Most kid’s childhoods were filled with Disney fairytales. Feel-good family movies about princesses and magical creatures. However, what many don’t know is that a lot of the kid friendly stories have a much darker past.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, also known as the Grimm brothers, were two brothers who lived in Germany in the 1800’s. The two brothers were very interested in language and storytelling. They had compiled a collection of old German legends and published all of them in the book, Grimm’s Tales for Young and Old. Although the book was a compilation of “fairytales”, the brothers never intended them for children and most of them are quite disturbing. But what’s even more disturbing is that many childhood Disney movies were actually based off of these old legends.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was one of the first Disney cartoons ever made. The story of a beautiful girl who’s evil stepmother is jealous of her daughter’s beauty and tries to poison her with an apple. In both stories, the wicked stepmother hires a huntsman to go kill Snow White. In the animated film, the evil queen wants Snow White’s heart as proof. However, in the Grimm’s fairy tale, the evil queen wants her lungs and liver as proof that she’s dead. And it wasn’t a Prince’s kiss that saved her, but rather the Prince’s servants dislodged a piece of poisoned apple that had been stuck in her throat, bringing her back to life. The real story concludes with the Prince and Snow White torturing the wicked stepmother to death, which is much more sinister than the Disney version.
The story of Rapunzel, told through the movie Tangled, was also based off of a Grimm legend. The real story of Rapunzel starts off with a regular husband and pregnant wife. The wife is craving rapunzel plants from their neighbor’s garden, who happens to be a sorceress. When the sorceress catches the husband stealing rapunzels from her garden, she agrees to give them to him in exchange for their future daughter. They agree to this and the sorceress takes the child, locking her in a tower when she turns twelve. A Prince ends up finding Rapunzel in her tower and they meet when he climbs up Rapunzel’s long hair, similar to what happened in the Disney telling of it. However, the endings are much different. In the Grimm’s telling of it, the sorceress gets mad at Rapunzel, chops off all her hair and hides her in the woods. When the Prince finds out he won’t be able to see Rapunzel anymore, he throws himself off of the tower, causing him to go blind and severely injured. The Prince wanders into the forest hoping to find her, but when he does she is crying. However, her tears were magical and cured his eyesight. The couple returns to the Prince’s village and eventually get their happily ever after.
These are just a few of the many Disney stories rooted in the tales of old German folklore. Although many of them have unruly undertones, Disney was able to adapt these stories into family-freindly, feel-good movies. These classic childhood movies help display just how timeless the Brother Grimm stories are.
