The Messed Up Origins of Alice in Wonderland (Pt. 1) | Disney Explained - Jon Solo

today's episode of messed up origins was brought to you by audible sign up for a membership at audible trial calm including Alice's Adventures in Wonderland absolutely free what is going on solo fam my name is John solo and today is the day you have all been waiting for well maybe not the day but definitely a day I think since I started this series in September of 2017 you guys have requested all kinds of stories and I've covered quite a few of them about all that time though no story has been requested as much as today subject Alice in Wonderland and it's for that reason that I waited so long to cover it I wanted the time to plan something special Alice in Wonderland may be a children's novel but the author Lewis Carroll packed it with layers upon layers of metaphors and puns and symbolism and inside jokes but only a handful of people in his inner circle understood and on top of there being so much to analyze it's the details in this story that make it so great in order for me to do all of this to the best of my ability I decided to turn what could have been one long episode that barely scratched the surface of the story into a miniseries where we can get as in-depth as we need to across four episodes today I'll be recapping the animated Disney film that you all know and love giving you a brief biography of the author Lewis Carroll in his relationship with Alice little and then we'll be diving into chapters 1 2 & 3 of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland before we get started don't forget to smash that like button with all your heart especially if you are a fan of Alice before seeing this video because I think with your guys's help we can reach our 10,000 light goal no problem also if you want to be notified when the next episodes are uploaded and get them delivered straight to your sub box you can subscribe and ring that Bell alright solo fam I know you guys are ready to get started and so am I so without further ado I present the messed-up origins of Alice in Wonderland the movie opens with Alice sitting outside on a beautiful sunny day while her mother is giving her school lessons that are incredibly boring Alice wanders off in search of something more interesting and that's what she finds when a talking white rabbit wearing a coat runs by she tries getting him to stop but the rabbit just keeps yelling that he's late for an important date so she chases him straight into a rabbit hole unlike any youth merci after a slow and gentle fall Alice finds herself in Wonderland a place where everything is nonsense and nothing is as it should be after making her way through the tiniest door you've ever seen she runs into a random assortment of bird and sea creatures running in circles to dry themselves off but this is only the beginning of the nonsense she also meets a pair of weirdos called Tweedledum and Tweedledee who are apparently fans of long uninteresting poetry singing tulips and bread and butterflies a disagreeable caterpillar that won't stop smoking or let Alice finish a sentence a Cheshire Cat who's the only Wonderland resident that acknowledges his own insanity and a Mad Hatter and March Hare having a tea party with a dormouse and celebrating their own birthdays that's the weirdest sentence I've ever said guaranteed after a short meltdown in the woods she finds herself in the garden of the Queen of Hearts and a few moments later meets the Queen herself after another confusing irritating conversation they start a game of croquet thanks to the shenanigans of the Cheshire Cat the Queen of Hearts ends up looking a fool mid-stroke an analyst gets blamed instead of outright chopping off the poor girl's head the King convinces the Queen to put her on trial a special kind of trial where sentences are given before verdicts but as you can imagine it's not long before the kangaroo court falls apart and while suffering through her nonsensical trial she finds a piece of magic mushrooms she took earlier that changes her size she eats a piece gross ginormous and takes this opportunity to tell the Queen of Hearts what she really thinks about her that she's a fat pompous bad-tempered old timer but by the time she finishes her sick burn she's returned to her normal size and the Queen gives the infamous order off with her head Alice takes off running and is chased through the stages of her adventure once again and when she finally gets to the exit the doorknob reveals she's already outside sleeping soundly she turns around to see the Queen and her card guards charging towards her and at the very last second she's woken up by her mother after a few moments of talking gibberish like most of us do when were woken abruptly like that she gathers her bearings and heads inside for some tea pretty wild story right and I'm not kidding when I say the book is even more ridiculous than that and in order to understand a story that bizarre we have to know a little something about the guy who wrote it Lewis Carroll was the pen name of one Charles Dodgson who was born on January 27th 1832 andhere's buried Cheshire England as you might be able to deduce about a Christian family and early eighteen hundreds Charles had several siblings ten of them to be exact he was a gifted young lad a proficient reader extremely skilled at math and logic and while he did suffer from some social anxiety as a result of a minor stutter he is said to have been quite the showman in addition to his stutter he had a few other minor health issues as well he was described as being asymmetric as in one half of his body didn't match the other half one of his shoulders was higher than the other his smile was slightly askew and the level of his eyes aren't the same he was also deaf in one year and had a slightly uneven walk due to a knee injury despite these imperfections that had quite the impact on his self-esteem he was still considered a handsome fella which may have been what led to his fascination with mirrors reflected in his novel through the looking-glass pun intended in January of 1851 he began attending the constituent College of Oxford called Christchurch but only two days after moving in he was called back home when his mother suddenly died of what was described as brain inflammation which actually could have been meningitis or stroke despite having that burden to shoulder at such a difficult time in his life Charles did well in school and went on to receive his degree in mathematics which he put to use teaching in his very own College and he stayed in that position for 26 years it was during that time that he witnessed the college dean from his days as a student a man known for being a serious no-nonsense kind of character he replaced by a man named Henry George little who was much more flamboyant and interesting Henry had four children a son named Henry and three daughters Loreena Alice and Edith and Charles became very close with the family almost like an uncle to the kids as you might be able to infer Alice was his favorite he thought she was the most beautiful of the children and the best-behaved nowadays people seemed to think there was something creepy going on because why else would a grown man be friends with a little girl it's an understandable position to take in 2018 but one has to understand the times that Charles lived in these were the 1850s in Victorian England where little girls were idealized by the general public for their beauty and virginal purity Alice was his favorite but Charles had relationships with several children almost all of which were girls and it should be mentioned that when asked about him later in life dozens of those girls had nothing but positive things to say about him is it still strange he was friends with dozens of little yeah yeah it is especially when you take into consideration how few adults yet close relationships well but it's safe to say that if he ever did have harmful intentions he never once acted on them this isn't to say that it doesn't get weirder after receiving permission from their parents Charles took nude photographs of their children and on one occasion spent a week alone at a seaside resort with a 15 year old actress but again there's important context that actress Irene Barnes finally reflected on that week with Dodgson and her autobiography and believe it or not photos of naked children weren't considered as inappropriate back then in fact in Victorian England families would often send Christmas cards with photos of their nude children on them so we might need to analyze his behavior on a macro level it wasn't just him that had a strange fascination with children it was all of Victorian England I think if he were born in a different time period he would still be a child at heart and would still love entertaining kids but the way those traits manifested themselves likely would have been different based off what was acceptable behavior at that time we'll look deeper into the relationship of Alice and Charles and later episodes but as for right now you have the context you need to see how Charles Lewis Carroll's personal life interests and upbringing influenced the events of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a book he made specifically for Alice little and her siblings with no intention to publish it one last thing I want to mention before we go down the rabbit hole Alice in Wonderland is an excellent book and one that's been analyzed by thousands of people all around the world if you're a big fan of it then chances are you've read some of these analyses and theories about what's meant by a certain poem or who a certain character is supposed to represent we all have our own little theories about the art we love but you have to remember that Alice was written as a nonsense book for children and not supposed to be a treasure trove for psychoanalytic investigation because it's so nonsensical it lends itself to mass misinterpretation where you can make just about any assumption you want and then build a case around it as a result I'm going to avoid unpacking any fan-made theories and explanations no matter how popular they are and instead I'm gonna stick with the information provided by more credible sources which you can find links to down below as always in now fellows and females without further ado Alice's Adventures in Wonderland similar to the film the book opens with Alice sitting by a riverbank on a hot and sunny day only instead of her mother reading her lessons her sister sits nearby reading a book without pictures or words alice is feeling very bored and about to doze off when out of nowhere a white rabbit with pink eyes runs by when leave this rabbit is most unusual in addition to wearing a waistcoat he's also muttering to himself that he's going to be late burning with curiosity Alice chases him across the field under a hedge right into a rabbit hole which she proceeds to fall into before even realizing how far down it goes to fall down the rabbit hole plays out almost exactly like the film she falls down at an unusually slow pace past cupboards and shelves and past pictures and maps hanging from the walls it's crazy to think back to when this book first came out nowadays everyone knows this part of the adventure but back then readers had no idea where Alice was going or what was in store for her at the bottom instead of landing on her head like in the movie she lands on a pile of dry leaves and sticks and she sees the rabbit running down the hall ahead of her she chased him for a short while but he disappeared from sight when she turned the corner into another long hallway this one with locked doors all along the walls after some further exploring she came upon a three-legged glass table with a golden key on top event she then found a tiny little door about 15 inches high hiding behind a tiny little curtain which the golden key happened to fit perfectly after opening the door Alice found it led to a small passage not much bigger than a mouse hole and at the end of that was the loveliest garden you've ever seen unfortunately she couldn't fit through the door so she turned back to the table hoping to find another key instead there was a little bottle that had drink me written on it after some further examination to make sure the bottle was secretly marked poison Alice drank it up real fast and just as quickly began to shrink this is only the first of 12 total times that she'll change her size during the story you might be thinking well that worked out great tiny hallway potion that makes her tiny how convenient only when she went back to the door she found it was locked again and she had left the key up on the glass table which she was now too short to reach how inconvenient frustrated with herself Alice sat down and started crying something that children and myself are known to do [Music] but once she got herself together she noticed a little box under the table that had eaten me written on it in that box was a piece of cake she began cautiously eating one bite at a time but because she couldn't feel anything happening she scarf down the rest and that's when the magic took effect after throwing the piece of cake down her gullet Alice feels herself growing and growing and growing until she's nine feet high and can get the key no problem only now she's too big to fit through the door so again she starts feeling sorry for herself and she begins crying these giant gallon-sized tears that flood the hallway four inches deep while she's sitting alone panicking the white rabbit appears again from down the hallway carrying some gloves and a fan exclaiming that he's late and how the Duchess will be furious note that it's only chapter two and we already have an idea of what the rabbit is late for as to where in the movie that's part of the motivation for Alice to chase him through Wonderland Alice tries asking the rabbit for help but he runs away immediately leaving his gloves and fan behind alone again the poor girl starts having another breakdown saying that everything is so nonsensical how is she even supposed to know who she is she considers she might even be someone else like Mabel from her class but she doesn't like this idea because Mabel is really dumb so to test her theory Alice begins reciting her school lessons specifically one rhyme called how doth the little but the words come out all wrong instead of saying how doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour and gather honey all the day from every opening flower she says how doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail and pour the waters of the Nile on every golden scale in the movie she swaps these poems when talking to the caterpillar once again she realizes she's shrinking and that's because she absent mindedly picked up the rabbits fan which she throws back on the ground before disappearing altogether fun fact and Carroll's first version of the book titled Alice's Adventures underground instead of a fan the white rabbit is carrying a small bouquet of flowers and Alice starts shrinking again after smelling that alas poor Alice is small enough to fit through the door but once again she left the key on the table it's no matter though because shortly after realizing that Alice slips and falls into the pool of Tears she made a second later she hears a mouse swimming around now so far off she tried swimming to the mouse and asking it for help but she absent mindedly brought up the subjects of cats and dogs which the mouse really doesn't lie after Alice swears to not bring up either cats or dogs again the mouse finally agrees to swim with her to the shore and tell her his history so she understands why he doesn't like cats and dogs although it's really not hard to figure out he's a mouse and those are his predators the two of them join up with a few other animals that fell in the water and swim to the shore it's important to note that they're not floating through the keyhole like Alice did in the movie in the book that little door always leads to the Queen's garden and you'll see that later on eventually the group of animals makes it to the shore in this illustration by John Tenniel you can see an owl parrot crab ape and canary fun fact Carol said some of the creatures were meant to represent people the lorry was lorina little the eaglet was Edith little and the dodo was Charles Dodgson himself apparently due to his stammer he would sometimes pronounce his last name as Dodgson and duh-duh became dodo after reaching the beach the group has a meeting to decide what's the best way for them to get dry and the mouse shares with them the driest thing he knows an incredibly boring piece of history that's actually an excerpt from Havel and Chet Mills short course of history published in 1848 obviously that's not the kind of try they're looking for so the dodo suggests a caucus-race which involves running along a track until you're dry believe it or not this method actually works too because unlike the movie they're not running through water this scenario where they're trying to get dry was actually inspired by a day where Carol the little daughters and the Reverend friend who was actually represented by the duck in this scene went on a rowboat trip and got soaked in the rain they pulled their boat to the shore thinking it was their best bet to get out of the storm and then had to walk three miles in the rain to the nearest house they knew this memory is better reflected in Alice's Adventures underground where instead of suggesting a caucus-race the dodo leads them to a nearby cottage that has blankets and a fire going and they dry off that way I'm not sure if this wasn't a subtle enough reference for Carol or if it was just too logical of a solution for a wonderland resident to provide but either way it got replaced by the race after the roll dry Alice reminds the mouse that he still owes her an explanation for why he hates books and cats so he gives a little speech that leaves us with more questions than answers funnily enough Carol wrote the speech so it's lines formed a mouse tale and when one writes the stanzas normally they resemble the body and tail of a mouse although this time around the mouse's story doesn't even mention cats or dogs in the original version he shares that he and his family lived a happy life under a mat when one day a cat and dog said on the mat and crushed everyone he loved to death I guess I can't blame him if that's what went down but there's no denying that Mouse is way too easily offended either way in fact he actually cuts his story off in the middle because he doesn't think Alice is paying attention and then he just storms off Alice says to no one in particular that she wishes her cat Dinah were there because she's so good at catching mice since she decides to add that Dinah is really good at catching birds - and this ruffles the feathers of all the poultry around her the birds then give their various excuses for having to suddenly leave and Alice is left alone on the beach to reflect on her mistake of mentioning Dinah and that my friends is where Chapter three ends and where this episode comes to a close what do you think if you're watching this in the present day I'll be uploading the next episode on Thursday or Friday of next week but if you're watching this in the future you can click the link right here or in the description down below to go to episode 2 in the meantime don't forget to support the series in Channel by smashing that like button with all your hearts so we can reach our goal like 10,000 likes and keep our family growing strong and if you want to be notified when new episodes of messed up origins go live you can subscribe and ring that bell to join the notification fan I'll also be posting updates regularly on social media so follow me on those if you're interested or if you just want to say what's up and throw a recommendation my way and if you want to lose yourself in the magic of Wonderland remember you can go to audibletrial.com/preneurcast it's narrated by Scarlett Johansson - so that's pretty rad and thank you so much for watching solo fam I hope you're as excited as I am to see how this miniseries unfolds until next time my name is John solo and remember Jean shot first [Music]

Channel: Jon Solo

Views: 1,467,413

Rating: 4.9059138 out of 5

Keywords: Messed Up Origins of Alice in Wonderland, Disney Explained, Jon Solo, Disney Explained Jon Solo, Alice in Wonderland explained, jon solo messed up origins, Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, alice's adventures in wonderland, through the look glass, Charles Dodgson, alice liddell, alice liddell story, alice in wonderland original book, white rabbit, alice down the rabbit hole, messed up origins of three little pigs, messed up origins of hercules, messed up origins pinocchio

Id: ihUwWDWyvVs

Length: 17min 31sec (1051 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 30 2018