicks of the mouse. CURRENCY Pilhofer has not updates his site since September 2002, but because of the nature of the stories, it is still up-to-date. He focuses on Disney stories that are older than the last decade so his failure to update does not actually affect the content in this case. DESIGN The layout is very plain and clean with links on many words to retrieve scripts, stories or sometimes just more information. At the bottom of each page, Pilhofer provides a link to his homepage as well as a “Who am I?” page. REVIEW I think more and more that my view of Disney is forever tarnished. I still love the themepark, and that loveable, huggable Tigger, but seeing the way that Disney has misrepresented the original fairytales really makes me think about the origin of these tales. This site is great for someone just beginning to research where the original tales came from. Though the author is not always 100% accurate, he provides a researcher with some valuable information to get started. The only problem is trying to discover which parts of the site are fact and which are guesswork. In most instances, when he is quoting the original storyteller, it can be accepted as fact. In the instances where credit is given to no one, a little more research should be done to discover the story’s author and origin. The best thing about this site, besides the content, was Pilhofer’s openness about bias. He freely admits that he used to love Disney, but later realized that every story was the same.