Saturday, February 25, 2017

What We Can Learn From Pinocchio


Jeff—Saturday

For those of you who want to know what’s happening in the world today, just shut your eyes. Your ears too, because what you see and what you hear doesn’t really seem to matter much anymore. What counts these days is whatever turns agendas—political and otherwise—into realities.

All of which brings me around to the subject of this week’s post: Pinocchio.


An epic character, perhaps the most well known character in children’s literature, who stands as a universal symbol of the perils of prevarication to one’s proboscis.

Carlo Collodi
It all began with The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) a children’s novel by the Italian writer Carlo Collodi, in which a kindly old carpenter, Geppetto, carves a marionette in the image of a little boy who lives a literal wooden existence dreaming that someday he’ll be human.  But between him and his dream stand a series of trials and a singular moral defect: Pinocchio’s penchant for lying and bad behavior.


Though some literary types have equated Pinocchio’s journey with that of epic literary heroes such as Odysseus, I think for purposes of today’s post it’s better described by Jack Zipes in an introduction to a book on Pinocchio, titled Carlo Collodi.  To him, it’s a story about those who venture out into the world naively unprepared for what they find, and get into ridiculous situations.


Enter the “nose knows.”


Alas, if only we had as ready a way of separating truth tellers from charlatans today.

But there’s another lesson to be drawn from Pinocchio.

The list of Pinocchio productions and knock-offs is endless, but undoubtedly Walt Disney’s 1940 version, praised as one of the greatest animated films of all time, is the most well known. 


What isn’t as well known is that, as originally written, Pinocchio was an obnoxious boor, whose end was not intended to be pleasant.  Disney though didn’t see that sort of character as appealing to the masses, and so he turned him into a more likeable, innocent mischief-maker, who ultimately achieved his dream of becoming real.


Today’s opinion-shapers still turn the obnoxious into the likeable, and far-fetched cinematic dreams into realities, but they’ve have added something else to the mix.  They’ve turned the common sense adage for truth—“As plain as the nose on your face”—on its ear (so to speak) by libeling any nose other than their own as a Pinocchio protuberance, not to be believed.


In other words, we now live in a world where up is down and down is up.  But that’s from another children’s book, for another time.

Assuming we get there.

—Jeff







14 comments:

  1. Well, let's be grateful that modern politicians don't have Pinocchio's nose penchant. They'd all be knocking things over, tripping over them, hitting each other in the face and so on and on and on...

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    1. They seem to be doing quite well at that anyway, Michael.

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    2. Sure they do, Michael. Just ask Anthony Weiner. No, sorry, that's a different protuberance that also grew further than it should have...

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  2. What's up, Jeff? Whatever, I'm down with that. Thanks for the pleasant flashback, in the midst of your dystopic diatribe. Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash!

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    1. Diatribe? I'm simply talking about what happens when a marionette takes human form at the hands of a media maestro.

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  3. I just wish they'd stop sticking those long-or-not noses where they don't belong.

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  4. Bro, Disney changed Pinocchio from Collodi's original and then took a proprietary interest in the character. About a decade ago, an Italian immigrant opened a pizzeria in Massachusetts and named his restaurant Pinocchio. Disney sued him for copyright infringement, even though he did not use any of their images in his place. They wanted something like $16mm. Disney lost.

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    1. Saw a wonderful little restaurant in Glasgow a few years ago called Wagapapas ...

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    2. Hmmm, kind of makes me wonder wonder what's Wagapapas whakapapa?

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    3. AMA, the mouse often sues more than it can bite.

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    4. Disney is a horrible corporation for copyright/trademark rights. If THEY own the copyrights/trademarks, they want them to last forever and will sue anyone in sight. But they're happy to 'steal' anyone else's work that is out of copyright, remove all reference to the original creator, and it now become's DISNEY'S xxxxxxx. The current copyright extension (thank you, Sonny Bono, may you not rest in peace) is often known as the Mickey Mouse extension, because without it the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons would now be in the public domain. We're coming up on time for another "copyright extension push" as 1923+95 = 1918. Time is ticking, Disney. Lucky for them, they have a Republican congress and white house, so don't be surprised what happens on this front in the next year or two.

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    5. What's the matter, did you run out of toes? Me thinks you meant 2018.

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    6. Some days I FEEL that old... and unable to count straight.

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