It's kind of fun to do the impossible. - Walt Disney

I've been feeling pretty under the weather today, so I went home a little early and took a nap of considerable length.  The dreams that ensued were pretty terrible, they were quite disturbing and violent.  The kind of dreams you keep to yourself in fear of attracting suspicion that you are, indeed, a crazy person.

Once upon a time, it seems that people were not judged by the violence their imagination came up with, even when the violence found itself in children's stories.  I could write a blog a mile and a half long about it, but I'll just stick to a couple stories.  The most famous, of course, are the stories that Disney chose to make into movies.  Disney did a bit of revision to most of these folk/fairy tales for many reasons.  Many times, the revisions were made to represent the values of the time they were produced, or to make them a bit more fun and lighthearted, or to make them more appealing to children (and parents).  The most interesting reason is because some of the folk tales are just plain too violent in Disney's opinion to be marketable or even suitable for children.  They're probably right.

A lot of people look at "Disneyfication" as a negative thing, but people must realize, if Disney wanted to tell some of these tales, there is no way the original messages were going to be something the current audience could relate to, as the original messages reflected what was going on at the time the stories were written.  For instance, Beauty and The Beast was written/created sometime back in the 1700's, when arranged marriages were the only kind of marriages.  These marriages seemed frightful often times to women.  Beauty and the Beast was meant to teach these women that they could learn to love and leave their families and childhoods behind. Obviously, Disney needed to make some changes, as this isn't really a problem that affected most people and children at the time the movie was being made.  This isn't the only changed message in the movie, and no matter how much Disney tried to purify the story, or any story, they often got criticized one way or another for the adjustments.  But I think we all walked away with some favorites, regardless of how Disney portrayed the stories.

In any case, I didn't write this blog to talk about the morals being changed.  I wanted to talk about the omitted violence.  I think most people who are introduced to certain fairy tales retold by Disney might be shocked to find out some of these stories were pretty gruesome in their original contexts.

One of my all time favorite Disney movies is a good example of this.  The Little Mermaid.  I know every word to this movie.  I wanted to be Ariel as a child.  I was so confused as to how you could want to go from being a red haired mermaid swimming around the ocean with cool friends like Flounder and Sebastian to being a human who hangs out with some lame guy like Eric (even if he did have the most amazing chef around). I didn't want to dance and walk around, holding hands, I wanted to swim and hang out in the cave with found treasures!  I spent so much time daydreaming that Ariel would just trade places with me.  I am not exaggerating when I say I was completely obsessed with the idea.  Now, had I heard the original story, I might have been a little more scared to go live in the ocean.



First of all, in the original version by Hans Christian Anderson, Ariel does not live to marry the prince.  She essentially commits suicide because she cannot bring herself to kill the prince (with the knife her sister offers her so she can go back to being a mermaid and return to the sea) who is already married to someone else.  To someone else he was already in love with.  He was never in love with or interested in Ariel in the original story.  But before this happens, she isn't exactly having a good time with her new legs.  She feels immense, indescribable pain with every step she takes because of the curse the witch put on her.  Despite being in this type of pain, she does some sort of a dance for the prince, for reasons I'm not really sure of, but it sounded pretty tortuous.

Speaking of The Little Mermaid, does anyone remember the original cover art on the VHS that had a blatant and obvious penis as one of the castle turrets?:


Oh, Disney cartoonists.  You're weird.

I could talk about many many disturbing original fairy tales and what has been changed from Disney, but I'll just talk about one more, just to give you an idea of the violence we're talking about.

Disney is pretty good at making their villains scary, especially in some of the older movies.  In some cases, they even left a bit of the violence from the original tales, but there was no way they were going to be able to include some of the ridiculously over the top violence in the original version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

In the Disney version, the evil stepmother was pretty scary.  I'm not really sure what her problem was, because I think she is way hotter than Snow White.  In any case, the evil stepmother wanted the prince to kill Snow White and bring back her heart as proof because she was jealous of her.  Also, in the end, the evil stepmother dies by falling off a cliff.  That's pretty violent, especially for Disney.  So, you must be curious as to how much more violent it gets.



In the original story, this woman doesn't just want Snow White's heart.  She wants to eat it.  By the way, the actual organ she asks the prince to bring back varies story to story, but the eating it remains the same.  Which maybe makes you feel less bad when you get to the point where you read about what happens to her when's she not falling off a cliff and dying as the Disney version suggests.  In the original, she is tortured by being forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and made to dance until she dies.  I don't know what it is with fairy tales and painful leg/feet situations, but it's a pretty colorful form of torture.

Sanitizing old fairy tales is actually a pretty common scenario, and something of a cultural practice.  Not just Disney's doings.  Disney just did it to a seemingly larger scale because Disney movies were huge successes.

Little Red Riding Hood, for instance.  We all know this story even if Disney didn't remake it.  Little Red Riding Hood runs into a wolf, tells him where she's going, and he goes and eats her grandma.  Then he poses as grandma so he can eat her as well.  After she gets eaten, some guy comes out of the woods and cuts them out of the wolf's stomach and saves them.  Pretty violent.  However, if you haven't read the original, you may be surprised to find out it is significantly worse.

First of all, the grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood do not get saved in the original.  They get eaten and die, but not before Little Red Riding Hood does a striptease to distract the wolf.  There is no guy from the woods to save them.  Oh, and the wolf cuts grandma up and offers her as a meal to Little Red Riding Hood before eating her as well.  I'm not sure if she partakes in the meal or not.



Wow.

So, now I'll leave you all with my favorite tale.  It's not the most gruesome.  It's not the raciest.  It's not as controversial by today's standards.  It's just creepy.



Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Little Bo Peep.  My all time favorite.  This wasn't even a fairy tale.  It was a nursery rhyme.  Which is why I feel like it's even more bizarrely amazing.  This is a song you sing your babies.  Why is it creepy?  Well, check out the lyrics:

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And doesn't know where to find them.
Leave them alone and they'll come home,
Bringing their tails behind them.
Little Bo Peep fell fast asleep
And dreamt she heard them bleating,
But when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For they were all still fleeting.
Then up she took her little crook
Determined for to find them.
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they left their tails behind them.
It happened one day, as Bo Peep did stray
Into a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails side by side
All hung on a tree to dry.
She heaved a sigh, and wiped her eye,
And over the hillocks went rambling,
And tried what she could,
As a sheperdess should,
To tack again each to it's lambkin.

To summarize, someone stole the sheep, then cut the sheep's tails off and hung them on a tree to dry.  I'm not sure why, but it's strange, and I'm sure it served some sort of antiquated purpose.  Anyways, this bums Little Bo Peep out, because I guess sheep are pretty lame without tails.   So, once Little Bo Peep finds the tails, she attempts to tack the shriveled lifeless appendages back onto the sheep.  What the hell?  Also, it never says whether or not she was successful.  I'm going to go ahead and guess logistics prevail this time and it didn't work, those poor sheep.

Men are born with two eyes, but only one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.

Today marks the 6th day after having Lasik done.  Feels pretty good being able to see without any glasses or contacts, but my eyes are incredibly dry, so it's hard to have the feeling of being astounded that I can see I heard so much about.  Especially when I'm constantly attending to my eyes with some eye drop or another.

I switched to preservative free eye drops (for sensitive eyes) yesterday, because that seems the be the recommendation everyone gives, but for some reason, my doctor did not recommend it.  I have sensitive skin, sensitive nails, sensitive teeth, it only makes sense my eyes would be sensitive, too.  So far, I'm pretty happy with the new drops.  I just wish they didn't come in individual use vials.  Which is completely unavoidable, or they'd have preservatives.

My eyes kind of consistently feel as if I slept in my contacts and still haven't taken them out, if that's a helpful reference at all.  Sometimes they burn, sometimes they're a little blurry (usually just when I first wake up), sometimes they're itchy, and they are always dry.  I didn't really look into the logistics of why they were going to be so dry until yesterday.  For those of you who don't know, when they perform Lasik, they have to sever the nerve that tells your brain it needs to lubricate your eye.  So, your eye just plain doesn't really produce tears when needed.  The nerve does repair itself with time.  They say it takes a few weeks to a few months.  I'm hoping for less time, obviously.  But I've been told to prepare myself to be using the drops for 6 months.  Oh well, still worth it.

Onto other things.  The man in a box has completed his 30 days of living in a box in the mall.  I'd say I'll miss him, but he was a lot less interesting than I anticipated.  Which, I'm guessing is how it pans out anytime you're peeping on someone for an extended period of time.  Except in the movie Sliver.



In any case, I bid you adieu, man in the box.  You were an interesting concept and I'm glad it happened. Now, here's hoping the MOA does more interesting things.

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision.

I finally had my Lasik surgery.  I took a couple days off for the procedure, and am currently enjoying my last day off. I'll go ahead and go through my experiences in case anyone is interested.  I really wish I had a little more info before I got mine done.  I say this because all I heard and read was that it was no big deal, no pain, just a little discomfort, after a couple hours I wouldn't even know I had it done aside from having to use eyedrops and having better vision.  Not true.

First of all, the procedure itself.  It's really not that bad.  Mine lasted MAYBE ten minutes total for both eyes.  It's definitely uncomfortable, but nothing what I expected.  First of all, I ended up getting the Intralase (bladeless) procedure.  I was expecting to be able to see all of the nitty gritty details of the lasers cutting my eye open.  Not so.  I just looked at an orange light, and it got blurry, then it came back into focus, then it moved around a bit, then my vision went dark for a few minutes, and then it came back, and that was all I saw.  Not at all scary, and this was the part I was really nervous about.  The part that I was NOT worried about was the "suction" feeling they describe.  I would defnitely not describe it as a suction feeling.  What it felt like was a tube being jammed around your eyeball, being pushed really hard.  It hurt.  It did not feel like suction at all, just something being jabbed around your eye.  I will say it wasn't completely unbearable and I'd do it again if I had to.  When the lasers were fixing my eye, I did smell burning, but it wasn't too terrible.  After all of that, they replaced the flap and put in some drops and it was over.  But I have to say, the procedure wasn't the only difficult part.

I was expecting to go home, take a nap, and have it all be over with.  Not so.  Not so at all.  Let me preface this by saying NOBODY said it was painful.  Not one person.  So when they offered me an option to take some ibuprofen before the procedure, I declined.  I just stuck with the Valium.  Big mistake.  After I got out of the procedure, it was time to go pick up my Vicodin prescription.  Which, I was told, I may not even need, but it was nice to have just in case I experienced some discomfort.  By the time I got to the pharmacy, I couldn't open my eyes at all because of how much they stung and how much they were watering...they were so raw.  But I had to go inside to get the prescription, so Tyler had to walk me around and sit me down, and sign for me, etc.  It was terrible.  I felt like I was going to throw up, and even being under the influence of Valium, I felt major anxiety because of the pain and not being able to see ANYTHING.  I couldn't wait until I got home.  We also needed to grab something for me to eat with the Vicodin, since it tends to make me feel ill on an empty stomach.  We finally get home after what felt like an eternity, and I'm eating some egg salad really quickly so I can take some pain meds and get some relief and Tyler snaps this pic:



I take my meds and go to lay down knowing I only have one hour to sleep before I have to administer my first set of eyedrops.  I lay there, and my eyes feel as if I poured chemicals in them and decided not to do anything about it.  It burned quite a bit.  I finally fell asleep for about a half an hour.  Then had to wake up and use 3 different eyedrops.  One steroid, one antibiotic, and one lubricating drop.  I had to take them from 5 and then 15 minutes apart from one another, it was a pain.  However, the worst part of this was trying to open my eyes enough to get the drops in.  For one, it hurt, and for two, my eyes were SO sensitive to light it was hard not to recoil, and three, I was deathly afraid of hurting my eye, so I was trying to do everything as gingerly as possibly.  It sucked.  After about a half an hour of dealing with eyedrops, I was able to go back to sleep.  I fell asleep for a half an hour, did some more lubricating eyedrops, went back to sleep.  After about 3 hours of being home, my eyes FINALLY stopped hurting.  They were a little tender but the pain was pretty much gone.  After that point, the only real issue was having to deal with eyedrops every 15-30 minutes, wearing those ridiculous shields, and being bored because I needed to keep resting my eyes and couldn't really watch anything, read, or use the computer.  But, I got through it alright.

Today, I got to shower and then take my shields off, hooray!  I went for my checkup and the doctor said everything is going perfectly, and this is the type of healing they hope for with every patient.  My eyesight is now 20/15 in each eye and will only get better.  I don't know that I'll see more clearly, but my peripheral vision is a little blurry, so I think that is what will get better.   I still have to do eyedrops, but I only have to do one of the eyedrops every half hour, and the other two are only 4 times a day, so it's much less of a hassle.  The one thing that is going to be interesting is people's reactions to my eyeballs.  One of my eyes got a considerable amount of bruising (it looks bloody as a result of the "suction" part of the surgery).  The other eye just has a little bit of bruising.  I splurged on some Dolce sunglasses previous to my surgery for this very reason, but they don't seem to fit on the bridge of my nose and they keep sliding down my face.  I guess I'll just have to wear some other sunglasses until I feel less self conscious about my Black Swan eyes:


As of today, my eyes feel a little like I am wearing contact lenses.  They also feel strained and tired so I plan to rest them here and there throughout the day and hope tomorrow is even better!  I am definitely glad I got the procedure done.  I know it may sound pretty terrible, it had it's difficult moments, but had I been more prepared for what it was actually going to be like, I don't think I would have had as hard of a time with it (mostly because I would have just taken the damn ibuprofen, and also afterwards, I wouldn't have been wondering why it was taking so long to feel less pain).  So, for those of you thinking about getting Lasik, I would definitely recommend it.  Don't be afraid, but just don't be naive and think it's not going to hurt at all afterwards.  Be prepared for it to be a little difficult at times, and you'll be just fine.

I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known. - Walt Disney

This whole post was meant to be about the Disneyfication of fairy tales, which has been a topic of discussion for me for well over a decade.  There are things about Disney that I may not be proud to support, but I absolutely love Disney, that's for sure.

I love Mickey Mouse, first and foremost.  I also love many other Disney stories.  But there is one Disney story that I have always loved from afar.  From books and from music, but I have never been allowed to love it via movie.  This is not because a movie has never been made, this is because the movie has been hidden for a very long time.   There are many petitions online to resurface this movie and pull it out of the "vault" but it still remains out of reach.  I have tried very hard to get ahold of this movie, but with no success.  Until tonight.

Tonight is the closest I have come to being able to watch this movie.  You may be familiar with it.  The characters are ones that many of us grew up with, such as B'rer Rabbit.  Maybe you've even sang it's songs in choir, like "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah", or maybe you've just ridden on Splash Mountain.  The movie I am speaking of is Song of the South.  The reason it's been hidden is because of it's racist connotations, and Disney is trying to hide all racist affiliations.  This movie was set in the deep south in 1946.  I do not believe Disney to be a company who favors racism.  However, I do believe any movie that was set in the deep south in 1946 is bound to have some sort of racially sensitive material.  If your company feels this movie is too sensitive for your public viewing audience, please remember that keeping Splash Mountain and "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" in the public eye is NOT going to help erase the movie from our memory.  In fact, the song alone made me feel as if I remembered seeing the movie as a child, and has encouraged me to find it as an adult.

I do not feel negatively towards Disney because this movie was made.  I think it's a sad reminder of what once was during those times.  However, I want to see this movie and feel like it is a movie many other people would love to view.  One day, the women's movement might be so progressive that many of Disney movies from the past, such as Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, or even the Little Mermaid may seem antiquated and sexist, but that doesn't mean they do not remain an important part of movie history and should be eradicated.  I believe they should all remain available and Song of the South should also become available.  Even though many of us didn't see the movie, we still grew up with it and would love to watch it.  For those of you who read this before it gets removed, I give you the links to Song of the South part one (find remaining parts to the right to keep watching):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrAKhHcZM-Y

We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

Today begins the clubbing of the seals in Canada.



I was a little surprised to hear that many people don't know anything about this, or those that do felt it was an antiquated hobby.  Unfortunately, this is a sport that is still alive and well.  I cannot fathom how this is something people would want to take part in, but they do, apparently.  I recently read an article about elephant hunting.  Let me tell you, I LOVE elephants.  They are probably my favorite animal next to dogs.  Elephants are an amazing animal, and relatively docile.  However, because of their sheer size, I can at least visualize how some douche bag might feel pretty manly taking one down.  But seals, especially BABY seals?  Give me a fucking break.  I am so disgusted.  Especially after reading so many statistics over the past few weeks.  "Baby" harp seals are considered illegal to hunt, but once they start shedding their fur at 12-14 DAYS, they are fair game.  Are you fucking kidding me?  The average life span of Harp seals is 30-35 years.  Please don't tell me a baby at 12-14 days is old enough to defend itself against a human with a spiked club.



The only difficulty this person had, I'm sure, is getting enough traction on the ice to walk towards these seals.  Gross.  I hope one day they fall in the ocean and this one breaks his big teeth on his own club, that jerk.

It's a sick motherfucker who wants to beat this adorable baby with a spiked bat:

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

I walked past Man in a Box today!  I was on my way to work around 8am, walking through Nickolodeon Universe, and he walked right past me on his morning walk.  I immediately looked away as he walked by.  I have no idea why.  I guess I still felt like I was watching him inside the box.  I think I've developed real peeping tom mannerisms.  How awkward.  I have always said if I lived facing a high rise building, I would have to invest in binoculars.  Yes, I am a total creeper, I suppose.

I spent the entire day at the Mall of America today, about 11 hours.  I worked, then went to MN Sealife, which I believe is the largest indoor aquarium.  Regardless, it was pretty cool.  This marks the 3rd visit to view wildlife within seven days.  I should probably take a break, as my Facebook friends may be tiring of wildlife photographs.  After MN Sealife, I had some sushi at Crave, then finally left the mall.  Yikes.  

Okay, I'm incredibly tired, so that is all for tonight.