Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen from "The Princess and the Frog" Next Friday, Walt Disney Animation Studios will release its first animated princess movie since "Mulan" debuted at the box office in 1998. "The Princess and the Frog" is the first Disney movie to feature a black princess, and follows in the vein of the company's recent tradition: attempting to make amends for more than 50 years of blatant homogeneity. It's no secret that the studio's films, despite their nostalgic charm and fairytale appeal, have been glaringly Euro-centric until the 1990s. Since the release of "Snow White" in 1937, Disney princesses have looked remarkably similar, only changing hair and dress color from one movie to the next. It wasn't until 1992, with the introduction of Jasmine in "Aladdin," and Pocahontas soon after, that the trend started to shift. Sure, the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen created fantastic fairytales (and provided Walt Disney with an enormous collection of free stories), but they weren't the only ones spinning tales about princesses in distress. There's the Indian heroine in "The Ivory City and its Fairy Princess;" Princess Otohime from the Japanese tale "Urashima," about a fisherman who rescues a turtle; and the kind-hearted princess in the Swahili fairytale, "The One-Handed Girl." As for those classic European fairy tales, the Brothers Grimm weren't even the first to tell Cinderella's enchanted tale. Long before Charles Perrault recorded her story in "The Tales of Mother Goose," before Giambattista Basile wrote "The Pentamerone," Cinderella wasn't a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty -- she was Egyptian. Rhodopis, as she was called, was a Greek slave under an Egyptian master. Instead of two wicked stepsisters, she was treated harshly at the hands of her fellow servants and married a pharaoh instead of a prince. So if there are so many multicultural fairy tales out there to draw from, why did it take Disney so long to get around to telling "The Princess and the Frog?" Sure there are cultural sensitivity issues, but "Mulan," the story about a young woman who disguises herself as a man to fight in her father's place, was released with little controversy. With the shift toward CGI and away from the classic 2D style of animation that Disney's fairytales are known for, African-American and Hispanic princesses got lost in the shuffle. But whatever the reason, this princess diversity is long overdue, and Princess Tiana is sure to make girls of all shapes and colors happy. Suggested Sites... The Princess and the Frog - official site for the upcoming movie. Disney Princess - official site for all the Disney princesses. SurLaLune - a collection of fairy tales and illustrations from around the world. World of Tales - fairy tales, author biographies, and audio recordings. Folktexts - a collection of texts from folktales across the globe.

Directory categories: Fairy Tales, Legends, Folklore, Mythology, Fairy Tale Authors

Archived under: Animation, Black History, Children´s Literature, Disney, Entertainment, Fairy Tales, Movies, Princesses, Royalty

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Jack Pierce makes up Karloff as the Frankenstein monster (Photo by Jhayne) When I was growing up, I loved horror movies -- especially monster movies. I don't mean the gorefests that populate the screen today; the ones that substitute shock for real psychological terror. No, I loved the Universal monster movies that featured the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, Dracula, and, most of all, Frankenstein’s monster (or just "Frankenstein," as we called him in those days). Most of the reason for that love was Boris Karloff. In spite of how many people he murdered, tortured, or terrorized on camera, it was obvious that, behind the character, there was a decent and funny man who projected a real humanity. Karloff was born on November 23, 1887, as William Henry Pratt. As a child, it was expected he'd follow his brother into the British Foreign Service, but he developed a love of acting that took him first to Canada, then finally to Hollywood, where between gigs acting in silent films, he worked as a ditch digger and truck driver to pay the bills. When sound films came along in the late 1920s, his stage training (and British accent) helped him make the transition to talkies, but he was still mired in supporting roles like "Rev. T. Vernon Isopod" or "Sport Williams." Finally, in 1931, the role of a lifetime -- the Frankenstein monster -- came along, and even though he was unbilled at the time (the credits showed the Monster as being played by "?"), he had achieved screen immortality, becoming one of the few actors to be so well known as to be billed with just one name: "Karloff." It took Universal a bit of time to realize what an asset they had in Karloff. They lent him out to Warner Bros. for a memorable turn as a cadaverous gangster in the original "Scarface" and to MGM to star in the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. But once the box-office returns came in ($12,000,000 -- nearly $200 million today... that's before adjusting for the 25 cents audiences paid in 1931!), they took full advantage of him in such classics as "The Old Dark House," "The Mummy," "The Black Cat," and (best of all) "The Bride of Frankenstein" -- some 42 features over the next ten years. In 1941, Karloff left Hollywood to appear on Broadway in the comedy "Arsenic and Old Lace," playing another homicidal maniac -- one who’d had plastic surgery and now looked like -- Boris Karloff. Over the next three decades, Karloff alternated between stage, screen, radio, and television, shifting easily between comedy and drama. His integrity and talent were such that, even after the many times he had kidded his "horror star" image, he was still utterly believable when he did a straight role that would scare the pants off audiences. When he died at the age of 81 in 1967, his name was still the gold standard for the genre, (an accomplishment that no one else -- in any film genre -- has ever matched) and for some of us, it still is. Suggested Sites... Karloff.com - official site of the Karloff family, dedicated to the memory of the Master of Horror. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" - excerpt from one of Karloff's last great roles, narrating and playing the Grinch. Celebrating Boris Karloff, the Monster and the Man - introduction to a retrospective of Karloff's film career. Universal Studios Monster Movies - overview of the studio's horror films of the 1930s. Frankenstein Films: The Universal Pictures Series - reviews and synopses of the series that rocketed Karloff to stardom.

Directory categories: Boris Karloff, Horror Movies, Classi Hollywood Actors, Frankenstein, Actors

Archived under: 1930s, 1940s, Actors, Biographies, Birthdays, Boris Karloff, Celebrities, Entertainment, Horror, Horror Films, In Character, Monsters and Creatures, Movies

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Who knows what lurks down that corridor? (Photo by insertinanename) Last Friday was Friday the 13th, an occasion that made us wonder how superstitious our fellow Yahoos! are. We learned that some of them have natural phobias, but today, we explore the ways in which the media have done their part to nurture our fears. JoAnne: When I was a kid, my mom and sister saw "When a Stranger Calls." They told me all about it when they got home. Ever since then, I have had phone phobia. That silence you get when a telemarketer's autodial catches you before they realize they have a connection? Storms that knock phone service out? Anytime there's no dial tone. Freaks. Me. Out. I couldn't even watch "The Ring" because it starts with scary phone things. Jasmin: I can't watch horror movies at night. I just can't. A movie that's delightfully creepy during the day will scare the living daylights out of me if I watch it at night. It's not during the movie that's the issue; it's afterwards, when the normal sounds of our house (like the dishwasher running) go from being soothing to a "Did-you-hear-that?!" Helene: When I was a kid, each time I watched "Jaws," I would put my hamster cage on the floor next to my bed, because I thought that if a shark was swimming under the carpet, he would eat the hamster first, and spare my life after that snack. And while some fears aren't directly related to movies, we can only imagine that they somehow inspired some folks to be afraid: Heather: Whenever I wake up from a particularly bad nightmare, I always have to check in the closet, under the bed, and lock the door to my bedroom. I'm terrified that there might be a murderer in my room, even though I've probably got a better chance of the ceiling caving in from an earthquake than being attacked by a serial killer. Emily: Zombies freak me out. Even though I know they're not real (right? Right?!). I like being able to hear cars on the road from my bedroom, because that's how I know the zombie apocalypse hasn’t started yet. And then there are some fears that are just common-sense: Chris: Dick Cheney, swing dance classes, and Cher. Coming up tomorrow: Ways we ward off bad luck. Suggested Sites... Phobialist - what are you afraid of? Fear Net - horror movie news and clips -- but don't watch them in the dark. Zombies on the Web - one-stop shopping for zombie info and facts. How to Prepare to Swing Dance - the horror! The horror! Rotten.com: Dick Cheney - maybe not all fears are irrational...

Directory categories: Superstitions, Horror Movies, Telephones, Sharks, Zombies

Archived under: Crime, Horror, Horror Films, Movies, Phobias, Serial Killers, Superstition, Telephones, Zombies

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Benicio del Toro as "The Wolfman" (Photo from Yahoo! Movies) The frenzy is beginning to pick up for "New Moon," the first sequel in the immensely popular Twilight series, which is set for release on November 20. This time around werewolves get some facetime; vampires, apparently, aren't the only ones who can be angsty. Werewolves making an appearance in a vampire series -- how appropriate. Werewolves are those classic monsters that, these days, only find themselves as interesting tangents in a story arc focused on other, more attractive, denizens of the dark underworld. Rarely are they centerstage ("An American Werewolf in London," "Ginger Snaps," "Blood and Chocolate," "The Howling"). Today there is deluge of books and movies populated by either sexy vampires or grotesque zombies: the stars of the horror scene. This is a world where werewolves find themselves desperately snapping at the scraps of side characters and tangential plotlines But it was not always this way. The werewolf, believe it or not, might just be our oldest nemesis. Maybe in our modern, urban lives we have distanced ourselves from a time when nightfall did not signal the start of fervent activity out on the town or comfort on the couch. There was a time when nightfall meant only a feeble campfire and the gathered darkness of unknown wilderness all around us. It was a time when only the howling of some distant wolf pack could be heard from within the protective warmth of our campfires. Even then we had dogs. But they must have also trembled, like their masters, at the sound of their wilder, more dominant cousins. Maybe this is one of the reasons for man's deep (some would say primal) fear and hatred of these animals. We kept the docile ones that would obey us and seek our affection. Wolves represent their evil doppelganger: the violent, untameable side of animal and man alike. For that the wolf has become a legendary figure of evil, like the great Norse wolf Fenrisulfr. And from legends such as these came the werewolf. The legend of the Wolf of Magdeburg and the real-life Beast of Gevaudan, among other legends, were precursors to our modern ideas of what it means to be a werewolf. Vampires get a lot of attention and they love it. They mope about to the strains of depressing emo music, complain about their superpowers, and strike modelesque poses at every opportunity. Werewolves have none of that. They get right to the point of blood and gore. No emo music: it's all thrash metal and ripping out throats. To illustrate: in the opening scene of the movie "Silver Bullet" there is no lengthy dialogue, no make-out scene, just a werewolf decapitating a man. That's what werewolves are all about, and that's why they deserve a return to the spotlight. Suggested Sites... Werewolves.com - tons of werewolf-related goodies. Wolf Country - learn about wolves, listen to them howl, watch them in action. Werewolf Movies - learn what's happening in the world of werewolf movies. New Moon Official Site - get your Twilight jollies here. The Wolfman - Benicio del Toro dons the fake fur in this 2010 take on the classic monster movie.

Directory categories: Werewolves, Wolves, Horror Movies, Full Moon Superstitions, Folklore

Archived under: Animals, Horror, Monsters and Creatures, Movies, Mythology and Folklore, Vampires, Werewolves

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Dracula, Prince of Wallachia Long before Lestat, Bill Compton, Angel, and Edward Cullen took their first bites, there was the original vampire: Dracula. Unlike the aforementioned bloodsuckers, Dracula didn't wrestle with his conscience, delve into politics, help the helpless, or (God forbid) sparkle. Both the "real life" and fictional Draculas were violent and merciless -- not brooding, self-aware emo kids. The "real" Dracula is believed to be a Wallachian (not Transylvanian) prince named Vlad Tepes who lived during the mid-15th century. Vlad lived during a time of great political turmoil for his homeland. The ever-expanding Ottoman Empire was determined to conquer Romania and Vlad led the resistance to turn them away. Vlad used guerilla warfare and what amounted to martial law to keep the Turks out and the local nobility from rebelling. He became known as "Vlad the Impaler" for his particular brutal torture and execution tactics. According to legend, anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 were killed by Vlad's forces, leading to his reputation as a bloodthirsty tyrant. But Vlad's actions should be placed in the context of the violent and war-torn era in which he lived. In fact, many modern Romanians consider him to be a national hero. The Dracula of fiction was probably inspired by the legend of Vlad Tepes. It is debatable how aware writer Bram Stoker was of old Vlad's biography; he may have just liked the sound of "Dracula" for his villain. And Dracula was quite a villain. In between murdering and brainwashing, Dracula also plots world domination. He is apparently defeated by Dr. Van Helsing and his allies at the end of Stoker's novel by being stabbed in his coffin. However, as Hollywood has shown us, this death certainly wasn't permanent. In the Universal Studios Dracula films of the 1930s and '40s (made famous by Bela Lugosi) and the Hammer Films movies of the '60s and '70s (with Christopher "Saruman" Lee), Dracula always lives to kill another day. The popularity of these films further cemented Dracula's place in pop culture history. The last few years have seen vampires come back into vogue, thanks primarily to the TV shows "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "True Blood," and "The Vampire Diaries," and the Twilight books and movies. But Dracula has largely been absent, save a cameo on "Buffy" and a role in the 2004 film "Van Helsing." But as we all know, Dracula always comes back. This year, Bram Stoker's great grand-nephew will publish "The Undead," a sequel to "Dracula" based on Stoker's original notes and material not included in the original novel. With this release and the ceaseless popularity of vampire books, movies, and TV shows, it probably won't be long before Dracula rises again. But please: no sparkling.   Suggested Sites... Dracula: 1897 Original Text - read the original 1897 version of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" online at Internet Archive. Dracula's Castle - visit Dracula's Castle in Brasov, Romania and learn about other Dracula-related places in Romania. Romania Tourism; Dracula - discover more about Dracula (a.k.a. Vlad Tepes) and learn more about Dracula's place in Romanian history from the official tourism website of Romania. The Dracula Society - the foremost organization devoted to learning more about the real and fictional Dracula, as well as other supernatural beings.

Directory categories: Count Dracula, Vampires, Vlad Tepes, Bram Stoker, Romania

Archived under: Biographies, Blood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, European History, Fiction, Horror, Horror Films, Literature, Movies, Mythology and Folklore, Paranormal, TV, Vampires, Villains

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