oh crap december meme
It's totally still December. Barely.
newredshoes prompted: What's a formative-as-fuck story (book, film, play, TV show, whatever) that you later realized had totally informed your storytelling tastes today?
Obviously it's on the brain because of yesterday, but really, the best answer to this is Into the Woods, the original Broadway production. Which I was probably a little too young for when I first watched it, but who cares. My mother, being a Sondheim devotee, taped the PBS broadcast of the original production, and that was what I watched over and over again as a kid. She figured that the fairy tale aspect would appeal to me, and that the darker shit would mostly go over my head, which was only partly true. But in a good way! (I've mentioned this before, but my parents didn't believe in censoring content based on my age -- if I found anything too scary/disturbing, I'd stop watching/reading on my own.)
Into the Woods was MASSIVELY influential. I mean, for starters, it was my first experience with a transformative work -- Sondheim basically wrote a musical fusion AU of a bunch of fairy tales, including a couple of OCs, and then Act II is the continuation fanfic of what might happen AFTER the "happily ever after." It's sharp and clever and often very funny, but also takes a good hard look at the dark underbelly of the stories we tell our children, and what the reality of living in that world could look like. Relationships built solely on physical attraction don't always last; people make mistakes with very real consequences; the family you make for yourself can be more important than the one you were born into. Even when everything is awful, joy can be found. The cynical realism still tempered by a spark of hope at the end -- that's definitely my favorite thing ever. And teamwork being awesome, and found families, and oh god that show makes me cry so much. Plus the music is, of course, gorgeous.
But most of all: Careful the tale you tell: that is the spell. Children will listen.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you'd like.
newredshoes prompted: What's a formative-as-fuck story (book, film, play, TV show, whatever) that you later realized had totally informed your storytelling tastes today?
Obviously it's on the brain because of yesterday, but really, the best answer to this is Into the Woods, the original Broadway production. Which I was probably a little too young for when I first watched it, but who cares. My mother, being a Sondheim devotee, taped the PBS broadcast of the original production, and that was what I watched over and over again as a kid. She figured that the fairy tale aspect would appeal to me, and that the darker shit would mostly go over my head, which was only partly true. But in a good way! (I've mentioned this before, but my parents didn't believe in censoring content based on my age -- if I found anything too scary/disturbing, I'd stop watching/reading on my own.)
Into the Woods was MASSIVELY influential. I mean, for starters, it was my first experience with a transformative work -- Sondheim basically wrote a musical fusion AU of a bunch of fairy tales, including a couple of OCs, and then Act II is the continuation fanfic of what might happen AFTER the "happily ever after." It's sharp and clever and often very funny, but also takes a good hard look at the dark underbelly of the stories we tell our children, and what the reality of living in that world could look like. Relationships built solely on physical attraction don't always last; people make mistakes with very real consequences; the family you make for yourself can be more important than the one you were born into. Even when everything is awful, joy can be found. The cynical realism still tempered by a spark of hope at the end -- that's definitely my favorite thing ever. And teamwork being awesome, and found families, and oh god that show makes me cry so much. Plus the music is, of course, gorgeous.
But most of all: Careful the tale you tell: that is the spell. Children will listen.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you'd like.