The Singapore Series: SINGAPORE WRITERS FESTIVAL 2013 (Part 3)

Besides the main events for the SWF, there is also a series of side events held at The Arts House, the Singapore Writers Festival Fringe. The event featured on my previous post, “Misogyny in Fairy Tales? Stepmothers Get a Bad Rap” is part of the SWF Fringe. The fringe events focus on the topic of fairy tales.

I attended two more SWF Fringe events, which runs throughout the week.

5^th November 2013 (Part 3)

Reinvention and Adaptation: Tales for the Modern Age

7:30 – 8:30pm

Living Room, The Arts House

L-R: Daphne Lee, Cyril Wong, Myra Garces-Bacsal (moderator), Karsono H Saputra and his translator.

Again, I arrived late for this session. If there is anything to be blamed, it is the rain and my poor transportation choice. I should have taken the MRT instead of the bus. Trains are not affected by the rain and the duration of the journey will not be hampered. 

This session features the local prize-winning poet Cyril Wong, Indonesian writer and lecturer at the Faculty of Cultural Science at Universitas Indonesia, Karsono H Saputra, and Malaysian writer, editor, teacher and book reviewer Daphne Lee. Myra Garces-Bacsal moderates the session. I attended the session because the topic interests me and relates to the research that I am doing now.

I was planning to give my take on reinvention and adaptation, but nobody puts it better than the panellists. Daphne said that reinvention tackles what is left unsaid in the original tale. It can provide the viewpoint from voiceless characters (perhaps the stepmother in Cinderella?) and change the entire perspective of the tale. Writers can also subvert the ideology in the tales and imbue it with new ones. As for adaptations, Karsono said (through the help of a translator) that he borrows the settings and characters of traditional stories to tell his tale. He opined that it is far more impactful and the characters could be portrayed more accurately. He uses the framework of traditional tales to make concealed social commentaries on the state of affairs in Indonesia.

During the session, a lot of aversion was expressed towards the popular Disney fairy tales. Disney has translated several fairy tales to the big screen, replete with pretty princesses, handsome Prince Charming(s), beautiful enchanted castles or forests, and wicked villainous witches or stepmothers. All were unrealistic and inculcates in young viewers an idealistic worldview and perspective. It propagates traditional feminine and masculine ideals and many feminists have slammed Disney’s fairy tales.

Personally, I understand the aversion and I feel the same. I have loved Disney’s Cinderella when I was young but ever since I found out that fairy tales are not what they seem, I felt deceived and foolish. I do not hate the Disney fairy tales, but now I treat them as pure entertainment, as should everyone else. Cyril mentioned that sometimes the popularity of a story is purely arbitrary and there is no logical or rational reason behind the popularity. It just so happen that Disney’s versions are the popular ones, therefore the aversion is not towards Disney per se. 

As much as the Disney versions are disliked, there is no getting rid of them. Just like all stories, there is no burning them away. 

[Part 3 will be continued in the next post.]