Dude, "She's the Man" is actually, "Mulan"..... #FairytalesInDisguise

WOW SO TO BEGIN MY FINAL BLOGPOST, I want to just point out that all of my blog posts so far have had to do with children's fictional stories and this last post just happens to be another one. #sorrynotsorry  

Also, I felt it necessary to put the first phrase in caps lock because I wanted to highlight/illustrate/emphasize my fun fact. Again, #sorrynotsorry 

To justify my retrograde into my childhood stories, I will say that I believe it is comforting to be able to write an entire blog post on something I found so comforting/enjoyable as a child. Therefore, this post is much much much more enjoyable to write. Make sense? Upon reading the chapter, "Hanseldee and Greteldum", I was constantly pondering what connections I could make that involved a modern day story a movie and a childhood fairytale. Thomas C. Foster writes, "...we want strangeness in our stories, but we want familiarity, too. We want a new novel to be note quite like anything we've ever read before. At the same time, we look for it to be sufficiently  like other things we've read so that we can...make sense of it." After reading that, I stopped and thought. I came to realize that he is exactly right. I cannot remember ever a time where I read or watched something that was completely foreign to my mind. Every story or film I have encountered has always had some familiar underlying message or plot. To give you an example, take the Disney Classic, "Mulan", and modern day, teenage movie, "She's the Man", with Amanda Bynes.  

Mulan: To make my synopsis short, I'm going to skip over irrelevant details that I tend to put in my posts. (haha) Mulan lives in China. Her father gets enlisted to serve in the army. She decides to cut off her hair, dress up like a man, and go in place of her dad. She becomes one of the greatest warriors in the army and becomes a symbol for gender equality. She happily returns home and lives happily ever after.

                                                                     Mulan as a boy

                                                          Mulan as a girl
 She's the Man: Viola Hastings attends high school with a misogynistic soccer coach. When her twin brother gets called up to play soccer at a renowned boarding school, she gets a wig, dresses up like a man, and attends in her brother's place. She goes on to be one of the greatest soccer players at the school, therein becoming a symbol for gender equality, and happily makes out with Channing Tatum at a debutante ball. 

                                                                       Viola as a girl

                                                                          Viola as a boy

#FAIRYTALESINDISGUISE AM I RIGHT OR AM I RIGHT????????? 

It was so interesting to make this connection because I would have never thought of it until I read Foster's chapter in the book. In fact, I think it is really clever that he pointed that out. I'm sure he was not the one to discover this, but he did well in explaining why and how writers consciously and subconsciously include familiarity into their stories. I also related this to our everyday lives. We live each day and every day, it is a little bit different than the one before, but rarely is there a huge change that is out of the "norm". This is because, as humans, we crave familiarity and things that we know. When things that we don't know come our way, we are caught off guard and most of the time, it is hard for us to adapt. It is the same for the stories we read and movies we watch. Familiarity is key, even if we do not realize it.