• Title/Summary/Keyword: the Uncanny

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A Comparative Analysis of Movie Versions of "Snow White" (동화 "백설 공주"를 영화화한 작품들의 비교분석)

  • Lee, Youn H.
    • Cartoon and Animation Studies
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    • s.30
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    • pp.245-262
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    • 2013
  • This paper analyzes three feature films that are based on Brothers Grimm's "Snow White": Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror (2012), and Rupert Sanders' Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). Disney's animation, not the original literature, is the archetype of the later films. Grimm's fairy tail does not include the kiss of Prince Charming that saved Snow White which is, in fact, borrowed from "Sleeping Beauty", nor Snow White's rapport with animals. In Snow White and the Huntsman 's case, the costume of protagonist is similar with Disney's film and some shots are almost identical with Disney's version in terms of composition and angles. Nevertheless, these films show their originality with markedly different visual styles. Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman have achieved reasonable success at the box office despite of relatively simple and predictable narratives due to the power of spectacle. While Disney's Snow White displays the model of witch that later becomes prototype of many movies, Mirror Mirror represents the unique magical world, a trompe-l'oell that can only done by director Tarsem, and Snow White and the Huntsman successfully visualizes Freudian concept of 'the uncanny' itself.

What Is a Monster Narrative? Seven Fragments on the Relationship between a Monster Narrative and a Catastrophic Narrative (괴물서사란 무엇인가? - 괴물서사에서 파국서사로 나아가기 위한 일곱 개의 단편 -)

  • Moon, Hyong-jun
    • Cross-Cultural Studies
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    • v.50
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    • pp.31-51
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    • 2018
  • The concept of 'monsters' have become popular, again, in recent times. A number of 'monster narratives' that discuss monsters such as zombies, humanoids, viruses, extraterrestrials, and serial killers have been made and re-made in popular media. Noting such an interesting cultural context, this article attempts, first, to find out some essential prototypical elements of a monster narrative and, second, to relate it with a catastrophic narrative. Correspondingly, the word 'monster' has been used as a conceptual prototype category that denies universal and clear definition, which makes it as one of the most widely used and familiar subjects of the use of metaphor. The prototypical meanings of various monster figures can be converged on a certain creature of being in this way held out as bizarre, curious, and abnormal. The monster figure that surpasses existing normality is also connected to 'abjection,' such as something that is cast aside from the body such as the bodily functions seen in its associated blood, tears, vomit, excrement, or semen, and so on. Nevertheless, both the monster figure and abjection produce disgust and horror in the minds of ordinary spectators or readers of media using this metaphor to heighten excitement for the viewers. The abject characteristic of the monster figure also has something in common with the posthuman figure, meaning to apply to a category of inhuman others who are held outside of the normal category of human beings. In the similar vein, it is natural that the most typical monster figures in our times are posthuman creatures embodied in such forms as seen with zombies, humanoids, cyborgs, robots, and so on. In short, the monster figure includes all of the creatures and beings that disarray normalized humanist categories and values. The monster narrative, in the same sense, is a type of story that tells about others outside modern, anthropocentric, male-centered, and Westernized categories of thought. It can be argued that a catastrophic narrative, a literary genre which depicts the world where a series of catastrophic events demolish the existing human civilization, ought to be seen as a typical modern-day monster narrative, because it also discounts and criticizes normalized humanist categories and values as is the result of the monster narrative. Going beyond the prevailing humanist realist narrative that are so familiar with existing values, the catastrophic narrative is not only a monster narrative per se, but also a monstrous narrative which disrupts and reinvents currently mainstream narratives and ways of thinking.