We've been writing an awful lot about Amy and Eleven and Rory and River...but we haven't been giving good old Peter his dues here on the blog.
You look about 9
And you look about 14...
After spending my entire day pouring over the new Diamond Edition of Disney's Peter Pan, I've got more than just a thought or two on the Boy Who Won't Grow Up.
Don't Tell Me It's Not Canon
Okay. I know what some of you are thinking...DISNEY'S Peter Pan? Don't you mean BARRIE'S Peter Pan? Well, yes and no, and here's why. Barrie's Peter is the original Peter; there's no denying which came first. HOWEVER we're living in a world now where Disney's Peter has become so universally recognized that you'll hardly meet a person who knew the tale before the animated film entered their life. This was actually brought to my attention by my Dad, who was sitting and watching Disney's Peter Pan with commentary with me. The film makers were talking about how, when Disney came to the story, it was a unique tale to adapt, because it had already been adapted so many times before. There was the play Peter Pan, the books Peter in Kensington Gardens and Peter and Wendy, the silent film and most recently (before the animation), the live action movie that brought Tinkerbell out of the flashlight and into the limelight, depicting her as a real person for the first time ever. Disney's audience would already be well-acquainted with the tales of Peter Pan, and perhaps most importantly, they knew him to be played as a girl.
Look how FRIENDLY the croc suddenly is!
"Interesting" my Dad said. "Now, it's basically the opposite...I mean, when Cathy Rigby played Peter in the 80s, it was like blasphemy to me!" (I'm paraphrasing here, but he did, in fact, use the word blasphemy). That tradition lives on today, as people will almost always be introduced to DISNEY'S Peter before any others, and the age for that introduction is getting younger and younger with the creation of "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" and the "Pixie Hollow" franchise. Disney has almost entirely created a monopoly on Peter Pan in the popular imagination. At the very least, they have inarguably monopolized Peter in the American imagination. Sometimes, perhaps because Peter and the Lost Boys were all played with American accents in the Disney film, even I forget that the tale is originally from a Scottish author, and steeped in British culture and history. That, of course, is factually incorrect, but culturally important, and this is where things come full circle. Because Disney's version of Peter Pan has become so well-known, he is now nearly as American as he is British (or Scottish, however you care to argue it) at this point. This is part of why the American audience latched on to Doctor Who with such a steely grip once Amy became Wendy and Eleven became Peter. THIS is why it took nearly 50 years for our country to fully embrace the series in the same mainstream way that England has embraced it in that same time span, and it's why it's fair to say that we connect to the story because it's part of our cultural history. Walt Disney made sure of that in 1953 by starting the first ever merchandising frenzy connected with an animated film (Second Star to the Right). Peter and his friends were on ads for everything from televisions to kid's shoes; and today you can get t-shirts, mugs, stuffed animals, notebooks, pretty much anything that you can imagine with your favorite character(s) from the movie on them. In short, we as Americans have embraced Peter so fully that, at this point, he's got dual citizenship. When we write about Peter in America, this is what we are talking about. The movie was released here sixty years ago to the day--that means almost three generations worth of little American tykes (and maybe even a Brit or two) have grown up knowing Walt's Peter before any other version of the classic "Eternal Child". Those three generations include a certain television show writer, born in 1961--well after Disney's version had exploded in popularity, both here and across the pond.
Okay, Max and I have been on hiatus from the blog. But that doesn't mean we haven't been hard at work; in fact, it means quite the opposite!
This past weekend, Max came up to New England so that we could screen ALL of season 5 in the same place...considering it can be very annoying and slightly difficult to do over the internet. We also shared our research resources and finalized the outline for the paper. I even started writing the first few sections of the paper!
AND, perhaps most excitingly, we launched a kickstarter campaign today, which was approved over the weekend! Check it out and back the project if you can here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/675991744/come-along-pondoff-to-neverland
ABSTRACT:
“Never let him see you age. He doesn't like endings” is a warning just
as fitting for Amy Pond as it is for Wendy Darling. Examining seasons
five through seven (2010-2012) on Doctor Who reveals many adapted myths,
legends and fairy tales threaded into the Neverland of Amy and the
Doctor. Amy as Wendy then transforms from child to mother, both
literally and figuratively, in season six, and the Doctor seeks refuge
in immaturity. Amy’s dual legacy as friend and “mother” is further
developed through her daughter. A thrice-changeling, River Song begins
as a Tinker Bell archetype, but develops into Wendy’s daughter Jane. The
tone drastically shifts from childlike innocence to mature subject
matter; the relationship between Amy and the Doctor develops from
unrequited love to a deep mutual understanding, and finally the Doctor
becomes dependent on their relationship, which Amy has outgrown. The Amy/Doctor relationship coincided with the rising popularity of Doctor Who
outside of the UK. We will argue that this relationship appealed to
American audiences due in part to the rise of extended adolescence. The
Eleventh Doctor’s connection to the Jungian puer aeternus and “Peter Pan syndrome” provides a cathartic experience through Amy’s escapist adventures. THESIS: The Smith/Moffat/Gillan era of Doctor Who is a modern adaptation of the Peter Pan
myth in many ways. These adaptive elements are the reason that the
show’s popularity has spread outside of the UK and finally reached a
similarly massive level of popularity in other countries as
well--particularly the United States, because of the growing phenomenon
of “extended adolescence” among the show’s targeted audience.
OUTLINE
Moffat’s Usage of Fairytales, Myth and Archetypes and Literary Metaphor.
A)Moffat's Pre-Series 5 work e.g. The Girl In The Fireplace
B)Elements Moffat uses in series 5-7 e.g. Sleeping Beauty, The World Turtle, Minotaur, Pandora’s Box. 5 takes prominence.
C)Amy as embodiment of literary metaphor, her own author of her existence; twice, both in The Big Bang via the crack (not intentional) and intentional at the end, telling the Doctor to dictate what stories young amy will eventually (most likely) act out as make believe as she grows up.
She is a literary circle like the very myths and stories she loved.
["we're all stories in the end", dual audienceship of childrens' stories--that's really driven home by Amy telling her own story in a way she's a child in control of how the adult tells the story, which is huge for a children's story/show she eliminates any parental control over her life]
D
or E) The ultimate adaptation of “Peter Pan” (very generalized, how we
first came to realize this, how it has developed--season 7.1 conclusion
was a real clincher for the theory.)
E or D)Puer Aeternus
[God Pan, Hermes--Barrie ALSO used these characters to develop Peter, so this will only be introduced here then delved more into later in section 2.]
A clip of the Darling children learning to fly and going off to Neverland from the 1924 silent adaptation of Peter Pan with Betty Bronson as Peter and Mary Brian as Wendy. It continued the pantomime tradition of Peter being played by a woman. For it's age, it plays the source material rather straight and uses a great deal of the original play script here and in effect resembles a stage production itself, so unlike many silents of the era this is still quite "modern" in its delivery. At least this scene. Being made in 1924, only 20 years after first performance of Peter, the synergy of stage and the new(ish) rising potential of film and film effects just oozes from this clip through the use of the special effects. Yes, now crude by our standards, but check out that Tinkerbell at 4:08! That's pretty darn cool. Legend of Zelda anyone?
Peter Pan as a production has, since it's start, taken full advantage of and in fact cannot have existed without the innovations of electricity and the progress of technology around the turn of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th. Jen has an excellent book, Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination that has an article all about Tinkerbell and that relationship between Peter Pan and technology as a production. She'll probably discuss that at another time.
Which I find curious is that while Peter Pan, set in the designated genre of fantasy is so inexplicably related to technology and progress (the assumed realm of sci-fi) we now have in contrast Steven Moffat almost doing the opposite, almost inverting that, with Eleven he has been taking a purely sci-fi show, born exclusively out of science (and to educate children) and is bending it into the realm of fairy tales and mythological, pagan-like motifs, essentially giving sci-fi a fantasy skin. For instance in the new Christmas special, the Tardis now apparently sits on a cloud, accessible by a ladder as told by the governess Clara (the new companion) to her children in their nursery. This is the simple stuff of fairytale of old; hatches to underground palaces found by pulling a parsnip or cabbage and the like from the field. It also echoes the stories of Peter as an urban legend in the neighborhood, of which Mrs. Darling is familiar: the boy frequenting Kensington Gardens.
It is curious to see that the upcoming Christmas Special, now that we mention it, is being set in late Victorian London: the same era of Barrie and Peter's rise into the public consciousness. Clara, a dreamy governess, young children, a nursery. Peter Pan is a common Christmastime pantomime in Britain hence somewhat associative to the holiday. It all seems rather intentional. Why is The Doctor hiding there? Yes Moffat has been echoing past literature greats the last two Christmas specials, with last year's an explicit nod to The Lion the Witch And The Wardrobe, but to my knowledge there are no specific literary allusions this year...or is there?
The focus on children and innocence, ruminations of youth and of growing up, children's literature and the like was never stronger than in that period of time.and one could say setting the holiday special during the Victorian Era England is usually a no brainer. They just go together. Why? Well probably the institution that is A Christmas Carol, and due to Christmas itself was a holiday turned fashionable and transformed into the juggernaut of a holiday (as we know it today) in part thanks to Victorian society re-adopting, appropriating and popularizing certain traditions full force. Christmas has always had that Victorian touch to it ever since. Is placing the lonely Doctor, in mourning for the Ponds, in this era of pure fairy tale and pagan-rooted indulgence particularly symbolic that way?
I've started some of the preliminary ground work for our research, by going through episode by episode and making shiny excel spreadsheets out of the important information. I'm somewhat of an Excel whisperer, so even though this work has been a little tedious I've actually quite enjoyed it.
The spreadsheets tell when in time the episodes happen, who wrote and directed each one, and include other important notes which relate to the paper. I will post them as soon as they are FULLY complete.
Now that that's mostly done, I'm also working on individual character timelines for Rory, Amy, River and the Doctor, and those are a bitch. The good news is I finished Rory's timeline. The bad news is I can't get it to post here without being too small, or gunking up the whole page. I am working on this, and you will have the glorious document soon enough. The timelines themselves are helpful tools because they organize things visually, which is immensely good news for someone such as myself, who understands things better when they are graphically represented. They will serve as quick reference points throughout the research process, which will save us time and energy arguing over what happened when, and who was there for it and who was busy being Roman. Some general notes on Rory's timeline:
It is not to scale.
As with all the timelines I will be doing, the "time" is from the character's perspective, not necessarily the order in which the episodes aired.
The timelines take into account (so far) what we know, indisputably, from the episodes and minisodes themselves. Things Moffat has said on or off the record, or extended universe things from other audio or book adventures, are not considered.
I started with Rory thinking his timeline would be a relatively easy one to do, but this honestly has taken me almost a week to complete. I've gone into the Doctor Who wikia countless times already. I've rewatched several of the episodes. I've moved textboxes and arrows and lines all over the page, making sure things are correct. And Rory's life is relatively linear, compared to the others. He only re-lives one chunk of his life, as you will be able to see when I finally figure out how to post the picture. I am not looking forward to Amy's. Or the Doctor's. OR RIVER'S. Ah well. Geronimo? --Jen
Puer aeternus is Latin for eternal boy, used in
mythology to designate a child-god who is forever young; psychologically
it is an older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent
level. The puer typically leads a provisional life, due to the
fear of being caught in a situation from which it might not be possible
to escape. He covets independence and freedom, chafes at boundaries and
limits, and tends to find any restriction intolerable.[1]
Notes: ^ Sharp, p. 109 Sharp, Daryl. Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms & Concepts. (pp 109 – 110). Inner City Books, Toronto, 1991. ISBN 0-919123-48-1
We have MANY MANY other books to purchase and or take out from the library aside from the over a dozen we currently already have and most likely WILL be using for this paper. The subject of the puer aeternus is pretty pivitol not only for our comparisons of Eleven and Peter, whom is the poster child for the archetype, but may explain to a degree Moffat's intentional plans for the character and how the personality change and his relationship to Amy correlates to real world issues with young adults and teenagers today moreso than ever before in the show's history. A late-nite tidbit for the brain to nosh on. Talk again real soon!
Hi all, this is Max! Jen has already introduced our paper rather effectively, I don't want to repeat much but I will say I hope people will join and follow us as we work. As stated, we are so excited and would love people to come view and track our progress with us from here to Orlando!
I thought to introduce myself, I'd share and present some basic thoughts we had at the very beginning of this process; what actually sent us into motion. Essentially, how we got here! As our paper title and blog name and snazzy wallpaper suggests, yes our paper is indeed about the parallelism between the relationships of the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond in the television show Doctor Who and that of J.M. Barrie's titular characters from Peter and Wendy and all it's various original canon incarnations. We then, accordingly, will be looking at the psychological and sociological implications of those similarities in regards to pop culture and the show's current audience and demographics.
Our first original thought all the way back in May, was to focus upon the central topic of fairy tales and fairy tale conventions that Steven Moffat, upon given helm to the television series, was able to adapt and weave into and alongside the expected sci-fi elements of the series, creating a show with quite a different tone and feel than it was more or less under the helm of Russell T Davieswho had preceded him as showrunner. However, revisiting Moffat's older single episodes as a writer during that previous era, such as Girl In The Fireplace (Madame Du Pompadour is a prototypal Amy and many elements of this episode are repeated in full in Series 5)reveal a more fairy tale influenced sensibility from the start.
However, as we dug into those recurring motifs and patterns and unraveled the Eleventh Doctor's new deceivingly youthful and puckish but also at times extremely chaotic and scary behavior and Amy's centrality to the "Bit fairy tale" theme and her relationship with The Doctor across her three starring seasons, it became much clearer that Moffat, via Eleven and Amy, was playing not just with fairy tales but specifically working with an adaptation of Peter Pan! And that is where our concept truly started to take shape.
I have much more to say, but I thought this is a good place to end for now.
Hello readers! Welcome to the blog of Max and Jen. We are working on a paper that we will be presenting at the ICFA, the Conference for the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. The conference is this March in Orlando and we are so excited that we are already counting down the days! The paper we are writing is titled "Come Along Pond...Off to Neverland: How the Doctor Has Turned into the Boy Who Won't Grow Up, and What it Means Within our Popular Culture". This blog is going to serve two-fold; it will not only allow us to collect our thoughts and serve as a document which tracks our progress, but it will also allow anyone interested in our process or our findings to follow along as we go! We will do our best to keep the information organized with dates and specific links and/or references, so you can understand where our research is coming from, and how we are executing it. Please feel free to leave questions/comments/arguments/agreements in the comments section and we will respond as soon as we see them. Thanks in advance for your interest and support in this project. Both Max and I are so incredibly excited for this paper and presentation that we can barely contain ourselves! More updates soon! --Jen
