Mark's Pages

May 10, 2004:

Mythology.

Does a motif become mythological because of art?

Think of Spielberg's E.T. The film is to large degree a recycling of Peter Pan. Elliot is Wendy, the alien is Tinkerbell, the neighborhood boys on their bikes are the Lost Boys who fly. Elliot says to E.T., "I'll believe in you all my life," and E.T. returns from death, just as Tinkerbell returns when children clap to prove their belief in her. Are these motifs borrowed from a well-known story the source of the film's visceral emotion?

Spielberg seems to want to imply the parallel, without necessarily making it overt. There are two scenes of mother Mary reading Peter Pan to little Gertie, including the clapping scene. Neither is emphasized. At what level of consciousness does this backgrounded information operate?

Is Barrie's Peter Pan story becoming myth? Is it becoming myth because of the way subsequent generations of artists have deployed it? Is this how all myths became myths, when once they were mere stories?