20 December 2014

Fairy Tale Re-imaginings by Na Young Wu

Na Young Wu is a Korean artist who re-imagines classic fairy tales (especially ones with Disney animated adaptations) in an Eastern setting, styled with traditional Korean clothes.

In this take on Snow White, she has used the iconic blue and white colours for the fabric of Snow's dress, as taken from the Disney version. The scene being illustrated is one of the most memorable from Disney's Snow White; where the heroine is lost and alone in the woods, and sings to the woodland creatures. She maintains the characteristic pale skin and raven hair of the intertext's protagonist. 

This illustration shows The Little Mermaid's Ariel conversing with the evil Ursula. This scene seems to have been inspired by the Disney version less so than the previous picture. Save for the aqua-green mermaid's tail, the heroine does not keep any of the same clothes or colourings of Disney's Ariel. Ursula diverts from the ugly-female-villain trope, and instead is objectively beautiful, and youthful too. This creates an interesting dynamic between the two and subverts a usual anti-feminist failing of marchen.

The illustration for the princess and the frog is one of the most obviously differing from it's Disney version in the physical aesthetics of the heroine. She is a different ethnicity from the course text, as are all the others, but she retains a pale skin while Tiana in Disney's version is black. The scene shown comes directly from the intertext and is a scene not actually shown in the film.

In Beauty and The Beast, the Beast character is re-imagined not as a nondescript monster, but instead as a tiger: a 'beast' of an animal, and one native to the lands of Eastern Asia where the location is set. Belle or Beauty is still depicted as a young, beautiful woman. the tree is a Japanese maple by the looks of it, which wouldn't have appeared in Disney's French-set version,

The Snow Queen is uniquely pale and ashen-haired, which is unlike typical East-Asians' dark features. The only thing that places this piece in Korea is the style of her garments and hair accessories. Unlike the Disney version, 'Frozen,' this scene seems more other-worldly, instead of ties to a specific time and location.