We all grew up with it: fairy tale endings. Whether it was the princess getting swept off her feet, or the prince getting his throne, we all lived with the knowledge that "happily ever after" isn't feasible in the real world.
Naturally, someone created an organization to try and change all that.
The Happy Endings Foundation, created two years ago in the UK, demanded the authors of children's books create happier endings to their stories, and called for bonfires to burn books with less than sunny outcomes.
The organization was reported on worldwide, including the Belfast Telegraph, BBC, and The Independent (Canada). And recently, the blogosphere served us up another serving of investigative journalism: the organization was found to be a hoax.
Despite its lack of actual existence, I think the concept is an interesting one. If you think about it, most Oscar winners in the past 20 years or so have been dramas, tragedies, or at least very dark stories with less than apocalyptic finales. (The Departed, Crash, A Beautiful Mind, and Gladiator, to name a few). We are somehow drawn to the dark, to the mysterious, to to those who lives lives more plagued or convoluted than our own. Granted, I do see tremendous power of positive messages. (Just look at Where the Hell is Matt?.) But we see the push for negative news all the time: fires trump science fairs, and murder/suicides beat out a local farmer's market.
Was Orson Welles right to say that "The story that ends happily is a story that ended too soon."?
In this day and age, maybe.
Related articles: from the BBC: Why the obsession with happy endings?
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1 comment:
so I loved the "where the hell is matt" thing. it made my day, but made me realize that i haven't really been anywhere. good idea though.
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