Toy Girls - As n Crafts Series 36: Sara Crewe

    DISCLAIMER: I WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGIZE WITH THE REQUESTER. ASIDE OF GIVING THIS TOO LATE, I DIDN’T MADE IT ACCORDING WITH HIS PETITION. I DREW THE RIGHT CHARACTER, BUT NOT IN THE DEMANDED VERSION. I’M SORRY IF I DISSAPOINTED YOU! IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY WITH IT, I WILL REMAKE THIS WORK AS YOU ORIGINIALLY WANTED IT.

    So, here we are with the Second Work of the Day for The Arts & Crafts Series of my project “Toy Girls”. Be ready: this will be a really long summary. So, let’s begin.

    I AM NOT A FAN OF TOO DARK WORKS! No, I didn’t say that I hate Dark Fictional Works: they are actually my favorite. I don’t dislike seeing scary things, violence, controversial themes or evil doing its shit. What I hate is to see all those elements in a Non-Artistic Way. When a work tries to lure us with cruelty for the main characters, the whole story is so mean spirited and uncomfortable, and it has a flat villain which is evil just because, blackmailing you to keep watching just to see the bad guy defeated, I tagged that work as SHIT. That’s why I hate things like “Karate Kid”. However, this time I would like to talk about one of the stories I used to classify in this category, which happens not only to be one of the Classical British Literature Works, but it also gave us a pretty immortal character. To crown this Sunday:

    Sara Crewe, from “A Little Princess”, the Warner Bros. 1995 Film. A request for my friend

    My story with this franchise is incredible complex, so I better start with a little history of this work:

    “A Little Princess” is actually a novel made by the British Writer Frances Hodgson Burnett, the same author of “The Secret Garden”. In a nutshell: it’s the story of Sara Crewe, a British Girl who moved to the Miss Minchin’s Boarding School in New York while his father was in his business outside the country. However, he dies and loses all his fortune, so Sara is left at the mercy of Miss Minchin, a cruel teacher who keeps her as a servant while abusing her; and Sara must survive with her imagination.

    So yeah, like you all guess: I became into a great enemy of this story.

    No, I actually never read the book (just the summary in Wikipedia). My actual first introduction to this Classic Story was through a really low budget animated adaptation of the book, which aired in Cartoon Network during the Extinct Saturday Morning Block “Cinecartoon”; which also aired animated adaptations of “Noah’s Ark” and “The Count of Monte Cristo”.

    When I stomped with that movie, being a little kid, I really didn’t have any idea of the Main Source, however, even back then, I ended up so shocked and disgusted for the story it gave us: it was not “Elfen Lied”, but it was still too dark and mean spirited.

    The time passed, and I was so surprised to see a Live Action Film (the 1995 Warner Bros Adaptation) with the same story. This eventually made me discover the whole truth, and my hate for this franchise started.

    Like with “Karate Kid”, I became so allergic to interact with any adaptation of this book, and I kept myself away for years.

    However, then my friend Donnie asked me for the main character, Sara Crewe, using the Anime Version, one of the most applauded adaptations, as an inspiration. Like a professional, I of course accepted, but I was planning in following the route of just searching for samples in Google, make the drawing, publish it, and then continue with my life, without consuming the work itself.

    However, a feeling woke up in me, and told me that I MUST rewatch the 1995 Warner Bros Film of this story. Why?! I have indeed watched that film years ago when it aired in Disney Channel (even if it was from Warner Bros, maybe it was because the “Princess” stuff), but I was still resentful for the bitter experience, and I watched it in parts, including the happy end. Then…WHY THE HELL DID I STRUGGLE TO FIND IT?! And I mean the “Struggle” part: it was not in Netflix, the video store where I made my subscription didn’t have it, and I had to go to another one to finally rent it.

    Well, the answer is really shallow: I FUCKING LOVE THE POSTER. Yes, even if I still have a really bad feeling in my stomach, I just love the Image created to promote this film. It was really simple, but the overall feeling was so beautiful, mysterious and whimsical. Here you have to see it: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia…

    This piece of graphic art really inspired me to give this film a second chance, especially for its grade in Rotten Tomatoes (which applauded “Karate Kid”, but still). I just loved the colors so much, the angle of the photo, and even the scene of the image. Could someone from the audience to tell me your interpretation of this image, please?

    So, when I finally had this film, I turned on the X BOX 360, play it, and…I really don’t know how to say this. Was this movie actually good? Well…NO! NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST! It would be a crime to call this film “good”. Why?! Because it was actually M.O.T.H.E.R.F.U.C.K.I.N.G. BEAUTIFUL!!!

    Yes, in my opinion, this little film I was too afraid to watch, ended up as a Great masterpiece of Cinema, and one of the Best Kids Films I have ever seen, not only from Warner Bros, but in general. Even if I watched it with fear, I finished it with a big smile on my face, and with a great desire to watch it again.

    This film, which was directed by the MEXICAN Director Alfonso Cuarón, which also made “Y tu mama también” and “Gravity”, was actually a loosely adaptation of this novel. Even if it had the main story, it made plenty of changes, especially in the end, because it took a lot of inspiration from the version starring Shirley Temple. But why exactly did I love this film? Easy: for the changes.

    It really managed to reduce the dark tone to keep it more whimsical and tragic than cruel and uncomfortable. It created a really nice environment, the villain was very well written, and the Main Hero wasn’t mistreated so much. No, this film didn’t turn this into 100% rainbows and unicorns. It still had the protagonist having to deal with terrible shit, but it really worked because the Villain wasn’t a one dimensional bully torturing her 24/7. Sara still had happy moments during her time as a servant. Miss Minchin was still a horrible person, but, smartly, this film reduced her dick moves to some scenes, gave some reason (not justifications) for them, and she even had moments of defeat before the end. And even the Bully Girl, one of the kind of characters I hate the most, is even pretty controlled, so you can actually forgave her at the end.

    So yeah, the main reason I enjoyed this film was because it reduced the cruelty from the original material. And you know what? This was a really cunning action. You see: Sara is not a Hero who has to save the day beating the crap out from the villain. She is a defenseless girl without superpowers or martial arts knowledge. Torturing her wouldn’t have helped the story, making the villain always shitting on her wouldn’t have turn her into a Darth Vader, and compensating a whole story full of mean spirited things with a happy end would have been a really stupid move. Why? Because drama doesn’t work like this!

    Drama is not about showing the worst of humanity, but instead showing how the people can get over the harshest situations of life, AKA; making the characters defeat a bad situation. And Alfonso Cuarón totally knew that.

    Also, I really love the main gimmick of this story: “All girls are princesses, no matter what”. Even with the great controversial stuff with the Princesses, like the Nostalgia Critic said in a video, I think it really fitted here.

    The phrase is not really about telling girls that they are big rulers with the power to change things (but that would be a great moral too), but more about telling them to never feel worthless, no matter if they are ugly, poor or mean. It’s a phrase to make them feel beautiful and important, and always have a positive attitude. This mentality really fits this project, in my opinion.

    But now, how about Sara Crewe herself?

    Even if I never read the book, I just love the character presented here.

    Sara Crewe is such a likeable and inspiring girl. Being a really optimistic and jolly kid, what makes her so nice is how she loves to make the people around her happy. Always showing a big smile, teaching her skills and knowledge, one of her most memorable gimmicks is trying to make her friends feel happy when they are sad. She is smart, benevolent, and full of love. And we can’t forget her slogan: “All girls are princesses”

    However, what really makes her shine is the Second Act, when she is informed about her father’s “death”, and she becoming into Miss Minchin’s slave. Before this, we could see her giving a lot of advices to feel better after a tragedy, like when one of the student’s mother dead. But then, when she finally has to face a horrible success, she finds herself in a big struggle. Now it’s not that easy to follow her former advices to be happy. However, more than tagging her of hypocrite, this actually makes her more human. This has happened to all of us: never know how bad a problem is until it strikes us.

    When she lost everything, we can understand how she lost all her hope and happiness. No matter how many advices she gave, it’s still sucks how she lost her father and all her future. But it’s the fact that she later indeed tries to overcome this situation what turns her into a great character; and even one admirable.

    Hands down: Sara Crew is one of my Favorite Female Characters of All Time. I said it.

    Even if the original request was for the Sara Crewe from the anime, I preferred to draw the avatar of Liesel Matthews, because this film actually managed me to establish the peace with this story. So, I apologize again, but I decided to turn this Sara Crew into a Toy Girl (Donnie, you can still ask me for the anime one if you didn’t like this work).

    So, like I said, I took the former child actress Liesel Matthews as the model, so I drew this girl with the same uniform from that film, and with the hairstyle she had in the movie. This last one was really hard to duplicate: curly hair is a pain in the ass.

    The pose was also a really hard choice. I really wanted to pick the perfect essence for this character. So, remembering how she helps one of her classmates to cope with the death of her mother, she talked about how moms turn into angels on Heaven, and that you can still talk to them, so she proceeds to make those odd arm movements, so I used that for this work.

    I’m so happy that I could manage to forgive this film. It’s a great movie everybody should watch. Now I’m really sad that it was a Box office Bomb. You know what?! THIS MOVIE MUST BE RELEASED ON THEATERS AGAIN!!! Here in Mexico I have seen some movies being shown again on the cinemas, and this film would be perfect. Yes, it was a Financial Failure, but also “Shawshank Redemption” and it still managed to be relaunched. After 20 years of existence, I would love to see this on theaters during Christmas Season. I know it’s not related to Christmas in the slightest, but it just so magical and whimsical that it may work. I just hope this happens, because “Cuteness…and the legacy of this film… shall last”.

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