Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 254
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-4422-6606-3 • Hardback • June 2016 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4422-6607-0 • eBook • June 2016 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
Douglas Brode teaches popular culture at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Our Lady of the Lake University (also in San Antonio). He has published more than 35 books, including Rod Sterling and The Twilight Zone (2009). He is the coeditor of Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology (2012) and Sex, Politics and Religion in Star Wars: An Anthology (2012), and Dracula’s Daughters: The Female Vampire on Film (2013). Brode is a contributor to the upcoming PBS-TV mini-series: American Masters: Walt Disney. Shea T. Brode has an MA in Literature and Cultural Studies from the University Autonoma in Madrid. Douglas and Shea are the coeditors of The Star Trek Universe: Franchising the Final Frontier (2015) and Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek: The Original Cast Adventures (2015).
Brode and Brode have gathered essays that contrast classic literature with their popular (and ‘catastrophic,’ according to some critics) adaptations. Several essays sparkle with insight and wit, among them David McGowan’s juxtaposition of Disney’s iconic Snow White (1937) and the Fleischers’ inferior Gulliver’s Travels (1939), Gary Edgerton and Kathy Merlock Jackson’s ‘Disney's Pocahontas: History, Legend, and Movie Mythology,’ Elizabeth Bell’s delightfully autobiographical reflections on Tinker Bell in ‘Do You Believe in Fairies?’ and Finn Mortensen’s trajectory of the Little Mermaid from folk tradition to Danish then global icon. The book collects diverse glimpses at the American genius and pluck of Walt Disney’s oeuvre and its compelling template as the dominant cultural storytelling of the 20th century. One…must be content to be a glutton at a smorgasbord of sumptuous writings. The contributors capably show that Disney’s cinematic visualizations fit snugly into that classic tradition of translating oral tales into one’s own vernacular. Summing Up:Highly recommended. All readers.
— Choice Reviews