Into The Woods: the Witch and Rapunzel — Page 2

I don't know - I could be completely wrong - it could just be that as I saw Bernadette in the role, I was looking for a little homoeroticism...

---

Ah, Our Little World. Love it.

I don't think that was the intention, but I could see that.

Really? I always thought it was:

CP: If it were not for the thicket

RP: A thicket's no trick
Is It think?

CP: It's the thickest.

RP: The quickest is pick it apart with a stick.

CP: Yes but even one prick...
It's my thing about blood.

RP: Well it's sick.

CP: It's not sicker than your thing with dwarves.

RP: Dwarves?

CP: Dwarves!

RP: Dwarves are very upsetting.

TRIM THAT BUSH, SLEEPING BEAUTY!

---

and the beanstalk?

I always thought there was much more of a relationship between Jack and the Giantess.

Which might be true, as there are so many parallels between the characters.

Jack betrays Giantess/ Rapunzel betrays Witch

dunno.

All SO valid.

---

Aw come on, Mister!

Jack follows his stalk to the big-titted woman.

Don't even get me started on little Red:

"But he drew me close and he swallowed me down"

FILTH!

---

guess I misworded. I agree with you one hundred percent robbie j. I was just referring to priest in that I thought the beanstalk had nothing to do with it.

---

Well, to put it frankly:
Beanstalk=Penis
Growing Beanstalk=Erect Penis

Bettelheim examines this very deeply.

Here is one of the more controversial topics he gets at:

"On some level, climbing up the beanstalk symbolizes not only the 'magic' power of the phallus to rise, but also a boy's feelings connected with masturbation. The child who masturbates fears that if he is found out, he will suffer terrible punishment, as symbolized by the ogre's doing away with him if he should discover what Jack is up to. But the child also feels as if he is, in masturbating, "stealing" some of his parent's powers. the child who, on an unconcious level, understands this meaning of the story derives reassurance that his masturbation anxieities are invalid. His 'phallic' excursion into the world of the grown-up giant-ogres, far from leading to his destruction, gains him advantage he is able to enjoy permanently.

"The fairy tale represents in images what goes on in the unconcious or preconcious of the child: how his awkening sexuality seems like a miracle that happens in the darkness of the night, or in his dream. Climbing up the beanstalk, and what it symbolizes, creates the anxiety that at the end of this experince he will be destroyed for his daring. The child fears that his desire to become sexually acive amounts to stealing parental powers and prerogatives, and that therefore this can be done only on the sly, when the adults are unable to see what goes on."


Light stuff this ain't.

Of course, Bettelheim's theories rely on the collective-unconscience, which is controversial in of itself.

---

Updated On: 12/22/04 at 05:01 PM

I didn't disagree with the fact that Jack had a sexual relationship with the giantess, which is what take that quote as. I just felt that the beanstalk had nothing to do with it. and of course i got that you meant the beanstalk as penis. I know Into the Woods isn't light stuff. It is perhaps his darkest show, along with Sweeny Todd. Passion is up there too.

But, obviously, your take on the beanstalk is more valid than my believing it has nothing to do with it. Priest is awesome, and Bettelheim is awesome and creepy.

---

Yes, misterchoi, Bettelheim is indeed creepy at times, but quite perceptive.

Perhaps the creepiest point he makes is this:

"The story [Little Red Riding Hood] on this level deals with the daughter's unconscious wish to be seduced by her father, the wolf. with the reactivation in puberty of early oedipal longings, the girl's wish for her father, her inclination to seduce him, and her desire to be seduced by him, also become reactivated. then the girl feels she deserves to punished terribly by the mother"

He goes on at length and makes very interesting and creepy sexual parallels in LRRH.

Mother said straight ahead...


But I do not beleive Bettelheim makes any big allusions to homosexuality being present in these stories.

Although it has been a while since I've really read the book, so I could very well be mistaken.

---

I think it is less about Jack being intimate with the Giantess and more about Jack being intimate with Jack.

---

Into the Woods is a show with a lot of subtle sexual inuendos. The wolf had a penis in the original, and listen to Little Red's song taking it out of the plot - it is completely sexual. "And he showed me things, many beautiful things..."
Although I don't see the witch and Rapunzel that way, it wouldn't surprise me.

---

Updated On: 12/22/04 at 07:32 PM

Interesting idea, Blue, but I don't really see it.

However, it is totally THERE for LRRH. Not just sexual, but a physical, emotional and mental loss of innocence. (Scary is exciting...) - as is discovering sexuality. SHE strayed from the path and learned she could not be sheltered forever, she lost her innocence.

Interesting about Jack. I never saw it but now I totally can!

GOD THIS SHOW IS SO RICH! I LOVE IT!

---

Keep in mind that Bettelheim was an extremely doctrinaire old-school Freudian whose work and theories on autism have since been thoroughly discredited. For what it's worth, back in the fifties and sixties he misdiagnosed many children as autistic and stuck them in a private school that he was running in Chicago where he claimed his methods were successful in helping to "cure" them. Decades later, many of these children (now adults) came forward with vivid descriptions of his brutality and abuse. Additionally, he's now suspected of having fabricated his claim that he was a personal student and colleague of Freud's in the thirties. Bettelheim ended his life by committing suicide. I would exercise extreme skepticism while reading any of his many books.