ABSTRACT
Issues of child abuse and abandonment have formed the crux of many different kinds of stories ever since humans began to speak. The Greek, Roman, and Egyptian myths and the Bible are full of them, not to mention the thousands of legends and initiation stories that have been gathered from indigenous tribes throughout the world. How old they are is anyone’s guess, but given the continual abuse and abandonment of children up through the twenty-first century, it is clear that the perpetual “problem” of raising, nourishing, and caring for children will occupy our hearts, minds, and stories for years to come. Thus, it is not by chance that filmmakers have adapted various fairy tales such as “Hansel and Gretel,” “Tom Thumb,” “The Pied Piper,” “Donkey-Skin” and “The Juniper Tree” to comment metaphorically on modern attitudes toward the maltreatment of children, the causes of physical abuse and violence suffered by young people, and the trauma of incest. Though many other types of stories touch on these themes, I have selected some of the more prominent fairy tales and their cinematic adaptations to understand how filmmakers have endeavored to create new discursive and cinematic strategies to shed light on abuse and abandonment.
