On the trail of Tinker Bell

Tinker Bell's transformation from a spot of light dancing about a stage to the winged pin-up girl we see everywhere today is directly a result of the 1953 Disney animated film.

Tinker Bell had appeared on film before, in a 1924 version of Peter Pan.

However, when Disney artists began work on their own version, they had their own preferences for the character. Two of the principal animators at the studio wrote that story artist 'Joe Rinaldi wanted Tinker Bell to look more like the popular bathing beauties of the time," according to Murray Pomerance in Tinker Bell: The Fairy of Electricity" in Second Star to the Right: Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination. The human model for Tink was Margaret Kerry, an actress known as "The Best Legs in Hollywood" (not Marilyn Monroe, as has often been rumored). Kerry also provided the voice of the red-haired mermaid in the film. 

The pixie's fiery personality was also developed in animation--not so far from Barrie's original descriptions, in fact.

Roy Best, 1937. Tinker Bell as drawn by a pin-up artist is less of a pin-up girl than Disney's version.

As to why Barrie included a fairy in Peter Pan to begin with, reasons are numerous. Barrie's work was influenced by the folk tales of his native Scotland, and "Kensington Garden" by Thomas Tickell, written in 1722, is frequently cited as the inspiration for the setting of Barrie's entire fairy world of Kensington Park.

In 1901, Barrie and the Llewellyn David boys were enchanted by Seymour Hicks's theatrical hit Bluebell in Fairyland, which they went to see together during Christmas time.

And specifically, in Barrie's dedication "To the Five," he writes, "As our lanterns twinkled among the leaves [Michael] saw a twinkle stand still for a moment and he waved his foot gaily to it, thus creating Tink."

Special thanks to www.rarestkindofbest.com and the (sadly) largely inactive www.jmbarrie.co.uk for information used in this post.

The wrong Jolly Roger

Whatever I may say about the accuracy of character portrayals on "Once Upon a Time," I applaud the show regularly for getting Captain Hook's ship right.

You may also recognize the Lady Washington as the Interceptor from Pirates of the Caribbean.

The producers are using the Lady Washington as their Jolly Roger (some of the filming has been done on the actual ship, the rest on a full-sized replica). And the Lady is a brig, as is the Jolly Roger, according to J.M. Barrie. You will note she has two masts. I know right away when artists haven't done their research, or have chosen to dispatch with Barrie's vision, the moment I see three masts. 

A brig has two masts, square-rigged.

I call Disney as the original instigator of this travesty.

Yes, maybe I'd like to have one of these models, but that does not mean I think this is accurate.

James Coleman, "Moonrise Over Pirate Bay," current fine art for Disney by one of its animated film landscape artists. Beautiful! But not a brig.

I suppose Disney's version has become the popular default.

Nadir Quinto, 1982

But it's hardly just Disney.

Model for the ship in the 2003 film of Peter Pan. Looks to me like a clipper, maybe, not a brig

I don't know why it's hard to get this one right. It's easy enough to do the research, and a brig is a lovely ship--it's not as though it weren't just as pretty as a clipper or a frigate, even if less imposing.

A brig! Robert Ingpen, 2004

Of course, it's not as if I'm not also confronted regularly with the placement of the Captain's hook on the incorrect hand. I just realized even one of my favorite Peter Pan artists' renditions has that issue.

Gwynedd M. Hudson,  1931. It is almost impossible to find biographical information about her online, and I was sorry to discover this may be because she died at the age of 26.  Hudson studied at the Brighton School of Art, and is also remembered for her illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

At least I know artists have used the play as their inspiration at least as much as the book as regards the hook, which is an element that has changed from one production (and actor) to the next. I don't think they have as good an excuse for ship inaccuracies.

Hook vs. Hook

It's hardly a secret by now that I gnash my teeth over portrayals of Captain Hook that clash with the original by J.M. Barrie (possibly I need a bumper sticker that reads "Barrie is my co-pilot.") And ABC television's "Once Upon a Time" has provided rant fodder for me in general for its fast-and-loose handling of classic stories. When the show added Captain Hook to its roster (well after I had started The Stowaway), my objections suddenly became more personal.

The TV Hook is Captain Hook in, er, name and hook only. And actually not even in name. Somehow on the way to the small screen, Captain Hook became Killian Jones. (Admittedly, if he turns out to be related to Davy Jones of "locker" renown, I will applaud a job well done.) I've accepted that--for the most part. But the more I watch--and I feel compelled to watch just so I know what's being put out there--the more I think OUaT's Captain Hook is actually Long John Silver.

Robert Newton as Long John Silver with Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins in the 1950 film of Treasure Island.

Bobby Driscoll was also the voice of Peter Pan in the 1953 animated Peter Pan. Around we go again...

Both John Silver and Killian Jones form alliances as they are convenient and betray them just as easily. Witness how easily Jones changes his alliances with Regina and her mother Cora, depending on who seems to have the upper hand on him or can most benefit him, as Long John Silver did with the officers and crew of the Hispaniola. And both repeatedly face capture and betrayal themselves, which the original Captain Hook would have found too embarrassing to endure.

Silver murders one of the sailors he recruited to his mutiny with apparently no remorse, and Jones both steals Aurora's heart and shoots her, showing no regret about either. James Hook is described as murdering out of temper (and, I argue, sometimes that reaction could be considered justified), but not for manipulation.

Colin O'Donoghue's Hook with Dylan Schmid as Baelfire, the son of Hook's beloved Milah.

Most significantly, perhaps, Jones and Silver have a fatherly side which is completely absent in James Hook. Silver's mentorship and eventual protection of Jim Hawkins are the only demonstration that there is more to the man than duplicity and greed. Jones craves a fatherly relationship with Bae even to the point of sailing to retrieve Bae's son Henry from Neverland, a place Jones swore he would never return.

By comparison, James Hook's relationship with children can be summed up as follows.

F. D. Bedford, 1911

I wonder often if the writers of OUaT have a good knowledge of their source material and are using it as a starting point, or if they genuinely have only the barest conception of their characters' origins. Given that this is a Disney property and all the characters have been featured in Disney films, I'm going to go with the first and hope I'm right. It baffles me sometimes, though, how far afield they go from the original conceptions. I suppose my concern is that people without background in fairy tale lore will take these as the final word, and not be open to other interpretations--including those which are written with the utmost concern for keeping to the spirit and word of the original. It's personal, in other words.

Many kinds of pixie dust

Tinker Bell, the pots and pans fairy, has been envisioned by artists in more varied ways than Peter Pan himself. 

J.M. Barrie describes her as "exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to best advantage. She was slightly inclined to embonpoint." The French term meaning that she was probably plump and definitely busty, and the description in total implying she is proud of her charms. Artists have interpreted her more or less accordingly, with this less-than-ethereal, utterly 1980s version by Regis Loisel an apt interpretation.

Regis Loisel, 1992

Perhaps his description seemed too adult for earlier illustrators.

Marjorie Torrey, 1957

Disney's Tinker Bell is suitably sparkly and bratty, and I like how her wings are animated. I've never been able to quite get my head around the ballerina bun and shoe pompons, but this version is actually not far from Barrie's description.

Disney, 1953

The omnipresence of Disney's Tink has not prevented artists from seeing her in guises from this lovely, if slender, portrayal

Trina Schart Hyman, 1980

to glamorous, ethereal versions

Anne Graham Johnstone, 1988

to modern depiction like this one from Zenescope. Not a traditional portrayal, to be sure, but not as far from Barrie as one might at first think.

Even before she became the de facto ambassador for Disneyland, Tinker Bell had traveled far from her beginnings as a spot of light projected about a stage.

Reasons I love research

During the Victorian era, Rowland's Macassar Oil was popular for men's hair styles. So popular, in fact, that the antimacassar was created (and named) for the purpose of keeping it off furniture.

I associate mangoes with the Caribbean, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. But they originated in South Asia. They took so well to the climate of the Caribbean, and in fact the rest of the tropics, so long ago that they may as well be indigenous to the region (but they're not).

I am the only person on earth who doesn't like mangoes. But now my narrator doesn't either.

A two-foot-tall cat sculpture named Kaspar has been a regular dinner guest at London's Savoy Hotel since 1926, for parties that do not wish to have thirteen persons seated at their table.

James Hook has yellow blood, according to J. M. Barrie in his "Hook at Eton" speech, but he's not alone. Sea cucumbers have yellow blood too. This is due to a high concentration of a pigment called vanubin, which serves an uncertain purpose for the sea cucumber. For James too, I suppose.

Point of pride

This is my beloved Peter Pan collection and research trove. You may notice a lean to the bookcase and a bowing of the shelves. I believe these were issues before I designated the bookcase to my research, but I may be wrong. 

The first two shelves are various editions of Peter Pan with pictures by various illustrators, with a little space left for more additions plus a few books that wandered away before I took this picture. I may be creating a collection where individual items may not be of great monetary value individually, but which is significant as a whole. I'm not the only person to do this, of course (I'm not even the only person in Seattle-- more on that later), but I can't help taking some pride in watching it grow.

On the third shelf, the books to the left are other people's takes on Peter Pan, including those prequels that vex me so. And to the right, books that are inspired by the story, scholarly analyses of the play, the book, and children's literature in general, and a few non-Peter-related works by Barrie. The remaining two shelves are additional research materials, not just for The Stowaway, although a number of them are relevant--books on English history, tall ships, and the like.

And of course there are a few collectibles scattered throughout.

There is less space left on these shelves than I realized before I set out to write this. That third shelf in particular is going to have problems soon.

Two things I have learned from this process: One, it is not worth buying furniture made out of sawdust and glue, and I resolve never to do so again. The most dilapidated bookcase from the 1930s is going to serve its purpose far longer than a facsimile from Ikea.

And pop-up books should be purchased new. Used ones will have at least one pop-up that doesn't work, no matter how well they've been cared for, which is just disappointing.

Unbearable Art, Pt. 3

I know this is unfair, because marionettes can't help having features like this. But when I look at this alarming item, I being to understand why there are so many dark Peter Pan interpretations. It's especially funny that this was a Disney version.

I mean, look at Hook here. He's positively genial in comparison.

It doesn't help much seeing them side by side.

If you're interested in early-1900s antiques and toys, these links all go to worthwhile places. I had to spend some extra time with the last, Pastimes Quilt Design, for the furniture alone.