No matter what emotion these words incite in us, knowing a movie we see or story we hear has some truth in it, makes us see it differently. While I don't know exactly why that is, I'm sharing this list of movies and fairy tales that are based on true events:
- Cool Runnings (1993) — Based on the true story of the First Jamacian bobsled team trying to make it to the winter Olympics.
- Braveheart (1995) — Based on the story of William Wallace of Scotland.
- Anastasia (1997) — Loosely based on the story of the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.
- Patch Adams (1998)— Story of the "medical doctor, clown, performer, social activist" Patch Adams.
- Boys Don't Cry (1999) — Story of hate crime victim Brandon Teena.
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) — The murder of several people in Wisconsin.
- 21 (2008) — Inspired by the story of the MIT Blackjack Team.
Fairy Tales:
Hansel and Gretel:
Katharina Schraderin was born around 1618 in Harz Mountains of Germany and was famous for the delicious gingerbread cookies that she sold, which caught the attention of Hans Metzler a baker. He courted her for her secret recipes and when she found out, she fled Nuremberg and went back to her
birthplace Wernigerode. She left all her belongings behind except for her baking tools. She resided in the Spessart forests and eventually became well known for making cakes.
Hans became so enraged by her fame that he denounced her as a witch and he hoped that he would get her secret recipes when her things were confiscated. She soon became known as Bakkerhexe (the bakery witch). They wanted her to confess as being a witch, but all through her torture she proclaimed her innocence and they eventually let her go.
She left and returned back to her secret home in the Spessart forest, but Hans and Grete followed her home where they broke in, murdered her and shoved her into the oven to burn her. They were arrested but later set free. Hans died, a little crazy, in 1660 still having not found her recipes.
In the 1900's the brothers Grimm were collecting fairy tales, turned the two murderers into innocent children and the victim into a witch who liked to eat children.
Rapunzel:
Some people believe that this tale or at-least part of this tale goes back to earliest days of Christianity, about Saint Barbara. Her father was Dioscorus who was a wealthy pagan Merchant. Barbara was very, very beautiful and her father didn't want her to marry an unworthy suitor. He locked her away in a tower. She started to take the teachings of Christ seriously and she decided to be a Christian. It angered her father off so much that he took her before a Roman-procounsel and they tried to torture her to the point that she would renounce her faith. She didn't and ended up being beheaded by her father and he ended up being struck by lightning.Barbara became the saint over firemen, artillery and people who in endanger of suddenly dying.
Snow White(as taken from weirdworm.com):
Snow White was based on Margarete Von Waldeck, a 16th century Bavarian noblewoman.
Strikingly beautiful by all accounts, sixteen year old Margarete moved to court in Brussels in 1549. There, she caught the eye of Prince Philip II of Spain, and became his lover. However, the thought of Margarete being a princess was unbearable to her meddling stepmother (who, by all accounts, hated her) as well as Philip’s father, the king of Spain, who saw a marriage between the two as politically disadvantageous. Therefore, Spanish agents cooked up a plot to end the affair permanently, by poisoning the young beauty. Her will, written just before her death at 21, shows evidence of the tremors brought on by advanced stages of poisoning (although the perp could not be her evil stepmother, who died before Margarete’s death).Margarete also grew up in Bad Wildungen, where her brother owned a copper mine worked by small children, severely stunted by their terrible working conditions and starvation. Since it was a different time and this wasn’t considered bad enough, they called these kids "dwarfs." Also, there was a grumpy, old man who peddled poison apples to children, whom he believed were stealing from him.
Cinderella(also weirdworm.com):
One of the oldest, most prototypical of fairy tales, Cinderella also seems to be loosely based in the factual account of Rhodopis, an ancient Grecian woman. The story goes that Rhodopis, whose name means “rosy cheeks”, was a Greek girl captured from Thrace some time ca. 500 BCE, who was sold into slavery. Her fair complexion, blond hair, and light eyes allegedly made her very valuable as a slave among the dark-complected Egyptians, and she became a “favorite” of her master, who gave her very expensive shoes as a token of his favor. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) her sucking up to her master paid off, as the golden shoes caught the eye of the Pharaoh, Ahmose II.The mighty ruler recruited her to become part of his "House of Women." Apparently, the Pharaoh in those days wasn’t ever married to just one wife, but instead had many courtesans. So Rhodopis, er, Cinderella gets to be queen—or at least manages to move up from regular slave to sex slave.
Snow White(as taken from weirdworm.com):
Snow White was based on Margarete Von Waldeck, a 16th century Bavarian noblewoman.
Strikingly beautiful by all accounts, sixteen year old Margarete moved to court in Brussels in 1549. There, she caught the eye of Prince Philip II of Spain, and became his lover. However, the thought of Margarete being a princess was unbearable to her meddling stepmother (who, by all accounts, hated her) as well as Philip’s father, the king of Spain, who saw a marriage between the two as politically disadvantageous. Therefore, Spanish agents cooked up a plot to end the affair permanently, by poisoning the young beauty. Her will, written just before her death at 21, shows evidence of the tremors brought on by advanced stages of poisoning (although the perp could not be her evil stepmother, who died before Margarete’s death).Margarete also grew up in Bad Wildungen, where her brother owned a copper mine worked by small children, severely stunted by their terrible working conditions and starvation. Since it was a different time and this wasn’t considered bad enough, they called these kids "dwarfs." Also, there was a grumpy, old man who peddled poison apples to children, whom he believed were stealing from him.
Cinderella(also weirdworm.com):
One of the oldest, most prototypical of fairy tales, Cinderella also seems to be loosely based in the factual account of Rhodopis, an ancient Grecian woman. The story goes that Rhodopis, whose name means “rosy cheeks”, was a Greek girl captured from Thrace some time ca. 500 BCE, who was sold into slavery. Her fair complexion, blond hair, and light eyes allegedly made her very valuable as a slave among the dark-complected Egyptians, and she became a “favorite” of her master, who gave her very expensive shoes as a token of his favor. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) her sucking up to her master paid off, as the golden shoes caught the eye of the Pharaoh, Ahmose II.The mighty ruler recruited her to become part of his "House of Women." Apparently, the Pharaoh in those days wasn’t ever married to just one wife, but instead had many courtesans. So Rhodopis, er, Cinderella gets to be queen—or at least manages to move up from regular slave to sex slave.
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