I'm marking books on a Sunday afternoon, with The Wizard of Oz on Channel 5 in the background. It is almost a pleasure. My Year 7s have listened to my instructions and they've really tried hard. I'm so proud of them. How I wish they knew The Wizard of Oz. As I mark, I sing along without realising 'We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz...' I saw the film so many times as a child, I know it by heart.
'Oh, I beg your pardon,' says Dorothy, 'we haven't met yet.' She curtsies. 'How do you do?'
'How do you do?' replies the Scarecrow.
I jump to Wikipedia. When on earth was this film made?
1939.
Hmm... that's why. That's why Dorothy feels terrible at the thought of her Aunty Em worrying about her and immediately abandons her runaway quest, rushing home to look after her aunt. That's why 'drama' is a bunch of flying monkeys and a green wicked witch. 'I'll get you my Pretty...' 'How about a little fire scarecrow?'
No swearing. No extraordinary special effects. No guns with massive explosions and rap music talking about hos and bitches in the background. What kills the wicked witch? A little bit of water.
And what is their grand journey in search of? What do the main characters want? Do they want gold? A long lost treasure? Do they want to rule the world? No. They want the things that make life worthwhile: a heart, a brain, a home, and some courage.
As I mark this work, where the children refer constantly to Cheryl, Simon and Danni, I wish my children might know Dorothy instead, and I realise just how lucky I was to have grown up in a world that not only knew her, but still held dear the values which the film - or indeed the book - take for granted.
1939... It seems so very far away. I guess 1939 exists somewhere in a Land called Oz.
Snuffy
You can email me at snuffysnuffleupagus -it is at yahoo dot com
- Miss Snuffleupagus
- United Kingdom
- I teach in a state school in inner-city London. I'm black. I want to change the world - one kid - one school - one policy at a time. I blog because I need to stay sane. But my blogs won't necessarily stay up for long... so be quick! And while I have been blogging for over two years, I am not sure how much longer I will last... My views are a little controversial. What I say makes sense. It's just that we don't like to make sense anymore. My goal in life is to find perspective again.
15 comments:
I think Louis Walsh is what you might call a "friend of dorothy" in popular parlance...
//No extraordinary special effects//
Sorry to correct you, but, in its day, the Wizard of Oz did have extraordinary special effects. They only don't look that special or out of the ordinary to a modern audience. The transition to colour half way through for example is very striking, even to this day. The tornado, the first appearance of the Good Witch, all these were really quite advanced for their time. Can you think of any film previous to the Oz that had anything like the level of special effects that it had?
Also, I think your association of innocence with the past is quite flawed; many of Grimm's fairy tales are far far bloodier than would be permitted by the censorious hand wringers now.
Indi
That's why I added the word 'extraordinary'. Special yes, but nothing in comparison to what can be done today and more importantly, is required and expected, if it is to be considered entertaining.
As for Grimm, no...I disagree.
It's a pity you can't show it to the kids in your class(es) and see what their reaction is.
Miss, I wonder how long it took the Wicked Witch in the Gingerbread cottage to die, after Hansel and Gretel left her locked in her oven in the middle of an uninhabited forest?
Perhaps not long, in the versions where they lit the oven before leaving.
Ad
Not nice, sure, but nothing in comparison to watching what we watch on TV, film, listen to on the radio etc, CONSTANTLY...
It just doesn't compare!
Who's to say there won't be a return to the innocence of the early twentieth century? We recently watched annie get your gun" with our 8, 6 and 4 year old who loved it.
The are young (17 yo) American filmakers with a passion for film and innocence. See this aticle on Colton Davie
Neil
True, but the age at which you hear about Hansel and Gretel is the age at which you watch Postman Pat and Thomas the Tank Engine, not Saw Umpteen.
(Of course, it is a while since I have watched CBBC, they may have broadened their programming...)
For its day, The Wizard of Oz had extraordinary special effects. So did the original Star Wars — which now looks rather simple compared to more recent releases.
Special yes, but nothing in comparison to what can be done today and more importantly, is required and expected, if it is to be considered entertaining.
And when you're my age your kids will say exactly that about films released in 2009. Technology changes.
You blithely dismiss the creative efforts of early filmmakers because we can do better now (building on what they did). Do you similarly dismiss the efforts of early reformers, because they didn't accomplish what we have now? Early scientists, because we know more now?
erm - unless I have missed something, and you yourself are over 70, Snuffy, you must have watched Dorothy decades after it was made. This mid 20-something certainly watched it in the less-than-innocent 1990s!
Snuffy, you must have encountered the jungle book? And I'm not talking the version where Disney butchered it, I mean the original Kippling stories. There is a darkness to some of them, particularly the Mowgli stories that make some modern day films look pretty tame.
Then again to fully appreciate them I think a very high level of reading is needed which perhaps some kids don't have!
MissS
Been away from your blog for a while. Just like to express my shared admiration for The Wizard of Oz. It's unutterably, stupendously wonderful throughout.
My children adore it, and my youngest daughter played Dorothy in the school play last year.
Miss, how many of your year 7's have seen High School Musical? And what did they think of it?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3167514/The-High-School-Musical-success-story.html
Did you see the latest series of World's Strictest Parents? Just catching up with it now.
Nice to see middle class black families, don't see such images in this country:
link
I understand your wistfulness for this movie...Dorothy's devotion, the whole story.
I wish my students were like her too.
Do the hand-wringing parents later go out to rent "Saw" and other unspeakable torture movies that I can't stomach?
My nine-year-old adores The Wizard of Oz, loves scary fairy tales, and gets mad when I omit that Hansel is being fattened to eat (in front of the 4-year-old).
Reading the tales is not like watching a movie, it's more strange and free, somehow.
Amy in Texas
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