Babar the Elephant
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Babar the Elephant is a popular French children's fictional character who first appeared in L'Histoire de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff in 1931 and enjoyed immediate success. English language versions, entitled The Story of Babar, appeared in 1933 in Britain and the United States. The story is based on a tale de Brunhoff's wife, Cecile, had invented for their children. It tells of a young elephant called Babar who leaves the jungle, visits a big city, and returns to bring the benefits of civilisation to his fellow elephants.
Jean de Brunhoff published six more stories before his early death in 1937 at the age of 37. His son Laurent de Brunhoff was also a talented writer and illustrator and he carried on the series from 1946 with Babar et Le Coquin d'Arthur and many more.
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[edit] Story of Babar
After Babar's mother is killed by a hunter, he finds his way to Paris where he is befriended by the Old Lady. Babar eventually returns to the Elephant realm following the death of the previous King, who had eaten some poisonous mushrooms. Babar is crowned king, marries his cousin Celeste, and founds the city of Celesteville. Babar, who tends to wear a bright green suit, introduces a very French form of western civilization to the elephants, and causes them to dress in western attire.
Among Babar's other associates are the monkey Zephir, the old elephant counsellors Cornelius and Pompadour, his cousin Arthur, and his children, Flora, Pom and Alexander. Recently, a second daughter, Isabelle, was introduced. The Old Lady comes to live in the Kingdom as an honoured guest. Despite the presence of these counsellors, Babar's rule seems to be totally independent of any elected body, and completely autocratic.
Besides his Westernizing policies, Babar engages in warfare with the warlike rhinoceroses, who are led by King Rataxès.
[edit] Pronunciation
- This section uses the International Phonetic Alphabet see IPA chart for English.
Babar is pronounced /bəˈbɑː(ɹ)/: with the stress on the last syllable. This has been used in all episodes of the TV series. Strangely, the recent 75th Anniversary Special Collection sees Babar's name being pronounced /ˌbɑːˈbɑː(ɹ)/:. This is a shift towards the original — French — pronunciation ([baˈbaʁ]). Babar (pronounced [ˈbaːbər]) was the name of the first Mughal emperor of mediaeval India.
[edit] Criticism
The books are written in a charming and appealing style with an attention to detail which captivates both children and adults. Underneath they could be seen as a justification for colonialism, with the benefits of French civilisation being visited on the rustic African elephant kingdom. Some writers, notably Herbert R. Kohl and Vivian Paley have argued that, although superficially delightful, the stories are politically and morally offensive. Others argue that the French civilisation described in the early books had already been destroyed by the Great War and the books were originally an exercise in nostalgia for pre 1914 France. Ariel Dorfman’s The Empire’s Old Clothes is another highly critical view, in which he concludes, "In imagining the independence of the land of the elephants, Jean de Brunhoff anticipates, more than a decade before history forced Europe to put it into practice, the theory of neocolonialism."
[edit] List of Babar books
Jean de Brunhoff wrote and illustrated seven Babar books; the series was continued by his son Laurent.
Jean de Brunhoff's Babar books were:
- Histoire de Babar (1931)
- Le Voyage de Babar (1932)
- Le Roi Babar (1933)
- L'ABC de Babar (1934)
- Les vacances de Zéphir (1936)
- Babar en famille (1938)
- Babar et le père Noël (1941)
Laurent de Brunhoff's books:
- Babar et ce coquin d'Arthur (1948)
- Pique-nique chez Babar (1949)
- Babar dans l'Île aux oiseaux (1952)
- La fête à Celesteville (1954)
- Babar et le professeur Girafon (1956)
- Le château de Babar (1961)
- Je parle anglais avec Babar (1963)
- Je parle allemand avec Babar (1966)
- Je parle espagnol avec Babar (1966)
- Babar à New York (1966)
[edit] List of Babar films and television programmes
- Babar (1960) (1960) [1]
- The Adventures of Babar (1985)
- Babar and Father Christmas (1986) [2]
- Babar: The Movie (1989) [3]
- Babar (1989) [4], [5]
- Babar, King of Elephants (1999) [6]
The Babar stories are popular around the world. They have inspired musical works by Francis Poulenc and Raphael Mostel, and an extremely popular animated television series by Ellipse (France) and Nelvana (Canada).
[edit] Pop culture references
- The children's dining room of the French ocean liner Normandie was decorated by Jean de Brunhoff, who covered the walls with Babar and his entourage.
- In an episode of Lost, Sawyer calls Hurley "Babar," to mock his obesity.
- In the 1985 movie Fletch, Chevy Chase's title character assumes the identity of a fictional "Arnold Babar," suffering from "kidney pains" to get information from a doctor. The doctor asked, "Aren't there children's books about an elephant named Babar?" To which Fletch replied, "I don't know. I don't have any." "No children?" "No, elephant books."
- In the 1988 movie Coming to America, Prince Akeem's elephant is named Babar.
- Babar is also mentioned in James Frey's A Million Little Pieces as a fond childhood memory.
- In a February 1985 episode of the long-running soap opera Another World, then-new character Jake McKinnon praises the Babar series in comparison to other children's books.
- Also, on YouTube, on a mondegreen of the Stone Temple Pilots song, Creep, when Scott Weiland sings, "The barber's got a gun", the mondegreen shows, "Babar's got a gun."
[edit] External links
- Official publisher's Site
- Fan site
- Babar web page at TreeHouseTV.com
- New York Review of Books
- The Babar Museum
- Critical views at The College Hill Independent, 2002
- Babarist.org Satirical religion of Babar
- Babar LiveJournal communityda:Babar
