The return of Alice

Disney’s new adventure Alice in Wonderland challenges stereotypes and attempts to create a dramatic role model in Alice, writes Simrita Dhir

THE thought that Alice would return to Wonderland as a 19-year-old with the hair band missing is, at once, intriguing and bewildering. And that too after 13 long years. The new Disney Alice in Wonderland takes us on an adventure more fantastic and remarkable than her first sojourn down the rabbit hole.

This time the nubile Alice tries to escape marriage and the social norms of Victorian times by following the White Rabbit down the hole and who should she meet there — the Mad Hatter, the Knave of Hearts, the Dormouse, the Dodo and Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Well, those characters sure evoke in millions their memories of the original nonsense-laced fantasy. Since its publication in 1865, Alice in Wonderland has attracted both children and adults and has been read with delight among others by Queen Victoria and Oscar Wilde. It also inspired Salvador Dali to do 12 illustrations in 1969.

I received my first copy on my 10th birthday and enjoyed it beyond measure. For one thing, I felt that by pushing logic to the background, the book let my imagination skyrocket. Or should I say, take a downward spiral! It was thrilling to accompany Alice into a world of absurdity where animals grinned and talked, where the King, Queen and the Knave of Hearts came to life, where creatures shrank and enlarged and swam through pools of tears and had mad tea parties all year long.

In the 2010 adventure, director Tim Burton takes the insanity further. By combining action and animation, he gives Alice a heroic stature of sorts where she slays Jabberwocky, a dragon-like creature, who torments Underland. While claiming not to be a sequel, the new movie challenges stereotypes and attempts to create a dramatic role model in Alice.

Far from the bored six-year-old, who first visited Wonderland, the 19-year-old Alice is resolute and questions norms and conventions. She violates Victorian traditions and is an independent thinker and business person with aspirations of oceanic trade with China. While the presentation of Alice as an entrepreneur is an attempt to present her as a positive role model for girls today, it leads to questions about how positive Alice is as a colonial undertaker when considering the long subjugation of the colonies under Queen Victoria. So sadly, in all honesty, a Disney heroine with colonial aspirations comes across to a post-colonial audience as being far from a shining example.

And while Alice has grown to where she is "not hardly Alice", my favourite character from the book, the Mad Hatter continues to be mad as ever. In the new adventure, Johnny Depp has portrayed the Hatter as ridiculously crazy but with an increased uncanny capacity for friendship. His affinity with Alice makes the Hatter very endearing. Tweedledee and Tweedledum are a charm to see and yes, even though yet again, they had "agreed to have a battle", none ensued.

And while Alice’s newest adventure currently constitutes the highest grossing film of 2010, I am hoping vivaciously that Alice will fulfil her promise and return to Wonderland yet again. Hopefully soon.