1. Why the obsession with happy endings?
Disney is all about happy endings on sad fairytales
By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine
We're always being warned not to expect happy endings to the ecological,
economic and political crises that beset the world, and yet when times are grim,
these upbeat conclusions abound in the stories we seek out.
Two years ago, a group called the Happy Endings Foundation momentarily came to
prominence.
They were demanding that authors of children's books come up with happier endings
and even suggested that works with less sunny conclusions should be burnt on "bad
book bonfires" held around the UK.
Soon, however, bloggers had investigated the foundation and revealed it was a
marketing hoax - the like of which abound on April Fools Day, although this was in
October. But by that time the BBC and several national and local newspapers had
carried the story.
The point is that this kind of campaign doesn't
seem that ridiculous. In troubled times there are
plenty of people who want happy endings - an
matter perhaps recognised by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Rowan Williams, last week, when he
cautioned God will not intervene in climate
change to supply a happy ending.
Go back to the 1930s, particularly to films of that
era, and you see the process of
"happyendingification" in full flow during a time Boy very much gets girl in the film
of grinding poverty and uncertainty about the Breakfast at Tiffany's
future.

2. What audiences wanted on both sides of the Atlantic was a dose of escapist fun. Or so
the financiers of culture thought.
Classic stories ended in a much more heartening fashion when they made it to the
silver screen.
But before you read any further, be warned - it's impossible to discuss this subject
frankly without breaking a few metaphorical eggs in the shape of plot spoilers.
Now, returning to Depression era America. Take 1931's classic Frankenstein. In the
book, Frankenstein marries but his wife Elizabeth is killed by the monster.
Frankenstein then meets his doom in the Arctic. In the film, however, Dr Frankenstein
and his wife live happily ever after.
Or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In Victor Hugo's novel, the ending sees
Esmeralda hanged and Quasimodo choosing to die next to her body. In the 1939 film
they both survive.
Even John Steinbeck's tale of misery in the
dustbowl, The Grapes of Wrath, found itself with
a more upbeat conclusion in the film made by
John Ford and released in 1940.
"The death of central characters sent completely
the wrong message at a time in American history
when they were coming out of a huge depression
and looking forward to a better future," says
National Media Museum film historian Tony Book: Esmeralda and Quasimodo
Earnshaw. dead. Film: Esmeralda and
Quasimodo fine
"They want to send people away from a movie
experiencing the idea of the hero getting the girl."
It is perhaps no surprise then that the term "Hollywood happy ending" has entered the
cultural lexicon in Britain, and even among some non-anglophones.
Fast forward to the present day and in our current straitened times and you will again
see happy endings.
Slumdog Millionaire swept the Oscars, representing the perfect hard times blend of a
grim tale with a euphoric ending.
At the same time, a publishing phenomenon of recent years, autobiographies of
troubled childhoods - "misery lit" - started to peter out last year.
Ending battles
"Misery memoirs aren't doing well," reveals Philip Stone, charts editor of the
Bookseller. "That genre might suffer a little bit in these times."

3. Of course, the theory can be undermined by
examples of happyendingification from every
decade, whether times were grim or not.
Go back to 1961 and the adaptation of Breakfast
at Tiffany's. In Truman Capote's novella, Holly
Golightly heads off to Brazil. In the film there's a
romantic happy ending where she ends up with
Paul. The film of the Grapes of Wrath
ends in a remarkably upbeat way
In 1982's Blade Runner the film ends with the
protagonists happily driving through the countryside. Ten years later and Ridley
Scott's director's cut deletes the happy ending and concludes the film with the couple
leaving the apartment with their future unknown.
From the 1990s, Quentin Tarantino's True Romance script had the central character
Clarence shot to death at the end. In the film, he
survives and we see him and his wife and child
frolicking happily on the beach.
And don't even get people started on Disney's
takes on traditional fairy tales.
You can even take it back to classical times. We
may think of Greek drama in terms of the
unrelenting tragedy of Oedipus Rex or Medea.
But even the Greeks expected a happy ending,
says Alan Sommerstein, professor of Greek at
Nottingham University.
"Greek tragic productions came in sets of four -
the fourth was always a roaring farce. And not all
tragedies had what we might call tragic endings." Romeo and Juliet doesn't make
sense with the lovers living
In Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris, the central happily ever after
character is thought to have been sacrificed before
the Trojan war. In fact she is taken away to the Crimea where she is made a high
priestess sacrificing Greek sailors. One day she takes pity on two Greeks and one
turns out to be her brother. They make good their escape.
"In a tragedy you have to have a terrible disaster taking place or narrowly avoided. It
doesn't matter which," says Mr Sommerstein.
And there was a belief that a tragedy could actually make people happier.
"Aristotle argues that tragic drama gives pleasure, arousing the emotions. I would
think myself of Shakespeare's time which was pretty grim, with the plague liable to
break out."

4. Shakespeare had both tragedies and comedies. It's hard to watch the bloodbath ending
of Hamlet and find any scrap of comfort. A version where Hamlet and Ophelia made
it to the end and lived happily ever after wouldn't quite do, even in Hollywood.
And yet one Shakespeare play about to get the silver screen treatment - the Winter's
Tale - is the classic Hollywood happy ending to the nth degree. The play has a deus ex
machina, where an ending is imposed from above, that featured so much in Greek
drama. And it's still a feature of stories today.
The ending of HG Wells' War of the Worlds didn't need to be changed at all for the
2005 Steven Spielberg movie. The world is saved when the invading aliens suddenly
die of disease. In a time of obsession with terror and cataclysm it made the perfect
happy ending for many.
But there are always some who regard the process of happyendingification as
fundamentally crass, a sign of the excessive commercialisation of the concept of
story, of pandering to our weaker side.
Aristotle wasn't happy when, a couple of generations after the passing of the classic
tragedy playwrights, he sensed that the plays were getting a bit more unthinkingly
jolly.
"He said the audience had gone pretty feeble," says Mr Sommerstein.
A selection of your comments appears below.
The problem with happy endings is that they have become more and more predictable.
The not-so-happy endings never disappoint me, and I don't think they ever will. Some
of the best classic novels have the protagonists die, but it is these characters we love
and can identify with, to some extent. Just take Wuthering Heights, One Flew over the
Cuckoo's Nest or 1984, Marley & Me. Need I go on? The hopelessness we experience
at the end of a novel or movie is simply a reflection of our knowledge that there isn't a
happy ending for everybody. We are in denial when we think bad things happen to
other people, but won't happen to ourselves. If you can't bear the lack of
happyendingification, stick to Disney movies or fairytales.
Stephanie Smith, Preston, Lancashire
It might do to look at the culture of both the film-makers and the audience. Americans
have the reputation of being cock-eyed optimists, so it makes sense that we should
prefer a happy ending. Or as the saying goes, "If the ending isn't happy, it hasn't
ended yet."
Karen, Colorado, USA