PINOCCHIO REVISITED
Mangiafuoco’s Rebuttal
When viewing characters through a Disney lens don’t be afraid to ask questions
Look at me, smeared with the brush of malevolence
Dark complected, eyebrows furrowed into scorn.
A bearded man is feared
I wear a scowl and a sharp nose
Perhaps I am a Semite
a Jew, or worse an Arab.
Eye the corpulent,
Tarred by excess
speaking of greed and gluttony
Not of grand or noble rank.
I am clothed as a treacherous drifter,
a blade swaddled amongst shadowy folds
ready to bully or strike
Those that pass me imagine
I would take life on a whim.
While you the patron saint of grandfatherly-ness
Stand-in as the hero
Feathery puffs of gray hair
Delightfully plump crowns
Shade the twinkling blues of an Aryan ideal
The belly of maturity and a life lived well
A plum proboscis, ruby in its showing
Affirms joyfulness and centers our gaze within lines
that tell us you greet your trials with smiles.
I was drawn damaged
first as the fire-eater,
eternally volcanic,
never with an ounce of sympathy.
Though I am without guile,
A simple-headed man earning pennies with sticks
And were the thing not duped by the son of Joash and a not so honest John
I would never be seen in this improbable tale.
And even if I accept your magic,
Your power to animate life.
Resurrecting timber into a boy?
Make a tree if you want to teach virtue.
Notes: Stromboli is one of the five antagonists in Disney’s 1940 animated feature film Pinocchio. He is a puppeteer, a showman and a gypsy, and his primary concern is making money. His name in the original Italian story by Carlo Collodi was Mangiafuoco which literally means ‘Fire-eater’, while his animated counterpart is named after Stromboli, the Italian volcano.
Source “Stromboli.” Disney Wiki. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
Inspired in part by Ted Chiang’s thoughts on real villains.
