You're Using Alice in Wonderland Wrong

Are you as upset with how modern stories use Alice in Wonderland as I am? Have you ever wondered why but couldn't put it into words? Well, that's what this video is going to do.

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[JaganshiHiei]

"Also the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts are two separate characters"
DEAR GOD THANK YOU FOR POINTING THIS OUT IT DRIVES ME INSANE WHEN PEOPLE REFER TO THEM AS THE SAME CHARACTER

[lmndaffdil]

Every kid rushing to finish their creative writing piece in an exam: AND THEN THEY WOKE UP AND IT WAS ALL A DREAM
Lewis Carroll: hahaha nice

[mayu]

Alice: dreamy creative girl

Everyone: oH SHE'S SWEET BUT A PSYCHO

[nytewitch]

One of the main reasons the story has such a hook, IMO, is the character of Alice herself. She's a hardheaded, practical and logical little girl, who simply accepts that insanity is taking place all around her, and manages to adapt to it without going crazy herself. Yes, the Cheshire Cat is wrong about her; she's not mad, she's the one solid object that allows us to negotiate Wonderland the way she does without getting lost in the craziness

Like Dorothy in WOZ, she isn't particularly fanciful. They're too sane to go crazy, which makes them excellent guides to places like Wonderland and Oz

[scrambled]

“There is no story, things just happen” that means that Forest Gump is more of an Alice movie than the Tim Burton movies are

[poisonivystar]

Also, Lewis Carrol went on record as saying that he went out of his way to write as much nonsense in it as he could to prove that a children's story doesn't have to have a moral or a structure.

[littlearies]

I get so annoyed when people forget that Alice in Wonderland was a story for a girl named Alice. He wrote it for the entertainment of a child... A child. Remember cartoons from the 60s and such? Same tune and randomness.

Also, Alice literally wakes up from a dream in the book. Its not a drug-trip. Its a dream.

People forget that children were nude in at leaat 50% or art and photos back in the 1800's

Counterargument towards the Disney animated movie: Disney's earlier movies were more focused on animating fun sequences than on having a solid story. If you watch Dumbo or Pinocchio or Snow White, you'll find out there's no much going on in terms of story most of the time. But people fondly remember the situations the characters find themselves in. I think that for Disney in their first years, Alice in Wonderland was exactly the right kind of book to adapt into a movie.

[ZephyrLucki]

Alice: happy, sweet, bubbly, curious, detached

Everyone else: *D R U G S*

[juliamavroidi]

I think there is a pretty clear theme in Alice in Wonderland and it's Childhood vs Adulthood or maybe even more specifically Children vs Adults.
Whoever Alice meets in Wonderland or behind the Looking Glass represent a type of adult as seen from a child's perspective. There's the boring governess (mouse), the strict governess (Red Queen), the arrogant teachers (Caterpillar, Humpty-Dumpty), the one who is too self-absorbed so they only talk about their own childhood (Mockturtle) or age (White Knight), the one making ludicrous threats, never following through (Queen of Hearts), the actually abusive one (cook), the one that flipflops between sweet and tyrannical (duchess).
And no matter who they are, Queen or animal, they all decide that the solution to any problem is to make Alice recite poetry. They all assume they have authority over her.
And the books show how ridiculous that actually is.

As you mentioned Dodgson/Carrol wrote these stories for one specific girl (and her sisters), even though I don't believe that all of the characters were parodies of one specific person, they certainly were parodies of the types of people a girl like Alice Liddell would be familiar with.
And that's part of the reason why it's still popular today: Every child has experiences of being ordered around, lectured and expected to obey. (And I don't know if it's still a thing, but I certainly had my experiences of having to recite poetry in front of strangers - and often found it tempting to weave in some nonsense).

I agree with you that the plot itself is nonsense. But there's still a cohesive thread woven through these books that proves that Dodgson understood his target audience: Giving children the opportunity to laugh at adults.

[custardapplecat]

His shirt makes me think its texture isn’t loading

[pigcatapult]

It always frustrates me when the Hatter gets upgraded to a helper character, because in the book he's the concentrated essence of "a useless adult" as understood by a small child.

[solfaie]

Teachers: what does alice and the wonderland portray?
Me: utter nonesence
Teacher: **death glare**
Inner me: ALICE IS ALICE.

[chasformer]

For me Alice In Wonderland is about childhood escapism and fun. Remember, this was made during the time when adults had sticks up their asses.

[stevenhiggins]

The only "deeper meaning" I can get out of Alice is that it's a reflection of how a child sees the world.
The Queen of Hearts does seem to be how a kid would see and adult in a position of authority over them. Loud, overbearing, completely unreasonable and mean for no reason. But then they grow up and understand adults better.

[jaredongsing]

I interpreted the themes of Lewis Carol, a mathematician and a scholar, as the absurdity of knowledge. The whole book tells stories of Alice making reasonable assumptions that are completely wrong. Whereas any adult would have rejected such nonsense, Alice's innocence and playfulness allows her to carry on. The world is weird; anything is possible; but only to those who are willing to accept that.

[helenarosno]

“First of all, it’s not a drug trip.” THANK YOU

[zyaicob]

I hate *HATE* the "ruin your childhood" kind of people, I hate that mindset, and I hate that phrase, and I hate when anyone says it.

[Mary.]

Broke : Alice in wonderland is about drugs.

Woke : Alice in Wonderland is about sh!t posting.

[hyperbiscuit]

I remember hearing that Lewis Carol felt like a child inside and wasn't very fond of adulthood, so he tended to associate more closely with children than with adults, which to most people, seems a bit strange.