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1865 illustration of Tom Thumb and the Giant

A fairy tale (pronounced /ˈfeəriˌteɪl/) is a type of short story that typically features folkloric fantasy characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants, mermaids or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies. The stories may nonetheless be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described)^[1] and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables.

In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy tale ending" (a happy ending)^[2] or "fairy tale romance" (though not all fairy tales end happily). Colloquially, a "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale; it's used especially of any story that not only isn't true, but couldn't possibly be true.

In cultures where demons and witches are perceived as real, fairy tales may merge into legends, where the narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics, they usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and actual places, people, and events; they take place once upon a time rather than in actual times.^[3]

Fairy tales are found in oral and in literary form. The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, the evidence of literary works at least indicates that fairy tales have existed for thousands of years, although not perhaps recognized as a genre; the name "fairy tale" was first ascribed to them by Madame d'Aulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of today's fairy tales have evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple cultures around the world.^[4] Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today.

The older fairy tales were intended for an audience of adults, as well as children, but they were associated with children as early as the writings of the précieuses; the Brothers Grimm titled their collection Children's and Household Tales, and the link with children has only grown stronger with time.

Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. The Aarne-Thompson classification system and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the tales' significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales.

Terminology[link]

Some folklorists prefer to use the German term Märchen or "wonder tale"^[5] to refer to the genre over fairy tale, a practice given weight by the definition of Thompson in his 1977 [1946] edition of The Folktale: "a tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes. It moves in an unreal world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvelous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms and marry princesses."^[6] The characters and motifs of fairy tales are simple and archetypal: princesses and goose-girls; youngest sons and gallant princes; ogres, giants, dragons, and trolls; wicked stepmothers and false heroes; fairy godmothers and other magical helpers, often talking horses, or foxes, or birds; glass mountains; and prohibitions and breaking of prohibitions.^[7]

Definition[link]

From The Facetious Nights of Straparola by Giovanni Francesco Straparola

Although the fairy tale is a distinct genre within the larger category of folktale, the definition that marks a work as a fairy tale is a source of considerable dispute.^[8] One universally agreed-upon matter is that fairy tales do not require fairies. (The term itself comes from the translation of Madame D'Aulnoy's conte de fées, first used in her collection in 1697.)^[9] Common parlance conflates fairy tales with beast fables and other folktales, and scholars differ on the degree to which the presence of fairies and/or similarly mythical beings (e.g., elves, goblins, trolls, giants) should be taken as a differentiator. Vladimir Propp, in his Morphology of the Folktale, criticized the common distinction between "fairy tales" and "animal tales" on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals.^[10] Nevertheless, to select works for his analysis, Propp used all Russian folktales classified as a folk lore Aarne-Thompson 300-749 – in a cataloguing system that made such a distinction – to gain a clear set of tales.^[11] His own analysis identified fairy tales by their plot elements, but that in itself has been criticized, as the analysis does not lend itself easily to tales that do not involve a quest, and furthermore, the same plot elements are found in non-fairy tale works.^[12]

As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be more common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves.^[13] However, the mere presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly a mask on a human face, as in fables.^[14]

In his essay "On Fairy-Stories", J. R. R. Tolkien agreed with the exclusion of "fairies" from the definition, defining fairy tales as stories about the adventures of men in Faërie, the land of fairies, fairytale princes and princesses, dwarves, elves, and not only other magical species but many other marvels.^[15] However, the same essay excludes tales that are often considered fairy tales, citing as an example The Monkey's Heart, which Andrew Lang included in The Lilac Fairy Book.^[14]

Steven Swann Jones identified the presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales.^[16] Davidson and Chaudri identify "transformation" as the key feature of the genre.^[5] From a psychological point of view, Jean Chiriac argued for the necessity of the fantastic in these narratives.^[17]

In terms of aesthetic values, Italo Calvino cited the fairy tale as a prime example of "quickness" in literature, because of the economy and concision of the tales.^[18]

A picture by Gustave Doré of Mother Goose reading written (literary) fairy tales

History of the genre[link]

Originally stories, we would now call fairy tales, were not marked out as a separate genre. The German term "Märchen" stems from the old German word "Mär", which means story or tale. The word "Märchen" is the diminutive of the word "Mär", therefore it means a "little story". Together with the common beginning "once upon a time" it means a fairy tale or a märchen was originally a little story from long time ago, when the world was still magic.

The English term "fairy tale" stems from the fact that the French contes often included fairies.

Roots of the genre come from different oral stories passed down in European cultures. The genre was first marked out by writers of the Renaissance, such as Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile, and stabilized through the works of later collectors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.^[19] In this evolution, the name was coined when the précieuses took up writing literary stories; Madame d'Aulnoy invented the term conte de fée, or fairy tale, in the late 17th century.^[20]

Before the definition of the genre of fantasy, many works that would now be classified as fantasy were termed "fairy tales", including Tolkien's The Hobbit, George Orwell's Animal Farm, and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.^[21] Indeed, Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" includes discussions of world-building and is considered a vital part of fantasy criticism. Although fantasy, particularly the sub-genre of fairytale fantasy, draws heavily on fairy tale motifs,^[22] the genres are now regarded as distinct.

Folk and literary[link]

The fairy tale, told orally, is a sub-class of the folktale. Many writers have written in the form of the fairy tale. These are the literary fairy tales, or Kunstmärchen.^[9] The oldest forms, from Panchatantra to the Pentamerone, show considerable reworking from the oral form.^[23] The Brothers Grimm were among the first to try to preserve the features of oral tales. Yet the stories printed under the Grimm name have been considerably reworked to fit the written form.^[24]

Literary fairy tales and oral fairy tales freely exchanged plots, motifs, and elements with one another and with the tales of foreign lands.^[25] Many 18th-century folklorists attempted to recover the "pure" folktale, uncontaminated by literary versions. Yet while oral fairy tales likely existed for thousands of years before the literary forms, there is no pure folktale, and each literary fairy tale draws on folk traditions, if only in parody.^[26] This makes it impossible to trace forms of transmission of a fairy tale. Oral story-tellers have been known to read literary fairy tales to increase their own stock of stories and treatments.^[27]

History[link]

Ivan Bilibin's illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful

The oral tradition of the fairy tale came long before the written page. Tales were told or enacted dramatically, rather than written down, and handed down from generation to generation. Because of this, the history of their development is necessarily obscure.^[28] The oldest known written fairy tales stem from ancient Egypt, c. 1300 BC (ex. The Tale of Two Brothers),^[29] and fairy tales appear, now and again, in written literature throughout literate cultures, as in The Golden Ass, which includes Cupid and Psyche (Roman, 100–200 AD),^[30] or the Panchatantra (India 3rd century BCE),^[30] but it is unknown to what extent these reflect the actual folk tales even of their own time. The stylistic evidence indicates that these, and many later collections, reworked folk tales into literary forms.^[23] What they do show is that the fairy tale has ancient roots, older than the Arabian Nights collection of magical tales (compiled circa 1500 AD),^[30] such as Vikram and the Vampire, and Bel and the Dragon. Besides such collections and individual tales, in China, Taoist philosophers such as Liezi and Zhuangzi recounted fairy tales in their philosophical works.^[31] In the broader definition of the genre, the first famous Western fairy tales are those of Aesop (6th century BC) in ancient Greece.

Jack Zipes writes in When Dreams Came True, "There are fairy tale elements in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and ... in many of William Shakespeare plays".^[32] King Lear can be considered a literary variant of fairy tales such as Water and Salt and Cap O' Rushes.^[33] The tale itself resurfaced in Western literature in the 16th and 17th centuries, with The Facetious Nights of Straparola by Giovanni Francesco Straparola (Italy, 1550 and 1553),^[30] which contains many fairy tales in its inset tales, and the Neapolitan tales of Giambattista Basile (Naples, 1634–6),^[30] which are all fairy tales.^[34] Carlo Gozzi made use of many fairy tale motifs among his Commedia dell'Arte scenarios,^[35] including among them one based on The Love For Three Oranges (1761).^[36] Simultaneously, Pu Songling, in China, included many fairy tales in his collection, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (published posthumously, 1766).^[31] The fairy tale itself became popular among the précieuses of upper-class France (1690–1710),^[30] and among the tales told in that time were the ones of La Fontaine and the Contes of Charles Perrault (1697), who fixed the forms of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.^[37] Although Straparola's, Basile's and Perrault's collections contain the oldest known forms of various fairy tales, on the stylistic evidence, all the writers rewrote the tales for literary effect.^[38]

The first collectors to attempt to preserve not only the plot and characters of the tale, but also the style in which they were told, were the Brothers Grimm, collecting German fairy tales; ironically, this meant although their first edition (1812 & 1815)^[30] remains a treasure for folklorists, they rewrote the tales in later editions to make them more acceptable, which ensured their sales and the later popularity of their work.^[39]

Such literary forms did not merely draw from the folktale, but also influenced folktales in turn. The Brothers Grimm rejected several tales for their collection, though told orally to them by Germans, because the tales derived from Perrault, and they concluded they were thereby French and not German tales; an oral version of Bluebeard was thus rejected, and the tale of Briar Rose, clearly related to Perrault's Sleeping Beauty, was included only because Jacob Grimm convinced his brother that the figure of Brynhildr, from much earlier Norse mythology, proved that the sleeping princess was authentically Germanic folklore.^[40]

This consideration of whether to keep Sleeping Beauty reflected a belief common among folklorists of the 19th century: that the folk tradition preserved fairy tales in forms from pre-history except when "contaminated" by such literary forms, leading people to tell inauthentic tales.^[41] The rural, illiterate, and uneducated peasants, if suitably isolated, were the folk and would tell pure folk tales.^[42] Sometimes they regarded fairy tales as a form of fossil, the remnants of a once-perfect tale.^[43] However, further research has concluded that fairy tales never had a fixed form, and regardless of literary influence, the tellers constantly altered them for their own purposes.^[44]

The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe, in a spirit of romantic nationalism, that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were the Russian Alexander Afanasyev (first published in 1866),^[30] the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (first published in 1845),^[30] the Romanian Petre Ispirescu (first published in 1874), the English Joseph Jacobs (first published in 1890),^[30] and Jeremiah Curtin, an American who collected Irish tales (first published in 1890).^[26] Ethnographers collected fairy tales over the world, finding similar tales in Africa, the Americas, and Australia; Andrew Lang was able to draw on not only the written tales of Europe and Asia, but those collected by ethnographers, to fill his "coloured" fairy books series.^[45] They also encouraged other collectors of fairy tales, as when Yei Theodora Ozaki created a collection, Japanese Fairy Tales (1908), after encouragement from Lang.^[46] Simultaneously, writers such as Hans Christian Andersen and George MacDonald continued the tradition of literary fairy tales. Andersen's work sometimes drew on old folktales, but more often deployed fairytale motifs and plots in new tales.^[47] MacDonald incorporated fairytale motifs both in new literary fairy tales, such as The Light Princess, and in works of the genre that would become fantasy, as in The Princess and the Goblin or Lilith.^[48]

Cross-cultural transmission[link]

Two theories of origins have attempted to explain the common elements in fairy tales found spread over continents. One is that a single point of origin generated any given tale, which then spread over the centuries; the other is that such fairy tales stem from common human experience and therefore can appear separately in many different origins.^[49]

Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs are found spread across many different cultures. Many researchers hold this to be caused by the spread of such tales, as people repeat tales they have heard in foreign lands, although the oral nature makes it impossible to trace the route except by inference.^[50] Folklorists have attempted to determine the origin by internal evidence, which can not always be clear; Joseph Jacobs, comparing the Scottish tale The Ridere of Riddles with the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, The Riddle, noted that in The Ridere of Riddles one hero ends up polygamously married, which might point to an ancient custom, but in The Riddle, the simpler riddle might argue greater antiquity.^[51]

Folklorists of the "Finnish" (or historical-geographical) school attempted to place fairy tales to their origin, with inconclusive results.^[52] Sometimes influence, especially within a limited area and time, is clearer, as when considering the influence of Perrault's tales on those collected by the Brothers Grimm. Little Briar-Rose appears to stem from Perrault's Sleeping Beauty, as the Grimms' tale appears to be the only independent German variant.^[53] Similarly, the close agreement between the opening of Grimms' version of Little Red Riding Hood and Perrault's tale points to an influence – although Grimms' version adds a different ending (perhaps derived from The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids).^[54]

Fairy tales also tend to take on the color of their location, through the choice of motifs, the style in which they are told, and the depiction of character and local color.^[55]

Association with children[link]

Originally, adults were the audience of a fairy tale just as often as children.^[56] Literary fairy tales appeared in works intended for adults, but in the 19th and 20th centuries the fairy tale became associated with children's literature.

Cutlery for children. Detail showing fairy-tale scenes: Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel.

The précieuses, including Madame d'Aulnoy, intended their works for adults, but regarded their source as the tales that servants, or other women of lower class, would tell to children.^[57] Indeed, a novel of that time, depicting a countess's suitor offering to tell such a tale, has the countess exclaim that she loves fairy tales as if she were still a child.^[58] Among the late précieuses, Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont redacted a version of Beauty and the Beast for children, and it is her tale that is best known today.^[59] The Brothers Grimm titled their collection Children's and Household Tales and rewrote their tales after complaints that they were not suitable for children.^[60]

In the modern era, fairy tales were altered so that they could be read to children. The Brothers Grimm concentrated mostly on eliminating sexual references;^[61] Rapunzel, in the first edition, revealed the prince's visits by asking why her clothing had grown tight, thus letting the witch deduce that she was pregnant, but in subsequent editions carelessly revealed that it was easier to pull up the prince than the witch.^[62] On the other hand, in many respects, violence – particularly when punishing villains – was increased.^[63] Other, later, revisions cut out violence; J. R. R. Tolkien noted that The Juniper Tree often had its cannibalistic stew cut out in a version intended for children.^[64] The moralizing strain in the Victorian era altered the classical tales to teach lessons, as when George Cruikshank rewrote Cinderella in 1854 to contain temperance themes. His acquaintance Charles Dickens protested, "In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected."^[65][66]

Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim, who regarded the cruelty of older fairy tales as indicative of psychological conflicts, strongly criticized this expurgation, because it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues.^[67]

The adaptation of fairy tales for children continues. Walt Disney's influential Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was largely (although certainly not solely) intended for the children's market.^[68] The anime Magical Princess Minky Momo draws on the fairy tale Momotarō.^[69] Jack Zipes has spent many years working to make the older traditional stories accessible to modern readers and their children.^[70]

Contemporary tales[link]

Literary[link]

John Bauer's illustration of trolls and a princess from a collection of Swedish fairy tales

In contemporary literature, many authors have used the form of fairy tales for various reasons, such as examining the human condition from the simple framework a fairytale provides.^[71] Some authors seek to recreate a sense of the fantastic in a contemporary discourse.^[72] Some writers use fairy tale forms for modern issues;^[73] this can include using the psychological dramas implicit in the story, as when Robin McKinley retold Donkeyskin as the novel Deerskin, with emphasis on the abusive treatment the father of the tale dealt to his daughter.^[74] Sometimes, especially in children's literature, fairy tales are retold with a twist simply for comic effect, such as The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and The ASBO Fairy Tales by Chris Pilbeam. A common comic motif is a world where all the fairy tales take place, and the characters are aware of their role in the story,^[75] such as in the film series Shrek.

Other authors may have specific motives, such as multicultural or feminist reevaluations of predominantly Eurocentric masculine-dominated fairy tales, implying critique of older narratives.^[76] The figure of the damsel in distress has been particularly attacked by many feminist critics. Examples of narrative reversal rejecting this figure include The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch, a picture book aimed at children in which a princess rescues a prince, and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, which retells a number of fairy tales from a female point of view.^[77]

One use of the genre occurred in a military technology journal named Defense AT&L, which published an article as a fairytale titled Optimizing Bi-Modal Signal/Noise Ratios. Written by Maj. Dan Ward (USAF), the story uses a fairy named Garble to represent breakdowns in communication between operators and technology developers.^[78] Ward's article was heavily influenced by George MacDonald.

Other notable figures who have employed fairy tales include Oscar Wilde, ^[79] Jean Ingelow, Sara Coleridge,^[79] Kathryn Davis, A. S. Byatt, Italo Calvino, Jane Yolen, Terri Windling, Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, Margaret Atwood, Kate Bernheimer, Espido Freire, Tanith Lee, James Thurber, Robin McKinley, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kelly Link, Bruce Holland Rogers, Donna Jo Napoli, Cameron Dokey, Rikki Ducornet, Robert Bly, Gail Carson Levine, Katie Farris, Annette Marie Hyder, Jasper Fforde, and many others.^{[citation needed]}

It may be hard to lay down the rule between fairy tales and fantasies that use fairy tale motifs, or even whole plots, but the distinction is commonly made, even within the works of a single author: George MacDonald's Lilith and Phantastes are regarded as fantasies, while his "The Light Princess", "The Golden Key", and "The Wise Woman" are commonly called fairy tales. The most notable distinction is that fairytale fantasies, like other fantasies, make use of novelistic writing conventions of prose, characterization, or setting.^[80]

Film[link]

Fairy tales have been enacted dramatically; records exist of this in commedia dell'arte,^[81] and later in pantomime.^[82] The advent of cinema has meant that such stories could be presented in a more plausible manner, with the use of special effects and animation; the Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 was a ground-breaking film for fairy tales and, indeed, fantasy in general.^[68] Disney's influence helped establish this genre as a children's genre, and has been blamed for simplification of fairy tales ending in situations where everything goes right, as opposed to the pain and suffering – and sometimes unhappy endings – of many folk fairy tales.^[74]

Many filmed fairy tales have been made primarily for children, from Disney's later works to Aleksandr Rou's retelling of Vasilissa the Beautiful, the first Soviet film to use Russian folk tales in a big-budget feature.^[83] Others have used the conventions of fairy tales to create new stories with sentiments more relevant to contemporary life, as in Labyrinth,^[84] My Neighbor Totoro, the films of Michel Ocelot,^[85] and Happily N'Ever After.

Other works have retold familiar fairy tales in a darker, more horrific or psychological variant aimed primarily at adults. Notable examples are Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast^[86] and The Company of Wolves, based on an Angela Carter's retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.^[87] Likewise, Princess Mononoke,^[88] Pan's Labyrinth,^[89] Suspiria, and Spike^[90] create new stories in this genre from fairy tale and folklore motifs.

In comics and animated TV series, The Sandman, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, Fables and MÄR all make use of standard fairy tale elements to various extents but are more accurately categorised as fairytale fantasy due to the definite locations and characters which a longer narrative requires.

A more modern cinematic fairy tale would be Luchino Visconti’s Le Notti Bianche, starring Marcello Mastroianni before he became a superstar. It involves many of the romantic conventions of fairy tales, yet it takes place in post-World War II Italy, and it ends realistically.

Motifs[link]

Any comparison of fairy tales quickly discovers that many fairy tales have features in common with each other. Two of the most influential classifications are those of Antti Aarne, as revised by Stith Thompson into the Aarne-Thompson classification system, and Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale.

Aarne-Thompson[link]

This system groups fairy and folk tales according to their overall plot. Common, identifying features are picked out to decide which tales are grouped together. Much therefore depends on what features are regarded as decisive.

For instance, tales like Cinderella – in which a persecuted heroine, with the help of the fairy godmother or similar magical helper, attends an event (or three) in which she wins the love of a prince and is identified as his true bride – are classified as type 510, the persecuted heroine. Some such tales are The Wonderful Birch; Aschenputtel; Katie Woodencloak; The Story of Tam and Cam; Ye Xian; Cap O' Rushes; Catskin; Fair, Brown and Trembling; Finette Cendron; Allerleirauh; .

Further analysis of the tales shows that in Cinderella, The Wonderful Birch, The Story of Tam and Cam, Ye Xian, and Aschenputtel, the heroine is persecuted by her stepmother and refused permission to go to the ball or other event, and in Fair, Brown and Trembling and Finette Cendron by her sisters and other female figures, and these are grouped as 510A; while in Cap O' Rushes, Catskin, and Allerleirauh, the heroine is driven from home by her father's persecutions, and must take work in a kitchen elsewhere, and these are grouped as 510B. But in Katie Woodencloak, she is driven from home by her stepmother's persecutions and must take service in a kitchen elsewhere, and in Tattercoats, she is refused permission to go to the ball by her grandfather. Given these features common with both types of 510, Katie Woodencloak is classified as 510A because the villain is the stepmother, and Tattercoats as 510B because the grandfather fills the father's role.

This system has its weaknesses in the difficulty of having no way to classify subportions of a tale as motifs. Rapunzel is type 310 (The Maiden in the Tower), but it opens with a child being demanded in return for stolen food, as does Puddocky; but Puddocky is not a Maiden in the Tower tale, while The Canary Prince, which opens with a jealous stepmother, is.

It also lends itself to emphasis on the common elements, to the extent that the folklorist describes The Black Bull of Norroway as the same story as Beauty and the Beast. This can be useful as a shorthand but can also erase the coloring and details of a story.^[91]

Morphology[link]

Vladimir Propp specifically studied a collection of Russian fairy tales, but his analysis has been found useful for the tales of other countries.^[92]

Father Frost acts as a donor in the Russian fairy tale Father Frost, testing the heroine before giving her riches.

Having criticized Aarne-Thompson type analysis for ignoring what motifs did in stories, and because the motifs used were not clearly distinct,^[93] he analyzed the tales for the function each character and action fulfilled and concluded that a tale was composed of thirty-one elements and eight character types. While the elements were not all required for all tales, when they appeared they did so in an invariant order – except that each individual element might be negated twice, so that it would appear three times, as when, in Brother and Sister, the brother resists drinking from enchanted streams twice, so that it is the third that enchants him.^[94]

One such element is the donor who gives the hero magical assistance, often after testing him.^[95] In The Golden Bird, the talking fox tests the hero by warning him against entering an inn and, after he succeeds, helps him find the object of his quest; in The Boy Who Drew Cats, the priest advised the hero to stay in small places at night, which protects him from an evil spirit; in Cinderella, the fairy godmother gives Cinderella the dresses she needs to attend the ball, as their mothers' spirits do in Bawang Putih Bawang Merah and The Wonderful Birch; in The Fox Sister, a Buddhist monk gives the brothers magical bottles to protect against the fox spirit. The roles can be more complicated.^[96] In The Red Ettin, the role is split into the mother – who offers the hero the whole of a journey cake with her curse or half with her blessing – and when he takes the half, a fairy who gives him advice; in Mr Simigdáli, the sun, the moon, and the stars all give the heroine a magical gift. Characters who are not always the donor can act like the donor.^[97] In Kallo and the Goblins, the villain goblins also give the heroine gifts, because they are tricked; in Schippeitaro, the evil cats betray their secret to the hero, giving him the means to defeat them. Other fairy tales, such as The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, do not feature the donor.

Analogies have been drawn between this and the analysis of myths into the Hero's journey.^[98]

This analysis has been criticized for ignoring tone, mood, characters and, indeed, anything that differentiates one fairy tale from another.^[99]

Interpretations[link]

Many fairy tales have been interpreted for their (purported) significance. One mythological interpretation claimed that many fairy tales, including Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, and The Frog King, all were solar myths; this mode of interpretation is rather less popular now.^[100] Many have also been subjected to Freudian, Jungian, and other psychological analysis, but no mode of interpretation has ever established itself definitively.^[101]

Specific analyses have often been criticized for lending great importance to motifs that are not, in fact, integral to the tale; this has often stemmed from treating one instance of a fairy tale as the definitive text, where the tale has been told and retold in many variations.^[102] In variants of Bluebeard, the wife's curiosity is betrayed by a blood-stained key, by an egg's breaking, or by the singing of a rose she wore, without affecting the tale, but interpretations of specific variants have claimed that the precise object is integral to the tale.^[103]

Other folklorists have interpreted tales as historical documents. Many German folklorists, believing the tales to have been preserved from ancient times, used Grimms' tales to explain ancient customs.^[104] Other folklorists have explained the figure of the wicked stepmother historically: many women did die in childbirth, their husbands remarried, and the new stepmothers competed with the children of the first marriage for resources.^[105]

Compilations[link]

Authors and works:

• Mixed Up Fairy Tales
• Book of British Fairy Tales (United Kingdom, 1984) by Alan Garner
• Fairy Tales (USA, 1965) by E. E. Cummings
• Fairy Tales, Now First Collected: To which are prefixed two dissertations: 1. On Pygmies. 2. On Fairies (England, 1831) by Joseph Ritson
• Giovanni Francesco Straparola (Italy, 16th century)
• Grimm's Fairy Tales (Germany, 1812–1857)
• Hans Christian Andersen (Denmark, 1805–1875)
• Italian Folktales (Italy, 1956) by Italo Calvino
• Joseph Jacobs (1854–1916)
• Legende sau basmele românilor (Romania, 1874) by Petre Ispirescu
• Madame d'Aulnoy (France, 1650–1705)
• Norwegian Folktales (Norway, 1845–1870) by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe
• Narodnye russkie skazki (Russia, 1855–1863) by Alexander Afanasyev
• Pentamerone (Italy, 1634–1636) by Giambattista Basile
• Charles Perrault (France, 1628–1703)
• Panchatantra (India, 3rd century BCE)
• Popular Tales of the West Highlands (Scotland, 1862) by John Francis Campbell
• Ruth Manning-Sanders (Wales, 1886–1988)
• Kunio Yanagita (Japan, 1875–1962)
• World Tales (United Kingdom, 1979) by Idries Shah

See also[link]

Children and Young Adult Literature portal

• Bengt Holbek
• Fairytale fantasy
• Fable
• Nursery rhyme
• Saga
• Skazka

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson: The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography (Helsinki, 1961)
• Thompson, Stith, The Folktale.
• Heidi Anne Heiner, "The Quest for the Earliest Fairy Tales: Searching for the Earliest Versions of European Fairy Tales with Commentary on English Translations"
• Heidi Anne Heiner, "Fairy Tale Timeline"
• Carrassi, Vito, "Il fairy tale nella tradizione narrativa irlandese. Un itinerario storico e culturale", Bari 2008.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fairy tales

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Fairy tales

• Fairy tales and fables traditions and reality through imagination
• SurLaLune: Annotated fairy tales with histories, illustrations and interpretations
• Cabinet des Fees - An Online Journal of Fairy Tale Fiction
• Fables - Collection and guide to fables and Fairy Tales for children
• Once Upon a Time - How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives, by Jonathan Young, Ph.D.
• Once Upon A Time: Historical and Illustrated Fairy Tales. Special Collections, University of Colorado Boulder
• CiffCiaff - Multi-language fairy tales collection

Harry Shearer
Shearer giving a speech in August 2009
Born	Harry Julius Shearer (1943-12-23) December 23, 1943 (age 68) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, comedian, writer, voice artist, musician, author, radio host
Years active	1953–present
Spouse	Penny Nichols (1974–1977) Judith Owen (1993–present)
Website
http://www.harryshearer.com

Harry Julius Shearer (born December 23, 1943) is an American actor, comedian, writer, voice artist, musician, author, radio host and director. He is known for his long-running role on The Simpsons, his work on Saturday Night Live, the comedy band Spinal Tap and his radio program Le Show. Born in Los Angeles, California, Shearer began his career as a child actor, appearing in The Jack Benny Program, as well as the 1953 films Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and The Robe. In 1957, Shearer played the precursor to the Eddie Haskell character in the pilot episode for the television series Leave It to Beaver, but his parents decided not to let him continue in the role so that he could have a normal childhood.

From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group. Following the breakup of the group, Shearer co-wrote the film Real Life with Albert Brooks and started writing for Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night. In August 1979, Shearer was hired as a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live. Shearer describes his experience on the show as a "living hell" and he did not get along well with the other writers and cast members. He left the show in 1980. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in the 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap, a satirical rockumentary about a band called Spinal Tap. Shearer portrayed Derek Smalls, the bassist, and Michael McKean and Christopher Guest played the other two members. The film became a cult hit and the band has since released several albums and played several concerts. While promoting the film, Shearer was offered the chance to return to Saturday Night Live. He accepted, but left the show for good in January 1985, just three months into the season. Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show on Santa Monica's NPR-affiliated radio station, KCRW. The program, a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy, is carried on many public radio stations throughout the United States.

In 1989, Shearer became a part of the cast of The Simpsons. He was initially reluctant because he thought the recording sessions would be too much trouble. He felt voice acting was "not a lot of fun" because traditionally, voice actors record their parts separately. He provides voices for numerous characters, including Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny Leonard, Principal Skinner, Otto Mann and Rainier Wolfcastle. Shearer has been vocal about what he perceives as the show's declining quality. In 2004, he said "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst."^[1]

Shearer directed the 2002 film Teddy Bears' Picnic and appeared in several films, including A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, The Simpsons Movie and Godzilla among many others. Shearer has written three books, Man Bites Town, It's the Stupidity, Stupid, and Not Enough Indians. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. He has received several Primetime Emmy Award and Grammy Award nominations and in 2008 it was announced that Shearer would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the radio category.

Early life[link]

Mel Blanc took Shearer "under his wing" during his early days in show-business.

Shearer was born December 23, 1943 in Los Angeles, California, the son of Dora Warren (née Kohn), a book-keeper, and Mack Shearer.^[2] His parents were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Poland.^[3][4] Starting when Shearer was four years old, he had a piano teacher whose daughter worked as a child actress. The piano teacher later decided to make a career change and become a children's agent, as she knew people in the business through her daughter's work. The teacher asked Shearer's parents for permission to take him to an audition. Several months later, she called Shearer's parents and told them that she had gotten Shearer an audition for the radio show The Jack Benny Program. Shearer received the role when he was seven years old.^[5] He described Jack Benny as "very warm and approachable [...] He was a guy who dug the idea of other people on the show getting laughs, which sort of spoiled me for other people in comedy."^[6] Shearer said in an interview that one person who "took him under his wing" and was one of his best friends during his early days in show business was voice actor Mel Blanc, who voiced many animated characters, including Bugs Bunny , Daffy Duck and Barney Rubble.^[7] Shearer made his film debut in the 1953 film Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, in which he only had a small part. Later that year, he made his first big film performance in The Robe.^[6] Throughout his childhood and teenage years he worked in television, film, and radio.^[6] In 1957, Shearer played the precursor to the Eddie Haskell character in the pilot episode of the television series Leave It to Beaver. After the filming, Shearer's parents said they did not want him to be a regular in a series. Instead they wanted him to just do occasional work so that he could have a normal childhood. Shearer and his parents made the decision not to accept the role in the series if it was picked up by a television network.^[6]

Shearer attended UCLA as a political science major in the early 1960s and decided to quit show business to become a "serious person".^[5] However, he says this lasted approximately a month, and he joined the staff of the Daily Bruin, UCLA's school newspaper, during his freshman year.^[5] According to Shearer, after graduating, he had "a very serious agenda going on, and it was 'Stay Out Of The Draft'."^[5] He attended graduate school at Harvard University for one year and worked at the state legislature in Sacramento. In 1967 and 1968 he was a high school teacher, teaching English and social studies. He left teaching following "disagreements with the administration."^[5]

From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group that included David Lander, Richard Beebe and Michael McKean.^[8] The group consisted of "a bunch of newsmen" at KRLA 1110, "the number two station" in Los Angeles.^[6] They wanted to do more than just straight news, so they hired comedians who were talented vocalists. Shearer heard about it from a friend so he brought over a tape to the station and nervously gave it to the receptionist. By the time he got home, there was a message on his answering machine asking, "Can you come to work tomorrow?"^[6] The group's radio show was canceled in 1970 by KRLA and in 1971 by KPPC-FM, so they started performing in various clubs and concert venues.^[5] While at KRLA, Shearer also interviewed Creedence Clearwater Revival for the Pop Chronicles music documentary.^[9] The group broke up 1976 when Lander and McKean left to perform in the sitcom Laverne & Shirley.^[5] Shearer started working with Albert Brooks, producing one of Brooks' albums and co-writing the film Real Life. Shearer also started writing for Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night.^[5] In the mid-1970s, he started working with Rob Reiner on a pilot for ABC. The show, which starred Christopher Guest, Tom Leopold and McKean, was not picked up.^[5]

Career[link]

[edit] Saturday Night Live

In August 1979, Shearer was hired as a writer and cast member on Saturday Night Live, one of the first additions to the cast,^[6] and an unofficial replacement for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, who were both leaving the show.^[10] Al Franken recommended Shearer to Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels.^[11] Shearer describes his experience on the show as a "living hell" and "not a real pleasant place to work."^[10] He did not get along well with the other writers and cast members and states that he was not included with the cast in the opening montage, and that Lorne Michaels had told the rest of the cast that he was just a writer.^[12] Michaels left Saturday Night Live at the end of the fifth season, taking the entire cast with him.^[13] Shearer told new executive producer Jean Doumanian that he was "not a fan of Lorne's" and offered to stay with the show if he was given the chance to overhaul the program and bring in experienced comedians, like Christopher Guest. However, Doumanian turned him down, so he decided to leave with the rest of the cast.^[14]

In 1984, while promoting the film This Is Spinal Tap, Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean had a performance on Saturday Night Live. All three members were offered the chance to join to the show in the 1984–1985 season. Shearer accepted because he was treated well by the producers and he thought the backstage environment had improved^[10] but later stated that he "didn't realize that guests are treated better than the regulars."^[16] Guest also accepted the offer while McKean rejected it, although he would join the cast in 1993. Dick Ebersol, who replaced Lorne Michaels as the show's producer, said that Shearer was "a gifted performer but a pain in the butt. He's just so demanding on the preciseness of things and he's very, very hard on the working people. He's just a nightmare-to-deal-with person."^[17] In January 1985, Shearer left the show for good,^[10] partially because he felt he was not being used enough.^[15] Martin Short said "[Shearer] wanted to be creative and Dick [Ebersol] wanted something else. [...] I think he felt his voice wasn't getting represented on the show. When he wouldn't get that chance, it made him very upset."^[18]

Spinal Tap[link]

Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in Rob Reiner's 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap.^[6] Shearer, Reiner, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest received a deal to write a first draft of a screenplay for a company called Marble Arch. They decided that the film could not be written and instead filmed a 20 minute demo of what they wanted to do.^[10] It was eventually greenlighted by Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio at Embassy Pictures.^[10] The film satirizes the wild personal behavior and musical pretensions of hard rock and heavy metal bands, as well as the hagiographic tendencies of rockumentaries of the time. The three core members of the band Spinal Tap—David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel—were portrayed by McKean, Shearer and Guest respectively. The three actors play their musical instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the film. There was no script, although there was a written breakdown of most of the scenes, and many of the lines were ad-libbed.^[10] It was filmed in 25 days.^[10]

Shearer said in an interview that "The animating impulse was to do rock 'n' roll right. The four of us had been around rock 'n' roll and we were just amazed by how relentlessly the movies got it wrong. Because we were funny people it was going to be a funny film, but we wanted to get it right."^[2] When they tried to sell it to various Hollywood studios, they were told that the film would not work. The group kept saying, "No, this is a story that's pretty familiar to people. We're not introducing them to anything they don't really know," so Shearer thought it would at least have some resonance with the public.^[6] The film was only a modest success upon its initial release but found greater success, and a cult following, after its video release. In 2000, the film was ranked 29th on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy movies in American cinema^[19] and it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[20]

Shearer, Guest and McKean have since worked on several projects as their Spinal Tap characters. They released three albums: This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Break Like the Wind (1992) and Back From The Dead (2009).^[21] In 1992, Spinal Tap appeared in an episode of The Simpsons called "The Otto Show".^[22] The band has played several concerts, including at Live Earth in London on July 7, 2007. In anticipation of the show, Rob Reiner directed a short film entitled Spinal Tap.^[23] In 2009, the band released Back from the Dead to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of the film.^[24] The album features re-recorded versions of songs featured in This Is Spinal Tap and its soundtrack, and five new songs.^[25][26] The band performed a one date "world tour" at London's Wembley Arena on June 30, 2009. The Folksmen, a mock band featured in the film A Mighty Wind that is also made up of characters played by Shearer, McKean and Guest—was the opening act for the show.^[27]

[edit] The Simpsons

Shearer may be best known for his prolific work as a voice actor on The Simpsons. Matt Groening, the creator of the show, was a fan of Shearer's work, while Shearer was a fan of a column Groening used to write.^[28] Shearer was asked if he wanted to be in the series, but he was initially reluctant because he thought the recording sessions would be too much trouble.^[28] He felt voice acting was "not a lot of fun" because traditionally, voice actors record their parts separately.^[7] He was told that the actors would record their lines together^[7] and after three calls, executive producer James L. Brooks managed to convince Shearer to join the cast.^[2] Shearer's first impression of The Simpsons was that it was funny. Shearer, who thought it was a "pretty cool" way to work, found it peculiar that the members of the cast were adamant about not being known to the public as the people behind the voices.^[6]

Shearer provides voices for Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny Leonard, Otto Mann, Rainier Wolfcastle, Dr. Marvin Monroe and many others.^[29] He describes all of his regular characters' voices as "easy to slip into. [...] I wouldn't do them if they weren't easy."^[28] Shearer modeled Mr. Burns's voice on the two actors Lionel Barrymore and Ronald Reagan.^[30] Shearer said that Burns is the most difficult character for him to voice because it is rough on his vocal cords and he often needs to drink tea and honey to soothe his voice.^[31] He describes Burns as his favorite character, saying he "like[s] Mr. Burns because he is pure evil. A lot of evil people make the mistake of diluting it. Never adulterate your evil."^[32] Shearer is also the voice of Burns' assistant Smithers, and is able to perform dialogue between the two characters in one take.^[33] Ned Flanders had been meant to be just a neighbor that Homer was jealous of, but because Shearer used "such a sweet voice" for him, Flanders was broadened to become a Christian and a sweet guy that someone would prefer to live next to over Homer.^[34] Dr. Marvin Monroe's voice is based on psychiatrist David Viscott.^[35] Monroe has been retired since the seventh season because voicing the character strained Shearer's throat.^[36]

In 2004, Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so Season Four looks very good to me now."^[1] Shearer has also been vocal about "The Principal and the Pauper" (season nine, 1997) one of the most controversial episodes of The Simpsons. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Principal Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by both Shearer and Groening. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience."^[37] Due to scheduling and availability conflicts, Shearer decided not to participate in The Simpsons Ride, which opened in 2008, so none of his characters have vocal parts and many do not appear in the ride at all.^[38]

Until 1998, Shearer was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices.^[39] The dispute, however, was resolved and Shearer received $125,000 per episode until 2004, when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode.^[39] The dispute was resolved a month later,^[40] and Shearer's pay rose to $250,000 per episode.^[41] After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors received $400,000 per episode.^[42] Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Shearer and the other cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode.^[43]

[edit] Le Show and radio work

Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show on Santa Monica's NPR-affiliated radio station, KCRW. The program is a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy that takes aim at the "mega morons of the mighty media".^[45] It is carried on many National Public Radio and other public radio stations throughout the United States.^[46] Since the merger of SIRIUS and XM satellite radio services the program is no longer available on either.^[47] The show has also been made available as a podcast on iTunes.^[48] On the weekly program Shearer alternates between DJing, reading and commenting on the news of the day after the manner of Mort Sahl, and performing original (mostly political) comedy sketches and songs. In 2008, Shearer released a music CD called Songs of the Bushmen, consisting of his satirical numbers about former President George W. Bush on Le Show.^[2] Shearer says he criticizes both Republicans and Democrats equally, and also says that "the iron law of doing comedy about politics is you make fun of whoever is running the place"^[49] and that "everyone else is just running around talking. They are the ones who are actually doing something, changing people's lives for better or for worse. Other people the media calls 'satirists' don't work that way."^[50]

Since encountering satellite news feeds when he worked on Saturday Night Live, Shearer has been fascinated with the contents of the video that does not air. Shearer refers to these clips as found objects. "I thought, wow, there is just an unending supply of this material, and it’s wonderful and fascinating and funny and sometimes haunting — but it’s always good," said Shearer.^[51] He collects this material and uses it on Le Show^[52][53] and on his website.^[54] In 2008, he assembled video clips of newsmakers from this collection into an art installation titled "The Silent Echo Chamber" which was exhibited at the The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut.^[51] The exhibit was also displayed in 2009 at Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM) in Valencia, Spain ^[55][56] and in 2010 at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center.^[57]

In 2006 Shearer appeared with Brian Hayes in four episodes of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Not Today, Thank You, playing Nostrils, a man so ugly he cannot stand to be in his own presence.^[58] He was originally scheduled to appear in all six episodes but had to withdraw from recording two due to a problem with his work permit.^[59]

On June 19, 2008, it was announced that Shearer would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the radio category.^[60] The date of the ceremony where his star will be put in place has yet to be announced.^[61]

Further career[link]

Shearer performing in April 2009

In 2002, Shearer directed his first feature film Teddy Bears' Picnic, which he also wrote. The plot is based on Bohemian Grove, which hosts a three-week encampment of some of the most powerful men in the world. The film was not well-received by critics. It garnered a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with all 19 reviews being determined as negative^[62] and received a rating of 32 out of 100 (signifying "generally negative reviews") on Metacritic from 10 reviews.^[63] In 2003, he co-wrote J. Edgar! The Musical with Tom Leopold, which spoofed J. Edgar Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson.^[64] It premiered at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado and starred Kelsey Grammer and John Goodman.^[65]

In 2003, Shearer, Guest and McKean starred in the folk music mockumentary A Mighty Wind, portraying a band called The Folksmen. The film was written by Guest and Eugene Levy, and directed by Guest.^[6] Shearer had a major role in the Guest-directed parody of Oscar politicking For Your Consideration in 2006. He played Victor Allan Miller, a veteran actor who is convinced that he is going to be nominated for an Academy Award.^[66] He also appeared as a news anchor in Godzilla with fellow The Simpsons cast members Hank Azaria and Nancy Cartwright.^[67] His other film appearances include The Right Stuff, Portrait of a White Marriage, The Fisher King, The Truman Show, EdTV and Small Soldiers.^[68]

Shearer has also worked as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, but decided that it "became such a waste of time to bother with it."^[50] His columns have also been published in Slate and Newsweek.^[69] Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.^[68] Shearer has written three books. Man Bites Town, published in 1993, is a collection of columns that he wrote for The Los Angeles Times between 1989 and 1992.^[37] Published in 1999, It's the Stupidity, Stupid analyzed the hatred some people had for then-President Bill Clinton.^[70] Shearer believes that Clinton became disliked because he had an affair with "the least powerful, least credentialed women cleared into his official compound."^[37] His most recent book is Not Enough Indians, his first novel. Published in 2006, it is a comic novel about Native Americans and gambling.^[68] Without the "pleasures of collaboration" and "spontaneity and improvisation which characterize his other projects", Not Enough Indians was a "struggle" for Shearer to write. He said that "the only fun thing about it was having written it. It was lonely, I had no deal for it and it took six years to do. It was a profoundly disturbing act of self-discipline."^[2]

Shearer has released five solo comedy albums: It Must Have Been Something I Said (1994), Dropping Anchors (2006), Songs Pointed and Pointless (2007), Songs of the Bushmen (2008) and Greed and Fear (2010).^[71] His most recent CD, Greed and Fear is mainly about Wall Street economic issues, rather than politics like his previous albums. Shearer decided to make the album when he"started getting amused by the language of the economic meltdown — when 'toxic assets' suddenly became 'troubled assets,' going from something poisoning the system to just a bunch of delinquent youth with dirty faces that needed not removal from the system but just...understanding."^[72]

In May 2006, Shearer received an honorary doctorate from Goucher College.^[73]

Shearer is the director of The Big Uneasy, a film about the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.^[74]

Personal life[link]

Shearer married Penelope Nichols in 1974. They divorced in 1977. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993.^[2] In 2005, the couple launched their own record label called Courgette Records.^[75] Shearer has homes in Santa Monica, California, the Faubourg Marigny of New Orleans, Louisiana, and London. He first came to New Orleans in 1988 and has attended every edition of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since.^[76]

Shearer often speaks and writes about the failure of the Federal levee system which flooded New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, belittling the coverage of it in the mainstream media^[77] and criticizing the role of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.^[78][79] Prior to the DVD release of his film, The Big Uneasy, Shearer would hold screenings of the film at different venues and take questions from audience members.^[80]

Filmography[link]

Films[link]