Beauty and the Beast

Again this is has to be one of my favorites purely because of the candlestick and mrs potts but the original version doesn't have singing furniture. So the original version is....


A wealthy merchant lived in a mansion with his three daughters, all of whom were very beautiful, but only the youngest, at fourteen, is named Belle for being lovely and pure of heart; her sisters, in contrast, are wicked and selfish. The merchant eventually loses all of his wealth in a tempest at sea, and he and his daughters must therefore live in a small farmhouse and work for their living. After some years of this, the merchant hears that one of the trade ships he had sent off has arrived back in port, having escaped the destruction of its compatriots; therefore, he returns to the city to discover whether it contains anything of monetary value. Before leaving, he asks his daughters whether they desire that he bring them any gift upon his return. His two elder daughters ask for jewels and fine dresses, thinking that his wealth has returned; Belle is satisfied with the promise of a rose, as none grow in their part of the country. The merchant, to his dismay, finds that his ship's cargo has been seized to pay his debts, leaving him without money by which to buy his daughters their presents.
During his return, he becomes lost in a forest. Seeking shelter, he enters a dazzling palace. He finds inside tables laden with food and drink, which have apparently been left for him by the palace's unseen owner. The merchant accepts this gift and spends the night. The next morning as the merchant is about to leave, he sees a rose garden and recalls that Belle had desired a rose. Upon picking the most lovely rose he finds, the merchant is confronted by a hideous 'Beast', which tells him that for taking his (the Beast's) most precious possession after accepting his hospitality, the merchant must die. The merchant begs to be set free, arguing that he had only picked the rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. The Beast agrees to let him give the rose to Belle, only if the merchant will return, or his daughter goes to the castle in his place.
The merchant is upset, but accepts this condition. The Beast sends him on his way, with jewels and fine clothes for his daughters, and stresses that Belle must come to the castle of her own accord. The merchant, upon arriving home, tries to hide the secret from Belle; but she pries it from him and willingly goes to the Beast's castle. The Beast receives her graciously and informs her that she is mistress of the castle, and he is her servant. He gives her lavish clothing and food and carries on lengthy conversations with her. Each night, the Beast asks Belle to marry him, only to be refused each time. After each refusal, Belle dreams of a handsome prince who pleads with her to answer why she keeps refusing him, and she replies that she cannot marry the Beast because she loves him only as a friend. Belle does not make the connection between the handsome prince and the Beast and becomes convinced that the Beast is holding the prince captive somewhere in the castle. She searches for him and discovers multiple enchanted rooms, but, of course, never the prince from her dreams.
For several months, Belle lives a life of luxury at the Beast's palace, being waited on hand and foot by invisible servants, having no end of riches to amuse her and an endless supply of exquisite finery to wear. Yet, eventually, she becomes homesick and begs the Beast to allow her to go to see her family. He allows it, if she will return exactly a week later. Belle agrees to this and sets off for home with an enchanted mirror and ring. The mirror allows her to see what is going on back at the Beast's castle, and the ring allows her to return to the castle in an instant when turned three times around her finger. Her older sisters are surprised to find her well fed and dressed in finery. They grow jealous of her happy life at the castle, and, hearing that she must return to the Beast on a certain day, beg her to stay another day, even putting onion in their eyes to make it appear as though they are weeping. It is their wish that the Beast will grow angry with Belle for breaking her promise and will eat her alive. Belle's heart is moved by her sisters' false show of love, and she agrees to stay.
Belle begins to feel guilty about breaking her promise to the Beast and uses the mirror to see him back at the castle. She is horrified to discover that the Beast is lying half-dead of heartbreak near the rose bushes her father had stolen from and she immediately uses the ring to return to the Beast.
Upon returning, Belle finds the Beast almost dead, and she weeps over him, saying that she loves him. When her tears strike him, the Beast is transformed into a handsome prince. The Prince informs Belle that long ago a fairy turned him into a hideous beast after he refused to let her in from the rain, and that only by finding true love, despite his ugliness, could he break the curse. He and Belle are married and they lived happily ever after together.

This all means in freud terms...
Freud turned to mythology as a means to bolster his theory of psychosexualanimalistic desire. The twisted dark and mysterious forest that surrounds his domain is this same mythical territory of the unconscious traversed by Dante and little red riding hood on the start of their respective adventures. But the Beast - despite his base nature - struggles to contain his urges much as the instinct of the id is balanced by the critical and moralizing function of Freud's "super-ego." His refinement isn't simply a facade, it is a part of who he is and part of the reason he succeeds in taming his lust. While the balance between these two was necessary they also need to be rectified with the organized realistic part of the psyche, the "ego." Partly this is the struggle of the beast to control his animal desire and realize his romantic devotion to Beauty. In another, it's Beauty coming to terms with the base aspect of her lover and accepting it as part of him as well.

So in other words its about being tamed by love....

Little Mermaid

This has to be one of my favorite disney movies, the whole idea of it is awesome and we all love the songs, spec some of the lines now were older. Everyone knows the little mermaid story but unfortunalty the orginal version is extremely sad and has various sad meanings.

This is the real ending of christian andersons little mermaid... 

This was the last evening that she would breathe the same air with him, or gaze on the starry sky and the deep sea; an eternal night, without a thought or a dream, awaited her: she had no soul and now she could never win one. All was joy and gayety on board ship till long after midnight; she laughed and danced with the rest, while the thoughts of death were in her heart. The prince kissed his beautiful bride, while she played with his raven hair, till they went arm-in-arm to rest in the splendid tent. Then all became still on board the ship; the helmsman, alone awake, stood at the helm. The little mermaid leaned her white arms on the edge of the vessel, and looked towards the east for the first blush of morning, for that first ray of dawn that would bring her death. She saw her sisters rising out of the flood: they were as pale as herself; but their long beautiful hair waved no more in the wind, and had been cut off.

“We have given our hair to the witch,” said they, “to obtain help for you, that you may not die to-night. She has given us a knife: here it is, see it is very sharp. Before the sun rises you must plunge it into the heart of the prince; when the warm blood falls upon your feet they will grow together again, and form into a fish’s tail, and you will be once more a mermaid, and return to us to live out your three hundred years before you die and change into the salt sea foam. Haste, then; he or you must die before sunrise. Our old grandmother moans so for you, that her white hair is falling off from sorrow, as ours fell under the witch’s scissors. Kill the prince and come back; hasten: do you not see the first red streaks in the sky? In a few minutes the sun will rise, and you must die.” And then they sighed deeply and mournfully, and sank down beneath the waves.

The little mermaid drew back the crimson curtain of the tent, and beheld the fair bride with her head resting on the prince’s breast. She bent down and kissed his fair brow, then looked at the sky on which the rosy dawn grew brighter and brighter; then she glanced at the sharp knife, and again fixed her eyes on the prince, who whispered the name of his bride in his dreams. She was in his thoughts, and the knife trembled in the hand of the little mermaid: then she flung it far away from her into the waves; the water turned red where it fell, and the drops that spurted up looked like blood. She cast one more lingering, half-fainting glance at the prince, and then threw herself from the ship into the sea, and thought her body was dissolving into foam. The sun rose above the waves, and his warm rays fell on the cold foam of the little mermaid, who did not feel as if she were dying. She saw the bright sun, and all around her floated hundreds of transparent beautiful beings; she could see through them the white sails of the ship, and the red clouds in the sky; their speech was melodious, but too ethereal to be heard by mortal ears, as they were also unseen by mortal eyes. The little mermaid perceived that she had a body like theirs, and that she continued to rise higher and higher out of the foam. “Where am I?” asked she, and her voice sounded ethereal, as the voice of those who were with her; no earthly music could imitate it.

“Among the daughters of the air,” answered one of them. “A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. On the power of another hangs her eternal destiny. But the daughters of the air, although they do not possess an immortal soul, can, by their good deeds, procure one for themselves. We fly to warm countries, and cool the sultry air that destroys mankind with the pestilence. We carry the perfume of the flowers to spread health and restoration. After we have striven for three hundred years to all the good in our power, we receive an immortal soul and take part in the happiness of mankind. You, poor little mermaid, have tried with your whole heart to do as we are doing; you have suffered and endured and raised yourself to the spirit-world by your good deeds; and now, by striving for three hundred years in the same way, you may obtain an immortal soul.”

The little mermaid lifted her glorified eyes towards the sun, and felt them, for the first time, filling with tears. On the ship, in which she had left the prince, there were life and noise; she saw him and his beautiful bride searching for her; sorrowfully they gazed at the pearly foam, as if they knew she had thrown herself into the waves. Unseen she kissed the forehead of her bride, and fanned the prince, and then mounted with the other children of the air to a rosy cloud that floated through the aether.

“After three hundred years, thus shall we float into the kingdom of heaven,” said she. “And we may even get there sooner,” whispered one of her companions. “Unseen we can enter the houses of men, where there are children, and for every day on which we find a good child, who is the joy of his parents and deserves their love, our time of probation is shortened. The child does not know, when we fly through the room, that we smile with joy at his good conduct, for we can count one year less of our three hundred years. But when we see a naughty or a wicked child, we shed tears of sorrow, and for every tear a day is added to our time of trial!” 

If you do not understand this, it means she effecticly turns to bubbles and dies. She did not marry her prince, proberly one of the only princesses that never got to. In the story shes a dancer for the prince and dances for him n his new bride on the ship then with him before he n his wife went to bed. :'(

Snow White

Im sorry guys, but im trashing this odd fairytale too...  Everyone knows the Snow White story, it is proberly one of the most reyound fairytales so I won't bother with the plot and such but heres the break down of what characters and certain things mean...

The queen orders a woodsman to take Snow White into the forest and kill her. He is further instructed to bring back her heart and lungs as proof that the deed is done. The woodsman, one of the very few adult males ever to appear in a Grimms Brothers’ fairy tale, is a compassionate soul. He lets the girl go and kills a wild pig instead, bringing back its heart and lungs to the bloodthirsty queen. If memory serves, the queen cooks and eats these organs. There is a strong resonance here concerning the fierce tension that often develops between aging mothers and their beautiful teenage daughters.


The Handsome Prince is a special case because he is a virtual non-entity except when he is wielding his sword, kissing the damsel to awaken her (both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty), and finally standing up at the altar to say “I do.” At first glance, it might seem that the lovely girl is the prince’s prize, in the case of the handsome prince in Sleeping Beauty who hacks his way through the dark wood raised by the evil witch around the castle in order to release Sleeping Beauty from the witch’s dreadful sleeping spell. He gets through. He kisses Sleeping Beauty awake. He wins her hand in marriage. The truth is, however, that the prince is actually the prize, to be given to the most worthy girl: he is her reward for being beautiful, pure and well-behaved. (In Sleeping Beauty’s case being virtuous is rather easy: all she had to do is lie there in a warm, well-protected, palace bedroom.)

It would seem that the prince is the brass (gold, in this case) ring, awarded to good young women who have lived a morally correct girlhood. He brings social status, a socially sanctioned sex life, and money. All the other princesses will just die of envy. This way of thinking still prevails. All over the world, girls and young women are in a frenzy to get married. In point of fact, if at least some of these hyper-educated females were to take a good look at statistics concerning marriage in the first decade of the twenty-first century, they might choose to avoid marriage altogether. But such statistics are no match for genetics, mythology and eons of feminine training.

so to wrap up this fairytale covers the tensions between mother and daughters, and how women are veiwed as prizes for men.

Sleeping Beauty

Ok so we've all see the movie surely? I remember it anyways, but I'm about to trash this childhood memory for you as well, so here's the plot

When after waiting for many years a king and his queen finally have a child, they organise a celebration. They invite twelve wise women, fairies, as godmothers who bring gifts such as beauty, virtue, riches. A wicked fairy who wasn’t invited, curses the princess saying that on her 15th birthday she’ll prick her finger on a spindle and die. A good fairy turns this curse into a sleep that will last a hundred years. The king forbids spinning in the whole realm, but when the princess turns fifteen, she chances on a woman spinning in a hidden room in the tower. She pricks her finger on a spindle and, as predicted, falls into a deep sleep as does the whole household of the castle. Hedges of briars start growing around the premises which no one can penetrate. After one hundred years have passed, a prince approaches the castle who has heard about the sleeping princess. The briars part, he enters the castle, sees the princess, falls in love with her, kisses her and thus wakes her and the whole royal household. They marry and live happily ever after.

so what the analysis of this story?

The thirteen fairies are seen as representatives of the 13 lunar months the year had in olden times. Women menstruate in a 28-day rhythm corresponding with the old calendar and not the solar one with its twelve months. Freudian psychologists see the curse of the thirteenth fairy as a curse of menstruation.
Of course, nothing can prevent puberty to set in when the time has come. The king’s precautions must be in vain. The flight of winding stairs, the door with the key in the lock, the dancing spindle which fascinates the girl are all seen as symbols for her awakening sexuality. Her falling into a deep sleep shows that she’s afraid of it, that she’s internalised her mother’s warnings. She only awakens when Mr Right appears. When she’s ready, the hedge of briars moves back of its own. It’s no use hastening the process, when the time has come, the problems will solve.
Bruno Bethlehem (The Uses Of Enchantment) interprets the long sleep as a typical phenomenon of adolescence. In a time when so many inner processes occupy the adolescent’s mind, no energy for outward activities is left. The happy ending signals that this period of inertia is transient, an insight which gives hope to adolescents as well as their parents.

 Yep I know fairytales are just sex stories done in a hidden manner...

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collaboration with HJK Imagery

HJK Imagery is a another photographer from my uni group, we have developed a close working relationship over the past 8 months. We have always wanted to collaborate and have been assisting each other in our work and now that we have the time we have decided to go along with our collaboration idea.

We have decided to focus on Fairy tales, but not the happy Disney version. We have decided to focus on their original stories such as The Brothers Grimm Tales and Hans Anderson, for this project we must find the correct and most accurate original stories.

My year so far...

From the 1st of October 2010, I have been studying at De Monfort Univeristy in Leciester. At first the uni expericence was very daunting, (freshers week is totally amazing and freshers flu is horrible!) my lessons were very different to my college ones and my tutors were more realistic. After a few months in I was considering leaving uni as a lot of the things I was doing was stuff I had learnt in college and I couldn't get back into a academic routine, in the end I stuck with it as now I have developed into some amazing ideas that have given me amazing results and other ideas that have not been as successful but has taught me things for my next year. I have had some amazing projects such as my Asylum based project which gave me great result. So now I am starting my summer, I am now beginning my own projects, hopefully some good ideas and good work will come out off it.

(Photo from Asylum Series)

Lets Get Started :)

So I was adivsed to start up this blog as a way of documenting my work for personal record and for you lovely lot to have a look at if your interested. If you want to start photography yourself this might be helpful in some ways. So Hi im Jordan and this is my photography blog enjoy!

(Picture titled Cancan Girls, taken Febuary 2010)