The Cursed Origins of True Love's Kiss in Fairy Tales (Disney)
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- Опубликовано: 26 июн 2021
- Where does "True Love's Kiss" come from? Let's dive into the way more interesting (and Grimm) curse-breaking origins of "Love First Kiss!"
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“You have to kiss a few frogs before you find your Prince Charming...” Says who!? Certainly NOT most fairytales, that’s for dang sure. Those usually have the poor animal being Off-ed by the “hero” in order to break whatever spell they are under. Whoever said romance was dead? They ah... were right!? In this video, I'm looking at why “True Love’s Kiss” is a serious cop-out in storytelling. After reading hundreds of fairy tales, I can say that rarely do I encounter a story that goes from “dire hopeless” to “Happily ever after!” because of a kiss. Because of devious plots, torture, years of arduous travel, unlocking spelled coffins, nursing an errant baby, killing - yes! Because of a kiss? Not so much, my fiends. So, where does this mushy notion come from? As with many a thing in the pop-culture fairy tale Zeitgeist: Disney. Of course, THEY didn’t invent this kiss (don’t want to give them TOO much credit), nor were they the only storytellers to employ it, but they certainly did use it enough to where it’s become an eye-rolling cliché by now.
I'm looking at older fairytales, such as the Brothers Grimms' "Snow White," and "Sleeping Beauty," Hans Christian Andersen's "The Littlest Mermaid," Giambatista Basile's "Sun, Moon, and Talia," and "The Young 'Servant' Girl," and older fairy tales such as The Enchanted Pig, The White Cat (Madame D'Aulnoy), The Glass Coffin (Grimm), Prince Lindworm, The Frog Prince, The World's End Well, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood (Perrault), and East of Sun, West of Moon... to name a few!
"The Snow Queen, Floating Cities" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech. com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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#Animation #Disney #TrueLovesKiss #Grimm #OnceUponATime #LittleMermaid #SleepingBeauty #DisneyOrigins #PrincessandtheFrog 
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"preserve for over a year without eating..."
Do you have any idea how many carbs and sugar an apple has?! About 2.
and she didn’t even eat all of it. it was literally just stuck in her throat after like one bite if i remember correctly
About 2 what?
. . . that number is off in many ways
@@oliviajade3655 i guess she just tried to gulp a huge portion of the apple just like i do when hungry
10:41 Imagine going to your friend’s house for assistance, and they ask you to kill them.
And you do it.
And they turn into the love of your life, u marry them and live happily ever after. Bruh
@@memories8433 and we'll live happily every after. Yay
Life is Strange moment
@@Poldovico unexpected but appreciated reference
me: I never really liked the "true love's kiss" trope
friend: oh, what do you like about fairytales?
me:
Fr
The original versions and such make me realize just how dark things really are despise the efforts to sweeten them. They’re also a lot more rememberable and honestly comforting to me to know that happy endings like the ones we see aren’t the only endings stories get to have
@@AceIsAnAngel true
Being of Hungarian ancestry on my mother's side, I decided to watch a very nice series on Hungarian fairy tales/folk tales. Thinking of how many times the stories involve a transformed animal that turns out to be a prince or princess under an evil spell...you are right. Rarely does the spell get broken by a kiss. There was one that involved a frog, and the frog instructed the man to burn the wood pile it was on...when the fire finally burned out, there stood the princess, unharmed. Another involved a cat that just told the prince to "lie down and take a rest," and eventually after one of these naps, the cat just turned back into her princess form. It is love or trust that breaks the curse, not a kiss. The hero of the story has to trust the animal enough to carry out the instructions to break the curse. It also often involves having to marry said animal, or at least agreeing to it. I feel like the kiss is just a symbol in animated movies to show the kids...to simplify things, perhaps. I also wonder if it has anything to do with "the breath of life" or CPR? Hmm.
Walt Disney was just trying to make them a bit more...palatable...to new and often very young audiences.
Exactly
German kids were fine without the adjustements.
I grew up with several versions and can tell you that as a child you don't fully grasp just how gruesome the original storys are.
It's more like"Oh, getting their eyes picked out is pretty harsh."(just imagining black holes where the eyes were with a shrug) Or "She deserves having to dance to death in hot iron shoes!" ( imagining it without blood or burning flesh)
We mostly see them as different storys that can both be enjoyed by children or even used for education.
Edit for more information:
We are normally around 4-6 years old when we hear our first not disneyfied fairytale, that's why I don't think that you need disneyfied versions for a younger audience
@@auraluna7679 German culture isn't the same as Americans culture. American can be a little more picky about what children can and not see then other countries. Thou let's be real, Disney isn't the first to Censor/water it down this tales. Just look at princess and the frog. The kiss censorship in that story prexisted the Disney one. Let's not forget basile sleeping beauty was heavily censored by the grim brothers and Charles version.
I think most early movies were written as tgey were to help make people feel happy in hard times. Preeetty sure Walt got started after the Great Depression or a World War (can't recall), so yeah. Feeling good was kinda a big commodity.
@@auraluna7679 my grandparents have a German heritage & I grew up with the original fairytales & the darker endings. I agree that I didn’t fully comprehend the endings more often than not, so I wasn’t affected. American kids are too “protected” & coddled in my opinion. Ask any parent who doesn’t lie to their kid about santa clause here.😑😑😑 I was one of those children who would sort of break the truth to kids at school & watching them crumble into a puddle always made me so uncomfortable & then their parents would reprimand me, assuring their little baby that Santa IS real & that I’m just a meanie....😬 I would get secondhand embarrassment.😂
OR ROYALTY OF CHOICE! 🥲🥺I love this so much.
the true loves kiss trope is an excuse for story writers to undo deaths without adding another chapter/more screen time and it is just over used at this point
Edit: not only deaths but also curses and just a bunch of stuff that could actually be solved in an interesting way which would make the movie/book better
or well, actualy thnk about a solution
And for the part of disney being everywhere, true but the chance I had was the fact in France most Dinsey movies used to air on paid tv channels. And the version of tales I know came from the tales book we had at elementary school and the cartoon dvd that my mom used to buy us (and those movies actually are more true to the story than the disney versions). Just like how some people call Snow Queen a rip-off of Frozen when this movie is more true to its original material than Frozen.
So, in older fairy tales a lot for the times the lady was the knight in white armor that saved their mans? And or they decided between killing and saving their mans?
Lmao men were actually damsels in distress
I love the graphic novel adaptation of Gaiman's, Snow Glass Apples. It brings visual beauty to one of the best and darkest fairy tale retelling.
You didn't tell the last part of the Little Mermaid. For her choice, she was given the chance to earn an immortal soul. I mean, she didn't get what she wanted in life but that's not the worst thing, right? Getting some kind of immortality? The prince was a knob anyway.
And I'd say my favorite is The Light Princess by George MacDonald. In which the curse is broken by a girl legitimately realizing she's fallen in love with a man she's gotten to know over a suitable period of time and crying with relief when she finds out he's going to be okay after he nearly drowned. Imagine... a sensible romance.
Of the Grimm Brothers, I like Iron Hans, but Hans isn't the main character, more of a facilitator. He helps the main character and gets his spell broken in the bargain. It has a very cute scene with a princess trying to snatch off the prince's hat while he's hiding out in her kingdom working as an assistant gardener... because he went and got himself cursed with literal golden hair and she got a peek and wanted to see more.
Also Catskin. No spells or transformations here, though... at least, none that weren't entirely under the control of the transformed. It has a creepy start and almost no magic at all. A king goes crazy and wants to marry his own daughter and everyone acknowledges that this is messed up but can't figure out how to stop him. So she keeps making demands before they can marry and finally bails with all the little gifts she asked for, wearing one of them which was a coat made of every kind of fur in the kingdom. She's also blackened her face and limbs with soot so she can slip away incognito and makes it into a distant kingdom before crashing inside a hollow tree for the night where the local king's hunting dogs sniff her out. He thinks she's some weird animal and she quickly pulls a full con game where she pretends to be some sorry orphaned freak and asks for work in the kitchen, which he allows. From there she pulls a series of switcheroos, turning up at royal parties in fancy dresses she had hidden in walnut shells (there's your magic... fashion magic) so that the king takes an interest and gets more honked off every time she slips away from him. She's inevitably busted and they get married. No consequences for her father, King Loonie the Incestuous, but considering he wanted to marry her because she looked just like her dead mother (who seriously demanded on her death bed that he only marry someone as beautiful as her with her golden hair. Messed up way to leave this world.) I can only suppose he lost his mind entirely when she disappeared and that was that.
I've never seen anyone besides my late mother and family used honked off in conversation, I love it. Thank you.
Not to be that guy but the story is Donkeyskin 😅
@@lettersivewritten what does it mean?
@@LegendsP137 yeah I thought so too!
I've always wondered why Disney hasn't adapted Catskin. I mean, what's better than selling one Princess dress? Why, selling three and a coat!
I've read one collection where the king is punished. There, the story is called Princess in Disguise, and the new King goes after the old one, though I don't remember if he just kills him when he recognizes her or he does the Ole horses ripped him apart routine (that might have been Goose Girl too, it's been awhile since I read it, but I think that one the Queen accidentally condemns herself to dancing hot iron shoes until she dies)
I love your videos, they’re really nice and well made and your voice is so calming :-)
I agree her voice is so calming!
In one of my favourite Grimm fairytales, the bee Queen( Die Bienenkönigin), the curse gets lifted after the third trial which the prince can solve with the help of a bee queen whose hive he earlier rescued from his own brothers who wanted to destroy the hive because of the honey.
He has to identify the youngest of three identical looking sleeping princesses and his only clue is what each of them ate before being cursed.
The youngest had snacked on honey. So the bee queen lands on every girls lips and detects a trace of honey left on the youngest one and as thanks for the rescue tells the prince.
The prince then guesses correct and the curse is lifted.
Every trial he only passes because of the help of the animals he earlier rescued and I loved that as a child as much as I love it now.
I also liked how every prince and princess in this tale fit together.
The money spending with the frugal one the animal lover with the other animal lover etc.
That’s a great tale! I love animals so that would have been a childhood favorite. Too bad that Grimm fairytale didn’t get translated down here.
I feel that the reason Disney used a true love kiss to cure curses is because other movies at that time made it very common that a demonstration of true love would be the female and Male character kissing at the end of the film. This troupe still exists today as a method to bring a climax to a romance movie. Using a kiss was probably the easiest and simplest way to demonstrate true love to an audience already used to the kiss troupe. But, that's just my take on it. Amazing video as I always love you work!
I'd seriously love to see the movie version of Prince Lindworm
Don't forget the fact prince lindworm was whipped covered in lye and milk and hugged until he became human
aftercare is important, folks✨!
I believe the older stories are far more interesting but do have some similar traits. Such as the said slaying of the enchanted beast or one having to agree to marry it. Think of these two ways including the tale with the snake as selkis but they can no longer remove there animal skin and so must be slayed or wed to be able to do. Basically its a sort of separation of the man and beast if you really want to make it simple. The fun part for us as the reader or lister is figuring out or listing to what needs to happen for this curse to be broken.
It's so darkly soothing. Love your videos.
Thanks for the birthday gift!
happy birthday
I MISS YOUR VIDEOS ON THIS CHANNEL
The Little Mermaid is the only literature character I can think of that has a tail under water, legs on land, and wings in the sky. She got to experience everything!
HC Andersen did not make stories for kids, and in denmark we are often taught the original story as kids, but they are just much more interesting. If you read his stories you will know that he was an outsider for his time, lonley and sad. And some of his stories are very dark and grim bc of his life story.
He is a interesting person and made a lot of wierd but great stories 👌
It's as if in a century or two, people rediscovered some of our animation with no context and figured we used to raise our children on Made in Abyss and Madoka Magica.
There's actually a theory that Snow White died, and the castle in the clouds was her going to heaven.
What is your all-time favorite fairy tale?
@abitfrank
The White Cat :)
The Littlest Mermaid
You have such a noice voice. Smooth , dark and soothing. Like Nyx's in Hades but softer. Nice.
Regarding the usage of the word "it" referring to Snow White, that might be a result of the story being translated from German. The word for girl in German is Mädchen, which despite literally meaning GIRL is gender neutral (because as far as I recall, all words ending with "-chen" are). When I read Snow White in German it was difficult to get past how frequently the narration referred to Snow White as "es" (it) but that was because the it was referring back to the noun "the girl". Languages where all nouns are gendered are weird when English is your first language, because sometimes you have girls being called it and then you'll have objects getting called he and she.
Yeah, coming from a language with fully gendered grammar, I get all weird with "animated objects" media in which objects have different genders than their noun in my language.
love how excited i got when i saw this channel uploaded
I can imagine families and friends sitting around the fire on a cold winter evening, embellishing stories they had been told as children. They may have contested with each other to make the story more convoluted and exciting. So, a young wife loses the trust of her husband, either through gossip he hears on a journey, or from his mother. There are many psychological case studies of mothers being jealous of their son's young wives. Now, for the young wife to regain the trust of her husband is seldom easy to accomplish in real life. It may be these stories symbolize the heroics a young woman must accomplish in order to maintain her family.
It was a convenient way of adapting the stories for then-modern audiences and sensibilities, but it quickly became a cliche in itself.
Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty 1959 is an adaptation of Tchaikovsky's ballet ( which is heavily inspired by Charles Perrault's version ) the only thing taken by the written versions is Briar Rose Aurora's second name which was taken from the Grimm's version ( Tchaikovsky also added the kiss thing from Grimm's version ) . In Snow White (1937 ) he chose Loves First Kiss because it has some cohesion within the story ( Set up,Built up, Pay off ) which the 1857 version of the brothers Grimm didn't have ... In the Little Mermaid they went along with it cause they would possibly do the original grim ending ,and because Walt Disney did it ,so did they ... I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that Walt Disney wanted to brainwash little kids with true loves kiss e.t.c ... He did it because it exists in plenty of fairy tales and provided a more solid ending than " She came back to life by accident " ..
In my personal opinion, Disney wanted to make it appropriate for younger audiences and then, when the trope became associated with Disney, they kept it up as sort of a calling card. And while I agree that the original stories are better, I couldn't imagine my childhood without Cinderella (it's my comfort movie lol)
Love the illustrations c:
Thank you for this content! Always a joy 💗
On the topic of sleeping Beauty, the real main inspiration (in regards to music, plot and characterization of the evil fairy) seems to be Tchaikowsky's ballet (that's how you spell his name in English, right?), Which is based partially on Perrault's and partially on Grimm's version.
FINALLY someone said it ! Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty 1959 is an adaptation of Tchaikovsky's ballet ( which is heavily inspired by Charles Perrault's version ) the only thing taken from the Grimm's versions is Briar Rose Aurora's second name
( Tchaikovsky also added the kiss thing from Grimm's version ) . In Snow White (1937 ) he chose Loves First Kiss because it has some cohesion within the story ( Set up,Built up, Pay off ) which the 1857 version of the brothers Grimm didn't have ... In the Little Mermaid they went along with it cause they would possibly do the original grim ending ,and because Walt Disney did it ,so did they ... I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that Walt Disney wanted to brainwash little kids with true loves kiss e.t.c ... He did it because it exists in plenty of fairy tales and provided a more solid ending than " She came back to life by accident " ..
@@alexp.d3689 the kiss that frees the enchanted woman is widespread in Germany (especially in Hessen, but I come from there, so I know of a lot of versions from this region). This is because fairies in German follklore are bound to a certain place, and to leave they need a human to perform a certain rite, usually three kisses.
My favorite bad guy defeating moment is in the Flight of Dragons, where Peter Dickinson defeats Ommadon by using science to show him that he shouldn't exist.
Love Flight of Dragons!
I would literally die for this channel
One of the versions of Beauty and the Beast [well it's not quite like that] the guy is cursed and marriage and all doesn't break the curse. He actually tells his wife when he wanders off like once a month or so she's not to follow him. Eventually she does, is horrified to see he's a beast [btw he leaves to keep people safe] and basically runs off to town, talks to a man in town to kill him and ends up with that man. I forget if he's actually killed or if he gets away but is never able to return because the whole town knows. If I remember right it's the later, and he ends up with a woman living in the forest I think, or some how ends up with a kind woman who thinks he's just an animal and cares for him because he's hurt and that's what breaks the curse. I think, read it in college, it's been ages. But it's one of many versions of the story.
This reminds me of Hessian Fairy legends. There, Faeries are usually cursed in some way, most times they are trapped underground and can only come out at a certain time of day/month/year/decade/century. To break the curse they need to perform a ritual with a human, which most times is 3 kisses by a virgin. Not a true loves kiss, mind you, but more of a kissing booth: if the hero frees her with the kisses, she'll leave him the treasures she's been guarding for eaons.
In the legends, however, the virgin kisses the fairy once, then the second time, as she turns into an old and ugly woman, but is scared away by her snake form, before he can give the final kiss.
Most Hessian legends about cursed people end without the breaking of the spell...
Hope you're doing well, we support you! I appreciate that you're trying new things and making time for both channels. ❤️
bro what is this animation! its so unique and good!!!!
yay a longer video!
Gosh darn, I love every video you make
So if a talking animal asks you to kill it then just get the chainsaw cause it's a princess? Sounds legit.
Love watching your vids late at night!
Kids these days with their kisses have it so easy! Back in my day we had to break curses uphill both ways, in the snow, and wearing three pairs of iron shoes!
Love your vids! Would love to see your comparison between Disney’s Hercules and the original Greek story sometime :)
I love the crossover to the second channel. I've learned to love original fairytales. Not all of them, but alot🖤🖤
You have the best voice to read creepy stuff!!! And just talking in general
i love watching you with a nice cup of tea and a blanket
Your voice is so lovely 🥺🖤
I NEED MORE PLS I LOVE UUU
great video! my parents used to read all those old versions to me when i was a kid; i'm glad they are not fogotten
Early! I love ur vids! Ur voice is so nice to listen too!
This is a great video 💖💖
is it stated in the Disney version that she was actually asleep for a year? I always had the impression the prince found her relatively soon after she was placed there. Also, I remember a lot of media using a sort of "one last kiss" farewell to the departed, so that's what I figured the Prince did.
Love your videos😇
Love your vids! When I first watched your channel I thought I would be scared but I am facisnated
I love the art style ❤
What fairytales don't teach you is that your first kiss may not be your only
I was far over exposed to Disney movies and books. But I also love looking up the source material that Disney used. That’s how I found your channel. Gotta say I love your videos and this thing about true loves kiss makes total sense.
I love your origin videos. Could you please do a video about the origins of either The Princess and the Frog or Mulan?
Yes Mulan!
I love these videos
Awwww yeah
the curse being broke seems to be referenced in DnD with the polymorph spell i think and how they change back to there normal form where their hp would of hit 0
I 💝 your video!
The little mermaids story doesn’t end with her being sea foam, she is transformed into a daughter of the sky, and can earn a soul by doing good deeds for mankind for 300 years
The Little Mermaid is the only literature character I can think of that has a tail and under water, legs on land, and wings in the sky. She got to experience everything!
I honestly love these sprites
I love your videos
Finally :)
One Disney princess film that you have not done on your channel is Mulan. It would make my day if you made a video about her.
3:18 I am suddenly reminded of a Stephen King (I think) short story where the prince... ahem... stopped being attracted to Snow White the second she woke up because she was "hideously alive"
I'd absolutely love an analysis video on the movie Gretal and Hansel
Love your videos. - on both channels.
Abitfrank! RUclips cut off the end of your video. I haven't seen that happen in a few years now, but it seems that they are back at it for some reason. Might want to let them know.
Its funny because people are apparently now complaining about how horrible the princes are for daring to kiss sleeping cursed princesses. Like ok I guess we'll just leave them there cursed forever...
Seriously tho I do like the variety of curse breaking methods more. Keeps you on your toes about what's going to happen
It's plenty weird when they just come up with it out of nowhere! Like, if you know what's up you're just performing a rescue operation in the manner required, but if you just showed up and went "My, that corpse over there sure looks might smoochable!" that's a fair reason to worry :P
@@Poldovico Not a single Disney prince kissed their "dead" princess out of nowhere.
@@hrb9679 A bunch of the fairytale ones did. Or worse. Plus, didn't Disney Snow White's prince just show up out of nowhere? He didn't know anything.
@@Poldovico I'll grant you that the folks in the *original* fairytales were often creepy weirdos (or worse). Disney made them clean, though.
Their version of Snow White's prince, for example, absolutely didn't show up out of nowhere. He met Snow before she was driven into hiding, and while that meeting was a lot shorter than I'd like, romantic sparks were clearly flying from *both* of them by the end of it. He went searching for her after finding out she'd gone missing, was distraught to find her "dead", and his kiss was a *small, sorrowful goodbye peck*
@@hrb9679 Oh, I must have missed that part. It was a looong time ago :P
Hi, abitfrank, can you please do a video about the dark origins behind The Princess and the Frog one day?
As a kid who grew up with disney's versions and book versions and jet lags versions I never really knew what to think
I wonder why to, anyways, love your videos!!!!!!!
I have a question about the spell in the snow white
What if someone already had their first kiss from their love ?
Would the spell not work on them at all ? Would it be impossible to cure ?
“For a while” but still was used by Disney’s property in OUAT, on ABC. Never changed, even though the stories were flipped on their heads. Lol
Princess and the frog is also based on E. D. Baker's Frog Princess which has the kiss of a princess as the spell breaker. No love involved in that solution (in theory, of course)
I grew up with the old grimes brothers books and they are amazing. Disney versions are nice, but i will always prefer the original versions.
I read somewhere that the princess and the frog is actually based on a book by an author Edie Baker
Disney princess are like..."Huh...that dead body is kinda sexy...I'm gonna kiss that dead body."
Fairy tails follow the anime logic of pregnancy. Kissing gets you pregnanat, holding hands gets you pregnant, walking under the same umbrella gets you pregnant.
Im happy tangled rapunzel didnt use true loves kiss at the end the magical flower was much more suprior🤩
Will you do a video on the cat from Coraline? You barely mention him outside the rat he decapitated.
She wasn't dead but in a coma. Remember they didn't have a word for that back then they didn't know about it but it's true u could get pregnant during a coma many people have
I have to say that in some fairy tales there was this whole "sleep with the beast/animal/cursed thing" in order to break the curse. Which is... well... questionable.
Well in jack and Sally’s case romance was undead! Ha! Pure spice 🌶🌶🌶
Hello
30 SECONDS AGO YAY
Im attracted to your voice😊😀
proof that true crime are the true modern fairytale
I hope you don't mind but why do you mack 1 eye bigger then the other?
Princiepoo 😂 This makes fairytails more ...... dark
I think it boils down to palletsbility.
Things werent as watered down and the entirety of childhood innocents wasn't really a thing. As the years went on and we progress more and more and kids actually had a chance to have childhood innocence well then story's had to change for the most part, you can't be showing kids these horrible dark acts, so you make it innocent and easier to swallow. Unless you want the reverse you tell dark fienfish thing to help scare kind from stuff like that lack monster who est naughty kids
While it detracts from the story it makes it easier to move it forward because as you shown some of the stuff is down right gross and not okay
Even if that seems like a red flag, it was just something to make these stories less grusome.
The slerping beayty has slso a version where the princess wakes up due to labour pains.
tbh I forgot how the movie played out.. but what about Shrek's "true love kiss"?? haha
To be honest I like the gruesome version of the fairy tales I don't know if that is good or bad
1:58 wrong story frank