The "Teddy" Bears-1907-Edwin S. Porter-A fairy tale silent political satire against Teddy Roosevelt

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• published: 28 Jul 2013
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This bizarre silent reel, The "teddy" Bears, 1907, helmed by Edwin S. Porter (photographer of the technically impressive Great Train Robbery) and produced by the Edison Mfg. Co., was a contemporary re-imagining of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Though only thirteen minutes in length, Porter manages to pack in a fairy tale narrative, an oddball political satire, and even an impressive bit of stop-animation. The bulk of the reel is a straight-forward re-telling of the Goldilocks tale, interrupted by a short animated section with acrobatic, Exorcist-esque teddy bears, and finishing up with a Teddy Roosevelt-impersonating hunter 'saving' the day by massacring Ma and Pa Bear...The reel is obviously crude, with its few highlights including nice costuming and set pieces, the painstaking animation process (apparently shot frame by frame during a grueling week-long filming session), and a set of exterior shots in the snow. The real point of interest, I think, is the compelling amalgam of genres and narratives at play within such a short film. Such bold dismissal of coherence rarely exists today, nor did it exist much further into the subsequent decades, as films became longer and more complex. Part of this is due to technological limitations; the short reel format didn't have a lot of room for storytelling, and therefore relied heavily upon an audience's understanding of the narrative. Thus, we have the odd mixture of fairy tale, marketing, and politics. Each genre reaches a certain critical tipping point or threshold, often represented by a landmark media event (e.g. Birth of a Nation, Citizen Kane, etc.). In 1907, film hadn't quite reached that point. However, many critical indices were falling into place, and some of the most important of these were the ability for mainstream capitalism, politics, and popular culture to appropriate the new art form for its own uses. All are present in The 'Teddy' Bears: Teddy bears were a popular fad and a clever marketing device (no surprise, coming from Edison's studio) and New York department stores featured the reel after its initial theatrical run. And, though its satirical potency is difficult to gauge now, we do have some form of commentary on President Roosevelt as well. This, and other shorts like it, showed that the emerging media of film was available for use as advertising, popular culture, and propaganda, and therefore taken seriously by an increasingly mainstream audience. These are all important milestones in the transition from novelty to art. (http://noattack.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/the-teddy-bears-1907/. Thanks, Nathan, a great review !)) The Goldilocks principle states that something must fall within certain margins, as opposed to reaching extremes. When the effects of the principle are observed, it is known as the Goldilocks effect. The Goldilocks principle is derived from a children's story "The Three Bears" in which a little girl named Goldilocks finds a house owned by three bears. Each bear has their own preference of food, beds, etc. After testing each of the three items, Goldilocks determines that one of them is always too much in one extreme (too hot, too large, etc.), one is too much in the opposite extreme (too cold, too small, etc.), and one is "just right". It is applied across many disciplines, particularly developmental psychology, biology, economics and engineering. In economics (and Teddy Roosevelt is the target) , a Goldilocks economy sustains moderate economic growth and low inflation, which allows a market-friendly monetary policy. A Goldilocks market is when the price of commodities sits between a bear market and a bull market. Goldilocks pricing is a marketing strategy that, although not directly related to the Goldilocks principle, uses product differentiation to offer three versions of a product to corner different parts of the market: a high-end version, a middle version and a low-end version. Resources: wikipedia.org, Library of Congress Soundtrack and dubbing: CinemaHistoryChannel Music: Kevin Mac Leod (www.incompetch.com) licensed under Creative Commons licence http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/ . Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0;