document_title: Meals on Wheels

question_text: where does meals on wheels get their funding

text: Meals on Wheels

text: History[edit]

text: Meals on Wheels originated in the United Kingdom during the Blitz, when many people lost their homes and therefore the ability to cook their own food. The Women's Volunteer Service for Civil Defence (WVS, later WRVS) provided food for these people. The name "Meals on Wheels" derived from the WVS's related activity of bringing meals to servicemen. The concept of delivering meals to those unable to prepare their own evolved into the modern programmes that deliver mostly to the housebound elderly, sometimes free, or at a small charge.[3][4][5]

text: United Kingdom (1943)[edit]

text: The first home delivery of a meal on wheels following World War II was made by the WVS in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England in 1943.[clarification needed] Many early services used old prams to transport the meals, using straw bales, and even old felt hats, to keep the meals warm in transit.[3][citation needed]

text: This type of service requires many volunteers with an adequate knowledge of basic cooking to prepare the meals by a set time each day. The majority of local authorities in the United Kingdom have now moved away from freshly cooked food delivery, and towards the supply of frozen pre-cooked reheatable meals.[6]

text: Australia (1953)[edit]

text: Doris Taylor MBE founded Meals on Wheels in South Australia in 1953, and in 1954 the first meal was served from the Port Adelaide kitchen.[7] The first meals were delivered to eight elderly Port Adelaide residents on 9 August 1954.[8][9]

text: In New South Wales, Meals on Wheels was started in March 1957 by the Sydney City Council. In the first week, 150 meals were served for inner city dwellers; these were cooked in the Town Hall kitchen.[4]

text: Organised on a regional basis, in Australia Meals on Wheels is a well established, active and thriving group of organisations. The history of a small sample of some of the organisations includes: New South Wales,[4][10] Queensland,[11][12] South Australia,[13][14][15] Western Australia[16] and Victoria.[17]

text: In 2012, the Queensland branch of Meals on Wheels was a recipient of the Queensland Greats Awards.[18]

text: United States (1954)[edit]

text: Established in 1974,[19] the oldest and largest national organization is Meals on Wheels America, which supports more than 5,000 community-based senior nutrition organizations across the country.[20] By providing funding, leadership, education and advocacy support, Meals on Wheels America empowers its local member programmes to provide services to their communities.[20] With local programmes, they galvanize the resources of local community organizations, businesses, donors, sponsors and more than two million volunteers – bolstered by supplemental funding from the Older Americans Act – into a national safety net for seniors.[21]

text: Currently, they are located in Arlington, Virginia,[22] and headed by President and CEO Ellie Hollander.

text: Pennsylvania

text: The first home-delivered meal programme in the United States began in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in January 1954. At the request of the Philadelphia Health & Welfare Council, and funded by a grant from the Henrietta Tower Wurtz Foundation, Margaret Toy, a social worker in Philadelphia's Lighthouse Community Center, pioneered a programme to provide nourishment that met the dietary needs of homebound seniors and other "shut-ins" in the area who otherwise would have to go hungry. As is the case today, many participants were people who did not require hospitalization, but who simply needed a helping hand in order to maintain their independence. Most of the volunteers were high school students, who were dubbed "Platter Angels." The "Platter Angels" would prepare, package, and deliver food to the elderly and disabled through their community. The daily delivery consisted of one nutritionally balanced hot meal to eat at lunch time, and a dinner consisting of a cold sandwich and milk along with varying side dishes.

text: Columbus, Ohio, was the second city in the U.S. to establish a community based meals programme. Building on the model set forth in Philadelphia, a federation of women's clubs went through the town to inform themselves of possible participants for a meal service. In Columbus, all of the meals were prepared by local restaurants and delivered by taxi cabs during the week. On weekends, high school students filled the posts.

text: The city of Rochester, New York, began its home-delivered meal programme in 1958. It was originally a pilot project initiated by the New York Department of Health and administered by the Visiting Nurse Service. The Bureau of Chronic Diseases and Geriatrics of the New York Department of Health underwrote the costs.

text: Also in the late 1950s, a group of concerned women in San Diego, California recognised that isolated seniors were in need of regular meals and human contact. What was to become Meals-on-Wheels Greater San Diego, Inc. started in 1960, and has served area seniors for 50 years. When the national association, Meals on Wheels Association of America (MOWAA), sought guidance with the parameters to be used in the evaluation process for locally-run agencies, Meals-on-Wheels Greater San Diego was used as a model to help define the benchmark for successful operations, and "set the standard" for approval. The mission of Meals-on-Wheels Greater San Diego, Inc. is to support the independence and well-being of seniors. A private, not-for-profit corporation, Meals-on-Wheels San Diego strives to keep seniors independent in their own homes by delivering meals to those who are unable to adequately meet their own nutritional needs. Often, the availability of this service enables seniors to avoid seeking institutional alternatives. From modest beginnings, Meals-on-Wheels has grown into one of the largest senior service programmes in Southern California. Meals-on-Wheels is currently the only organization in the area home-delivering two meals a day, for seven days a week (including holidays), and providing modified diets to seniors, age 60 and older, throughout San Diego County. In 2009, agency-wide, 82 staff members supported over 2,200 volunteers who donated their time to home-deliver 450,000 meals to approximately 2,000 seniors throughout San Diego County. Debbie Case is the CEO and President of Meals-on-Wheels Greater San Diego.[23]

text: Another California Meals On Wheels programme is Meals On Wheels West (MOWW), which has been delivering services to home-bound individuals in their homes since April 1974. The agency has since grown from an organization that served 8 clients in one city to one that provides meals and companionship to 396 individuals in 6 of Los Angeles County’s coastal communities by 2010. In 2010 alone, over 3,000 volunteers delivered more than 86,000 meals. Begun as a programme of the Westside Ecumenical Conference, MOWW attained its own non-profit status in 1994. The CEO since 1987, RoseMary Regalbuto’s, first challenge upon arrival at MOWW was to eliminate the waiting list by increasing the number of routes and clients served. Since then, no eligible clients have been made to wait for services. When Mrs. Regalbuto took the helm, MOWW was only serving Santa Monica. Due to her leadership, the agency now serves Santa Monica, Topanga, Pacific Palisades, Malibu and parts of Marina Del Rey. In 2010, 93% of MOWW clients stated that MOWW was a major factor in their ability to remain in their own homes. 88% of clients reported that the daily contact with Meals On Wheels West volunteers was important to them, and 50% stated the volunteers were the only visitors during the day. 70% of volunteers stay with the organization for more than 5 years, which allows for significant lasting connections with clients.[24]

text: Meals on Wheels People was founded in 1969 in Portland, Oregon and currently produces 5,000 hot, nutritious meals five days each week which are delivered to 34 senior centers throughout Multnomah County, Washington County and Clark County. The Meals are served at noon to seniors in center dining rooms or sent out as Meals on Wheels to frail, homebound elderly.[25] Meals on Wheels People continues to expand to other locations, such as the Edwards Community Center in Aloha, Oregon where, in partnership with Edwards Center Inc. and Washington County Disabled, Aging and Veterans Services people over 60 years of age may receive hot lunches, alongside veterans and adults with developmental disabilities thereby providing new community connections for several groups that might otherwise become isolated.[26]

text: Ypsilanti, Michigan

text: Ypsilanti Meals on Wheels was a programme idea that originated from the city of Ypsilanti’s Mayor’s Council on Aging. As a result of the Council’s recommendation in the spring of 1973, the City Council agreed to appropriate $8000 to a meal delivery programme to begin on July 1, 1973. Pastor William Bingham, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ypsilanti and a member of the mayor’s Council on Aging, became the first Executive Director. Volunteers prepared meals in the kitchen of the First Baptist Church. Meal service began on January 14, 1974 to 16 homebound individuals. As time passed and the demand grew, Ypsilanti meals on Wheels purchased vans and equipped them with refrigerators and microwave ovens. Up until that time, volunteers had picked up cold meals, prepared at Eastern Michigan University, and heated them at each stop. Today, Ypsilanti meals on Wheels owns four vans and delivers approximately 200 hot meals each day, Monday through Friday. Drivers pick up the meals at Eastern Michigan University Hoyt Conference center and pack them into insulated containers that maintain the appropriate temperature until the delivery of the last meal.[27]

text: Canada (1963)[edit]

text: Brampton, Ontario is the first city in Canada to deliver meals to seniors in need. In the spring of 1963, Ruby Cuthbert, a nurse, implemented the Meals on Wheels programme with the support of the local Soroptimist Club. Later, the Auxiliary group from Peel Memorial Hospital took over the responsibility and Brampton Meals on Wheels (BMOW) started with six meals a day.[citation needed]

text: Meals on Wheels was formed in response to a plea from the Hospital Chaplaincy Committee of the Calgary Presbytery of the United Church. In 1965, a study was undertaken by the Presbyterian United Church Women into the needs of the elderly living alone and those being discharged from hospitals with no help available during their convalescence. On November 30, 1965 the Calgary Church Women's Community Care was incorporated and in 1976 the name was officially changed to "Calgary Meals on Wheels". In addition to the United Church, the Anglican, Baptist, Catholic and Presbyterian Churches supported the movement while interested volunteers and service clubs answered the call for help and proved to be the backbone of the fledgling organization. The United Way and the City of Calgary have also played a vital role in the success of this community service. On 15 November 1965 the first meal service started serving eight clients. By 1982 the number of clients had increased to in excess of 380 per day, requiring a move to a larger centre. In 2005, Calgary Meals on Wheels celebrated its 40th Anniversary, (having never missed a meal delivery in its 40-year history), and delivered to some 1,900 clients, plus services to several unique programmes. The organisation is governed by a Board of Directors, all of whom are volunteers. A pool of some 750 volunteers donate just under 75,000 hours of time a year to deliver meals five days a week within Calgary city limits.[28]

text: The first meals were delivered on 21 April 1969 for $0.65 each. There was one route on the south side with a total of three meals.[29]

text: Meals on Wheels of Fredericton, New Brunswick began in 1967. They currently serve over 40,000 meals per year to about 300 clients. The organization will be celebrating 50 years of service in 2017.[30]

text: Meals on Wheels began in Nova Scotia in 1969, with three volunteers delivering six meals in Halifax.[31]

text: Since 1967, the Health and Home Care Society of BC has operated the Meals on Wheels programme in Vancouver and Richmond.[32]

text: Meals on Wheels was originally created as a side project of The Home Welfare Association. A 1961 study recommended the establishment of a Meals on Wheels delivery service for people who were unable to prepare meals for themselves, such as the elderly and infirm. A three-year pilot project was started and they delivered the first meals on 30 June 1965. In 1981 the Home Welfare Association chapter was officially closed when the name was changed to Meals on Wheels of Winnipeg, Inc.[33]

text: Ireland (1971)[edit]

text: Longford

text: The first meals were delivered in Longford, a small county town in the Midlands. They were delivered by County Longford Social Services, organised by Sister Calasanctius of the local Convent of Mercy and the local hospital's medical officer Dr Gerard McDonagh. The meals were distributed from a mobile kitchen for which funds had been raised by the local children. The fundraising had been organised by the Longford News (local newspaper) editor Derek Cobbe.

text: Some of the first meals were delivered by a volunteer driver, the late Pat Hourican, with volunteer helper the late Sr. Bonaventure. The mobile kitchens were built by a local businessman, Noel Hanlon, at his ambulance factory in the town. The vans had specially fitted gas cookers provided by the ambulance factory to keep the dinners warm. Meals were delivered then to some 400 people around Longford, mostly elderly or disabled, and were free of charge, supported by small grants and locally collected funds.

text: Modern programmes[edit]

text: Today, Meals on Wheels programmes generally operate at the county level or smaller. Programmes vary widely in their size, service provided, organisation, and funding.

text: There are Meals on Wheels programmes in Australia,[34] Canada,[35][36] Ireland,[37] the United Kingdom and the United States. The National Association of Care Catering[38] are a great source of information on UK Meals on Wheels services. The Meals On Wheels Association of America (MOWAA)[39] is a national association for senior nutrition programmes headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, but each programme operates independently.

text: Most Meals on Wheels programmes deliver meals hot and ready-to-eat, but some deliver cold meals in containers ready to microwave. Others supply deep-frozen meals. Some warm-meal programmes provide an additional frozen meal during the days prior to a weekend or holiday, when there would be no delivery. Depending on the programme, meals may be delivered by paid drivers or by volunteers. In addition to providing nutrition to sustain the health of a client, a meal delivery by a Meals on Wheels driver or volunteer also serves as a safety check and a source of companionship for the client.

text: Most clients of Meals on Wheels programmes are elderly, but others who are unable to shop or cook for themselves (as well as their pets) are generally eligible for assistance. In the United States, programmes receiving federal funding may not serve people less than 60 years old. US Federally funded programmes may only request voluntary contributions from clients, while other programmes often charge a moderate fee for service. Regardless of their sources of funding, eligibility for most programmes is determined solely by medical need, with financial need and actual ability to pay not making a difference either way.

text: United Kingdom[edit]

text: In the county of Suffolk, the programme is referred to as "Community Meals".[40] "Meals on Wheels" services are provided for those who have been assessed to have difficulty cooking for themselves. Community Meals services can comprise daily hot meals, chilled meals or a weekly or fortnightly delivery of frozen meals. Traditional hot deliveries are cooked in a central kitchen then transported to the service user.

text: Support to the elderly is also provided by WRVS (formerly named Women’s Royal Voluntary Service).

text: National Association of Care Catering Community Meals Week is a national event aiming to increase visibility of Community Meals Services.[41] In October 2008, Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall assisted in Meals on Wheels Week activities.[42]

text: Increasingly in the UK, commercial rather than voluntary or local authorities organisations are providing the meals. For example, some Local Authorities have stopped providing hot meals and are instead delivering frozen pre-cooked meals.[43] Other variations include using Apetito, who operate a "Chefmobil"[44] service which regenerates meals en route,[45] and Apetito subsidiary Wiltshire Farm Foods, which operates a Meals on Wheels alternative service for those who do not meet assessment criteria.[46]

text: October 2011 saw a Hairy Bikers series, Meals on Wheels, air on BBC Two. The series fronted a campaign with BBC Learning to save local 'meals on wheels' services around the UK.[47]

text: Canada[edit]

text: Halifax Meals on Wheels in Nova Scotia currently operate 68 programmes across the province; more than 600 volunteers serve an estimated 3400 meals a week. In Halifax, the service is partially funded by the municipality. The United Way also provides funding, depending on how much the programmes need. Organizations such as nursing homes and hospitals provide many of the meals; others come from restaurants and private homes. The programme isn't just for the elderly; people of any age who live alone often call when they're recovering after a recent hospital stay and are unable to cook for themselves. Other users of Meals on Wheels are people with disabilities such as multiple sclerosis who use the programme to help them through a rough time when cooking becomes too difficult. In 1996, 56.7% of clients in Halifax used the service for less than three months.[31]

text: There are dozens of independent meals on wheels in Montreal, one of the largest and most innovative is the unique intergenerational Santropol Roulant, an organisation operated mainly by young volunteers in central Montreal neighbourhoods. Deliveries are done on foot, by bicycle and by hybrid car in some outlying routes.[48]

text: Ireland[edit]

text: Longford[edit]

text: Currently (2016) vans are still used to deliver meals around Longford by County Longford Social Services, a registered charity - 4 vans deliver to all areas of County Longford, but the meals are now hot soup and chilled main course and dessert - recipients have microwave ovens for reheating the dinners. Meals are provided 7 days per week, 365 days per year. Unfortunately there is now a small charge (€4 per meal) due to reduction in grant aid, but there is still local support with fundraising and over 25 volunteer drivers and helpers. There are 4 employees (2 full-time and 2 part-time) with more people on various employment schemes, and the Social Services Council also provides a subsidised chiropody service and a patient transport service to help people maintain their mobility and independence. This is supported by a pre-owned fashion shop in Longford, "Change of A Dress", mainly run by volunteers.

text: Other areas[edit]

text: A study by Trinity College Dublin[49] published in 2008 on behalf of the National Council on Ageing and Older People found most of Ireland served by Meals on Wheels services (or centre-based alternatives) since the 1980s, over half being registered charities. Half of the services are noted to be parish-only, with many more serving a slightly larger area: the report notes only 5% of providers serve "a significant proportion of their county" (but they do not mention the longest-running service in Longford, which serves the whole county).

text: United States[edit]

text: The Meals on Wheels Association of America (MOWAA) is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. MOWAA is the oldest and largest organization in the United States representing those who provide meal services to seniors in need, specifically those at risk of or experiencing hunger. MOWAA is a non-profit organization working toward the social, physical, nutritional and economic betterment of vulnerable Americans by providing the tools and information its programmes need to make a difference in the lives of others.[39] In 2016, Meals on Wheels provided approximately 218 million meals to 2.5 million Americans.[50][51] Approximately 500,000 of the recipients are veterans.[50] The annual meal cost is $2,765.[52]

text: Citymeals-on-Wheels serves the New York City area.[53] In 2008, Citymeals delivered over 2.1 million meals to 17,713 frail aged in every borough of New York City. In addition, over 1,500 volunteers collectively spent 62,000 hours visiting and delivering meals to New York’s frail aged. Gael Greene and James Beard founded Citymeals-on-Wheels in 1981 after reading a newspaper article about homebound elderly New Yorkers with nothing to eat on weekends and holidays. They rallied their friends in the restaurant community, raising private funds as a supplement to the government-funded weekday meal delivery programme. Twenty five years ago their first efforts brought a Christmas meal to 6,000 frail aged.

text: In 2007, the MOWAA Foundation commissioned a study on hunger (see next section). In 2009, MOWAA partnered with The Mission Continues,[54] an organization which addresses the needs of veterans who have served the United States.

text: Specialty Meals on Wheels programmes, such as "Kosher Meals on Wheels", also exist to service niche clientele.[citation needed]

text: MOWAAF study on hunger[edit]

text: The Meals On Wheels Association of America Foundation (MOWAAF),[55] recognizing that hunger is a serious threat facing millions of seniors in the United States, determined that understanding of the problem is a critical first step to developing remedies.[56] In 2007, MOWAAF, underwritten by the Harrah's Foundation, commissioned a research study entitled The Causes, Consequences and Future of Senior Hunger in America.[57] The report was released at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging in March 2008 in Washington, D.C.

text: The study found that in the United States, over 5 million seniors, (11.4% of all seniors), experience some form of food insecurity, i.e. were marginally food insecure. Of these, about 2.5 million are at-risk of hunger, and about 750,000 suffer from hunger due to financial constraints. Some groups of seniors are more likely to be at-risk of hunger. Relative to their representation in the overall senior population, those with limited incomes, under age 70, African-Americans, Hispanics, never-married individuals, renters, and persons living in the southern United States are all more likely to be at-risk of hunger. While certain groups of seniors are at greater-risk of hunger, hunger cuts across the income spectrum. For example, over 50% of all seniors who are at-risk of hunger have incomes above the poverty threshold. Likewise, it is present in all demographic groups. For example, over two-thirds of seniors at-risk of hunger are caucasian. There are marked differences in the risk of hunger across family structure, especially for those seniors living alone, or those living with a grandchild. Those living alone are twice as likely to experience hunger compared to married seniors. One in five senior households with a grandchild, but no adult child, present is at risk of hunger, compared to about one in twenty households without a grandchild present. Seniors living in non-metropolitan areas are as likely to experience food insecurity as those living in metropolitan areas, suggesting that food insecurity cuts across the urban-rural continuum.[58]

text: 2017 proposed budget cuts[edit]

text: In March 2017, President Donald Trump's proposed budget would make cuts to block grants that go towards spending on Meals on Wheels.[51] Defending these cuts, director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney said that "Meals on Wheels sounds great" but that the program is one of many that is "just not showing any results."[2][51]

text: Impact[edit]

text: A 2013 review study on the impact of home-delivered meal programs found that "all but two studies found home-delivered meal programs to significantly improve diet quality, increase nutrient intakes, and reduce food insecurity and nutritional risk among participants. Other beneficial outcomes include increased socialization opportunities, improvement in dietary adherence, and higher quality of life."[1][2] The study concluded, "Home-delivered meal programs improve diet quality and increase nutrient intakes among participants. These programs are also aligned with the federal cost-containment policy to rebalance long-term care away from nursing homes to home- and community-based services by helping older adults maintain independence and remain in their homes and communities as their health and functioning decline."[1][2]


document_title: United States Medical Licensing Examination

question_text: when do you take the usmle step 2

question_tokens: when do you take the usmle step 2

root

text: Purpose[edit]

text: The USMLE assesses a physician's ability to apply knowledge, concepts, and principles, and to determine fundamental patient-centered skills that are important in health and disease and that constitute the basis of safe and effective patient care. Examination committees composed of medical educators and clinicians from across the United States and its territories create the examination materials each year. At least two committees critically appraise each test item or case, revising or discarding any materials that are in doubt.[2]

tag: p

text: Overview[edit]

text: Students and graduates of U.S. or Canadian medical school programs accredited by either the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), leading to the Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree, or by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), leading to the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) degree, register for Step 1 and Step 2 of the USMLE with the NBME. Students and graduates of medical schools outside the United States or Canada listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools as meeting ECFMG eligibility requirements register for Step 1 and Step 2 with the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). Graduates of medical schools in and outside the United States and Canada register for Step 3 with the FSMB or with a medical licensing authority in the United States. Each of the three steps of the USMLE examination complements the other; no step stands alone in the assessment of readiness for medical licensure.

text: All three steps of the USMLE exam must be passed before a physician with an M.D. degree is eligible to apply for an unrestricted license to practice medicine in the United States. U.S. osteopathic medical school graduates are permitted to take either the USMLE or the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX) exam for medical licensure. Students who have graduated from medical schools outside the US and Canada must pass all three steps of the USMLE to be licensed to practice in the US, regardless of the title of their degree.

text: Overall pass rates for the individual Step exams that comprise the USMLE are:[3]

text:
Step 1 (2015): 94% for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates (96% in first-time takers), 93% for U.S. D.O. osteopathic medical school graduates (93% in first-time takers), and 72% for international medical school graduates (78% for first-time takers).
Step 2 CK (2014-2015): 94% for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates (96% in first-time takers), 92% for U.S. D.O. medical school graduates (92% in first-time takers), and 71% for international medical school graduates (75% for first-time takers).
Step 2 CS (2014-2015): 96% for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates (96% in first-time takers) and 90% for U.S. D.O. medical school graduates (90% in first-time takers), and 78% for international medical school graduates (80% for first-time takers).
Step 3 (2015): 98% for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates (98% in first-time takers), 83% for U.S. D.O. medical school graduates (91% in first-time takers), and 85% for international medical school graduates (89% in first-time takers).

tag: ul

text: Step 1[edit]

text: USMLE Step 1 assesses whether medical school students or graduates understand and can apply important concepts of the basic sciences to the practice of medicine. Step 1 ensures mastery of not only the sciences that provide a foundation for the safe and competent practice of medicine in the present, but also the scientific principles required for maintenance of competence through lifelong learning. Step 1 is constructed according to an integrated content outline that organizes basic science material along two dimensions: system and process.

text: Step 1 is a one-day examination. It is divided into seven 60-minute blocks and administered in one 8-hour testing session The number of questions per block on a given examination form will vary, but will not exceed 40. The total number of items on the overall examination form will not exceed 280.

text: US medical students take Step 1 at the end of the Basic Sciences portion of the curriculum, usually after the second year of medical school. The Step 1 score is frequently used in medical residency applications as a measure of a candidate's likelihood to succeed in that particular residency (and on that specialty's board exams), and it has been cited by residency program directors as their most important criterion in selecting graduating medical students for their residency program.[4] Average USMLE Step 1 scores for various residencies are available in Charting Outcomes in the Match.

text: If the student passes the exam, he or she may not repeat it to achieve a higher score, and any failed attempt is permanently recorded. This "one-time deal" situation is the reason the Step 1 is unanimously viewed as the most arduous and paramount examination a medical student will ever sit during his or her entire career. It has substantial bearing on the specialties and location a residency applicant is competitive for.

text: Step 2[edit]

text: USMLE Step 2 is designed to assess whether medical school students or graduates can apply medical knowledge, skills and understanding of clinical science essential for provision of patient care under supervision. US medical students typically take Step 2 during the fourth year of medical school. Step 2 is further divided into two separate exams:

text: Step 2 CK[edit]

text: USMLE Step 2 CK assesses whether medical school students or graduates can apply medical knowledge, skills, and understanding of clinical science essential for the provision of patient care under supervision and includes emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention. Step 2 ensures that due attention is devoted to principles of clinical sciences and basic patient-centered skills that provide the foundation for the safe and competent practice of medicine.

text: Step 2 CK is a one-day examination. It is divided into eight 60-minute blocks, administered in one 9-hour testing session. Test item formats may vary within each block. It is constructed according to an integrated content outline that organizes clinical science material along two dimensions: physician task and disease category.

text: Step 2 CS[edit]

text: USMLE Step 2 CS assesses the ability of medical school students or graduates to apply medical knowledge, skills, and understanding of clinical science essential for the provision of patient care under supervision, and includes emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention. Step 2 ensures that due attention is devoted to the principles of clinical sciences and basic patient- centered skills that provide the foundation for the safe and effective practice of medicine.

text: Step 2 CS uses standardized patients to test medical students and graduates on their ability to gather information from patients, perform physical examinations, and communicate their findings to patients and colleagues. The examination is offered in five cities across the country:

text:
Philadelphia
Chicago
Atlanta
Houston
Los Angeles

text: Administration of the Step 2-CS began in 2004. Prior to 2004, a similar exam, the Clinical Skills Assessment (CSA) was used to assess the clinical skills of foreign medical graduates.

text: Step 3[edit]

text: USMLE Step 3 is the final exam in the USMLE sequence and assesses whether you can apply medical knowledge and understanding of biomedical and clinical science essential for the unsupervised practice of medicine, with emphasis on patient management in ambulatory settings. Graduates of US medical schools typically take this exam at the end of the first year of residency.

text: Step 3 is a two-day examination. The first day of testing includes 233 multiple-choice items divided into 6 blocks of 38-40 items; 60 minutes are allotted for completion of each block of test items. Items with an associated pharmaceutical advertisement or scientific abstract are included in each of these multiple-choice blocks. There are approximately 7 hours in the test session on the first day.

text: There are approximately 9 hours in the test session on the second day. This day of testing includes 180 multiple-choice items, divided into 6 blocks of 30 items; 45 minutes are allotted for completion of each block of test items. This is followed by 13 case simulations, each of which is allotted a maximum of 10 or 20 minutes of real time.

text: Test Sites[edit]

text: The USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 CK exams can be taken at Prometric test centers worldwide. The Step 2 CS and the Step 3 can only be taken in the USA.

text: Relevance of predictive measures[edit]

text: A study from 2016 showed little to no correlation between MCAT scores and USMLE step 1 scores, as well as little to no correlation between MCAT scores and the NBME scores[5]. However, since the 82 students on whom this study was conducted all attended the same allopathic medical school, the usefulness of these results in the broader medical school population may be of limited value.[5]

text: Furthermore, research conducted on students between 1998 and 2004, although outdated, and conducted on an undisclosed number of students, was conducted on a longer timeline, and shows that the Biological Science (BS) section of the MCAT did indeed predict better performance on the USMLE step 1, but not any other section, and found that Grade point average in undergraduate science courses is a strong predictor of performance on the USMLE step 1 and step 2 exams, and that the Biological Science section of the MCAT, but not any other section, predicted USMLE step 1 and step 2 exam performance, though this information is outdated, and unclear of whether this was also only conducted at a single institution or more than one, making this studies results of limited value.[6] The same study claims that the selectivity of undergraduate institution is also a predictor of step 1 and step 2 performance, even when controlling for undergraduate GPA and MCAT score.[6]

text: Similar exams[edit]

text:
The "Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination" (COMLEX-USA) is required for osteopathic physicians in the United States
The American Podiatric Medical Licensing Examination (APMLE) is required for Podiatric Physicians in the United States.

text: In other countries[edit]

text:
National Medical Licentiate Examination, India
Nepal Medical Council (NMC), in Nepal.
[ Ujian Kompetensi Dokter Indonesia (UKDI) Indonesian Doctor Competence Examination], in Indonesia.
[ Pakistan Medical And Dental Counsil (PMDC) ], in Pakistan.
Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination, in Canada
Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board test (similar exam used in United Kingdom)
Australian Medical Council (AMC) in Australia.
Medical Council of India (MCI-FMGE conducted by National Board of Examinations)
Examen Nacional de Aspirantes a Residencias Medicas (ENARM) in Mexico
Saudi Medical Licensing Examination (SMLE) in Saudi Arabia
Ärztliche Prüfungen, overseen by the IMPP, in Germany


document_title: Cat's meow

question_text: where did the saying the cat's meow come from

question_tokens: where did the saying the cat 's meow come from

text: Cat's meow

text: Cat's meow may refer to:

text:
Meow (occasionally spelled miaow, miaou, etc.), an onomatopoeia for the voiced sound made by cats (Felis silvestris catus)
"The cat's meow," an expression referring to something that is considered outstanding; coined by American cartoonist Thomas A. Dorgan (1877–1929)
The Cat's Meow (1924), a 1924 lost silent short film starring Harry Langdon
"The Cat's Meow", a 1966 episode of Batman TV series
"The Cat's Meow", a 1986 episode of Mama's Family TV series
The Cat's Meow (1930 film), a Krazy Kat animated film
"The Cat's Meow", a 1987 painting by Willem de Kooning
The Cat's Meow, a 2001 film


document_title: Fairy tale

question_text: where does the term fairy tale come from

text: Fairy tale

text: Terminology[edit]

text: Some folklorists prefer to use the German term Märchen or "wonder tale"[6] to refer to the genre over fairy tale, a practice given weight by the definition of Thompson in his 1977 [1946] edition of The Folktale: "a tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes. It moves in an unreal world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvellous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms and marry princesses."[7] The characters and motifs of fairy tales are simple and archetypal: princesses and goose-girls; youngest sons and gallant princes; ogres, giants, dragons, and trolls; wicked stepmothers and false heroes; fairy godmothers and other magical helpers, often talking horses, or foxes, or birds; glass mountains; and prohibitions and breaking of prohibitions.[8]

text: A fairy tale with a tragic rather than a happy end is called an anti-fairy tale.

text: Definition[edit]

text: Although the fairy tale is a distinct genre within the larger category of folktale, the definition that marks a work as a fairy tale is a source of considerable dispute.[9] The term itself comes from the translation of Madame D'Aulnoy's Conte de fées, first used in her collection in 1697.)[10] Common parlance conflates fairy tales with beast fables and other folktales, and scholars differ on the degree to which the presence of fairies and/or similarly mythical beings (e.g., elves, goblins, trolls, giants, huge monsters) should be taken as a differentiator. Vladimir Propp, in his Morphology of the Folktale, criticized the common distinction between "fairy tales" and "animal tales" on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals.[11] Nevertheless, to select works for his analysis, Propp used all Russian folktales classified as a folklore Aarne-Thompson 300-749 – in a cataloguing system that made such a distinction – to gain a clear set of tales.[12] His own analysis identified fairy tales by their plot elements, but that in itself has been criticized, as the analysis does not lend itself easily to tales that do not involve a quest, and furthermore, the same plot elements are found in non-fairy tale works.[13]

text: Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine: that is a fairytale ... of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful.

text: As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be more common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves.[14] However, the mere presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly a mask on a human face, as in fables.[15]

text: In his essay "On Fairy-Stories", J. R. R. Tolkien agreed with the exclusion of "fairies" from the definition, defining fairy tales as stories about the adventures of men in Faërie, the land of fairies, fairytale princes and princesses, dwarves, elves, and not only other magical species but many other marvels.[16] However, the same essay excludes tales that are often considered fairy tales, citing as an example The Monkey's Heart, which Andrew Lang included in The Lilac Fairy Book.[15]

text: Steven Swann Jones identified the presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales.[17] Davidson and Chaudri identify "transformation" as the key feature of the genre.[6] From a psychological point of view, Jean Chiriac argued for the necessity of the fantastic in these narratives.[18]

text: In terms of aesthetic values, Italo Calvino cited the fairy tale as a prime example of "quickness" in literature, because of the economy and concision of the tales.[19]

text: History of the genre[edit]

text: Originally, stories that would contemporarily be considered fairy tales were not marked out as a separate genre. The German term "Märchen" stems from the old German word "Mär", which means story or tale. The word "Märchen" is the diminutive of the word "Mär", therefore it means a "little story". Together with the common beginning "once upon a time" it means a fairy tale or a märchen was originally a little story from a long time ago when the world was still magic. (Indeed, one less regular German opening is "In the old times when wishing was still effective".)

text: The English term "fairy tale" stems from the fact that the French contes often included fairies.

text: Roots of the genre come from different oral stories passed down in European cultures. The genre was first marked out by writers of the Renaissance, such as Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile, and stabilized through the works of later collectors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.[20] In this evolution, the name was coined when the précieuses took up writing literary stories; Madame d'Aulnoy invented the term Conte de fée, or fairy tale, in the late 17th century.[21]

text: Before the definition of the genre of fantasy, many works that would now be classified as fantasy were termed "fairy tales", including Tolkien's The Hobbit, George Orwell's Animal Farm, and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.[22] Indeed, Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" includes discussions of world-building and is considered a vital part of fantasy criticism. Although fantasy, particularly the subgenre of fairytale fantasy, draws heavily on fairy tale motifs,[23] the genres are now regarded as distinct.

text: Folk and literary[edit]

text: The fairy tale, told orally, is a sub-class of the folktale. Many writers have written in the form of the fairy tale. These are the literary fairy tales, or Kunstmärchen.[10] The oldest forms, from Panchatantra to the Pentamerone, show considerable reworking from the oral form.[24] The Brothers Grimm were among the first to try to preserve the features of oral tales. Yet the stories printed under the Grimm name have been considerably reworked to fit the written form.[25]

text: Literary fairy tales and oral fairy tales freely exchanged plots, motifs, and elements with one another and with the tales of foreign lands.[26] The literary fairy tale came into fashion during the 17th century, developed by aristocratic women as a parlour game. This, in turn, helped to maintain the oral tradition. According to Jack Zipes, "The subject matter of the conversations consisted of literature, mores, taste, and etiquette, whereby the speakers all endeavoured to portray ideal situations in the most effective oratorical style that would gradually have a major effect on literary forms."  [27] Many 18th-century folklorists attempted to recover the "pure" folktale, uncontaminated by literary versions. Yet while oral fairy tales likely existed for thousands of years before the literary forms, there is no pure folktale, and each literary fairy tale draws on folk traditions, if only in parody.[28] This makes it impossible to trace forms of transmission of a fairy tale. Oral story-tellers have been known to read literary fairy tales to increase their own stock of stories and treatments.[29]

text: History[edit]

text: The oral tradition of the fairy tale came long before the written page. Tales were told or enacted dramatically, rather than written down, and handed down from generation to generation. Because of this, the history of their development is necessarily obscure and blurred.[30] Fairy tales appear, now and again, in written literature throughout literate cultures, as in The Golden Ass, which includes Cupid and Psyche (Roman, 100–200 AD),[31] or the Panchatantra (India 3rd century BC),[31] but it is unknown to what extent these reflect the actual folk tales even of their own time. The stylistic evidence indicates that these, and many later collections, reworked folk tales into literary forms.[24] What they do show is that the fairy tale has ancient roots, older than the Arabian Nights collection of magical tales (compiled circa 1500 AD),[31] such as Vikram and the Vampire, and Bel and the Dragon. Besides such collections and individual tales, in China, Taoist philosophers such as Liezi and Zhuangzi recounted fairy tales in their philosophical works.[32] In the broader definition of the genre, the first famous Western fairy tales are those of Aesop (6th century BC) in ancient Greece.

text: Jack Zipes writes in When Dreams Came True, "There are fairy tale elements in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and ... in many of William Shakespeare plays."[33] King Lear can be considered a literary variant of fairy tales such as Water and Salt and Cap O' Rushes.[34] The tale itself resurfaced in Western literature in the 16th and 17th centuries, with The Facetious Nights of Straparola by Giovanni Francesco Straparola (Italy, 1550 and 1553),[31] which contains many fairy tales in its inset tales, and the Neapolitan tales of Giambattista Basile (Naples, 1634–6),[31] which are all fairy tales.[35] Carlo Gozzi made use of many fairy tale motifs among his Commedia dell'Arte scenarios,[36] including among them one based on The Love For Three Oranges (1761).[37] Simultaneously, Pu Songling, in China, included many fairy tales in his collection, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (published posthumously, 1766).[32] The fairy tale itself became popular among the précieuses of upper-class France (1690–1710),[31] and among the tales told in that time were the ones of La Fontaine and the Contes of Charles Perrault (1697), who fixed the forms of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.[38] Although Straparola's, Basile's and Perrault's collections contain the oldest known forms of various fairy tales, on the stylistic evidence, all the writers rewrote the tales for literary effect.[39]

text: The Salon Era[edit]

text: In the mid-17th century, a vogue for magical tales emerged among the intellectuals who frequented the salons of Paris. These salons were regular gatherings hosted by prominent aristocratic women, where women and men could gather together to discuss the issues of the day.

text: In the 1630s, aristocratic women began to gather in their own living rooms, salons, in order to discuss the topics of their choice: arts and letters, politics, and social matters of immediate concern to the women of their class: marriage, love, financial and physical independence, and access to education. This was a time when women were barred from receiving a formal education. Some of the most gifted women writers of the period came out of these early salons (such as Madeleine de Scudéry and Madame de Lafayette), which encouraged women's independence and pushed against the gender barriers that defined their lives. The salonnières argued particularly for love and intellectual compatibility between the sexes, opposing the system of arranged marriages.

text: Sometime in the middle of the 17th century, a passion for the conversational parlour game based on the plots of old folk tales swept through the salons. Each salonnière was called upon to retell an old tale or rework an old theme, spinning clever new stories that not only showcased verbal agility and imagination but also slyly commented on the conditions of aristocratic life. Great emphasis was placed on a mode of delivery that seemed natural and spontaneous. The decorative language of the fairy tales served an important function: disguising the rebellious subtext of the stories and sliding them past the court censors. Critiques of court life (and even of the king) were embedded in extravagant tales and in dark, sharply dystopian ones. Not surprisingly, the tales by women often featured young (but clever) aristocratic girls whose lives were controlled by the arbitrary whims of fathers, kings, and elderly wicked fairies, as well as tales in which groups of wise fairies (i.e., intelligent, independent women) stepped in and put all to rights.

text: The salon tales as they were originally written and published have been preserved in a monumental work called Le Cabinet des Fées, an enormous collection of stories from the 17th and 18th centuries.[10]

text: Later works[edit]

text: The first collectors to attempt to preserve not only the plot and characters of the tale, but also the style in which they were told, was the Brothers Grimm, collecting German fairy tales; ironically, this meant although their first edition (1812 & 1815)[31] remains a treasure for folklorists, they rewrote the tales in later editions to make them more acceptable, which ensured their sales and the later popularity of their work.[40]

text: Such literary forms did not merely draw from the folktale, but also influenced folktales in turn. The Brothers Grimm rejected several tales for their collection, though told orally to them by Germans, because the tales derived from Perrault, and they concluded they were thereby French and not German tales; an oral version of Bluebeard was thus rejected, and the tale of Little Briar Rose, clearly related to Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty, was included only because Jacob Grimm convinced his brother that the figure of Brynhildr, from much earlier Norse mythology, proved that the sleeping princess was authentically Germanic folklore.[41]

text: This consideration of whether to keep Sleeping Beauty reflected a belief common among folklorists of the 19th century: that the folk tradition preserved fairy tales in forms from pre-history except when "contaminated" by such literary forms, leading people to tell inauthentic tales.[42] The rural, illiterate, and uneducated peasants, if suitably isolated, were the folk and would tell pure folk tales.[43] Sometimes they regarded fairy tales as a form of fossil, the remnants of a once-perfect tale.[44] However, further research has concluded that fairy tales never had a fixed form, and regardless of literary influence, the tellers constantly altered them for their own purposes.[45]

text: The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe, in a spirit of romantic nationalism, that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were the Russian Alexander Afanasyev (first published in 1866),[31] the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (first published in 1845),[31] the Romanian Petre Ispirescu (first published in 1874), the English Joseph Jacobs (first published in 1890),[31] and Jeremiah Curtin, an American who collected Irish tales (first published in 1890).[28] Ethnographers collected fairy tales throughout the world, finding similar tales in Africa, the Americas, and Australia; Andrew Lang was able to draw on not only the written tales of Europe and Asia, but those collected by ethnographers, to fill his "coloured" fairy books series.[46] They also encouraged other collectors of fairy tales, as when Yei Theodora Ozaki created a collection, Japanese Fairy Tales (1908), after encouragement from Lang.[47] Simultaneously, writers such as Hans Christian Andersen and George MacDonald continued the tradition of literary fairy tales. Andersen's work sometimes drew on old folktales, but more often deployed fairytale motifs and plots in new tales.[48] MacDonald incorporated fairytale motifs both in new literary fairy tales, such as The Light Princess, and in works of the genre that would become fantasy, as in The Princess and the Goblin or Lilith.[49]

text: Cross-cultural transmission[edit]

text: Two theories of origins have attempted to explain the common elements in fairy tales found spread over continents. One is that a single point of origin generated any given tale, which then spread over the centuries; the other is that such fairy tales stem from common human experience and therefore can appear separately in many different origins.[50]

text: Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs are found spread across many different cultures. Many researchers hold this to be caused by the spread of such tales, as people repeat tales they have heard in foreign lands, although the oral nature makes it impossible to trace the route except by inference.[51] Folklorists have attempted to determine the origin by internal evidence, which can not always be clear; Joseph Jacobs, comparing the Scottish tale The Ridere of Riddles with the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, The Riddle, noted that in The Ridere of Riddles one hero ends up polygamously married, which might point to an ancient custom, but in The Riddle, the simpler riddle might argue greater antiquity.[52]

text: Folklorists of the "Finnish" (or historical-geographical) school attempted to place fairy tales to their origin, with inconclusive results.[53] Sometimes influence, especially within a limited area and time, is clearer, as when considering the influence of Perrault's tales on those collected by the Brothers Grimm. Little Briar-Rose appears to stem from Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty, as the Grimms' tale appears to be the only independent German variant.[54] Similarly, the close agreement between the opening of the Grimms' version of Little Red Riding Hood and Perrault's tale points to an influence, although the Grimms' version adds a different ending (perhaps derived from The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids).[55]

text: Fairy tales tend to take on the color of their location, through the choice of motifs, the style in which they are told, and the depiction of character and local color.[56]

text: The Brothers Grimm believed that European fairy tales derived from the cultural history shared by all Indo-European peoples and were therefore ancient, far older than written records. This view is supported by research by the anthropologist Jamie Tehrani and the folklorist Sara Graca Da Silva using phylogenetic analysis, a technique developed by evolutionary biologists to trace the relatedness of living and fossil species. Among the tales analysed were Jack and the Beanstalk, traced to the time of splitting of Eastern and Western Indo-European, over 5000 years ago. Both Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin appear to have been created some 4000 years ago. The story of The Smith and the Devil (Deal with the Devil) appears to date from the Bronze Age, some 6000 years ago.[57]

text: Association with children[edit]

text: Originally, adults were the audience of a fairy tale just as often as children.[58] Literary fairy tales appeared in works intended for adults, but in the 19th and 20th centuries the fairy tale became associated with children's literature.

text: The précieuses, including Madame d'Aulnoy, intended their works for adults, but regarded their source as the tales that servants, or other women of lower class, would tell to children.[59] Indeed, a novel of that time, depicting a countess's suitor offering to tell such a tale, has the countess exclaim that she loves fairy tales as if she were still a child.[60] Among the late précieuses, Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont redacted a version of Beauty and the Beast for children, and it is her tale that is best known today.[61] The Brothers Grimm titled their collection Children's and Household Tales and rewrote their tales after complaints that they were not suitable for children.[62]

text: In the modern era, fairy tales were altered so that they could be read to children. The Brothers Grimm concentrated mostly on sexual references;[63] Rapunzel, in the first edition, revealed the prince's visits by asking why her clothing had grown tight, thus letting the witch deduce that she was pregnant, but in subsequent editions carelessly revealed that it was easier to pull up the prince than the witch.[64] On the other hand, in many respects, violence—particularly when punishing villains—was increased.[65] Other, later, revisions cut out violence; J. R. R. Tolkien noted that The Juniper Tree often had its cannibalistic stew cut out in a version intended for children.[66] The moralizing strain in the Victorian era altered the classical tales to teach lessons, as when George Cruikshank rewrote Cinderella in 1854 to contain temperance themes. His acquaintance Charles Dickens protested, "In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected."[67][68]

text: Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim, who regarded the cruelty of older fairy tales as indicative of psychological conflicts, strongly criticized this expurgation, because it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues.[69]  Fairy tales do teach children how to deal with difficult times. To quote Rebecca Walters (2017, p. 56) “Fairytales and folktales are part of the cultural conserve that can be used to address children’s fears …. and give them some role training in an approach that honors the children’s window of tolerance”. These fairy tales teach children how to deal with certain social situations and helps them to find their place in society.[70] Fairy tales teach children other important lessons too. For example, Tsitsani et al. carried out a study on children to determine the benefits of fairy tales. Parents of the children who took part in the study found that fairy tales, especially the color in them, triggered their child's imagination as the read them.[71]Jungian Analyst and fairy tale scholar, Marie Louise Von Franz interprets fairy tales[72] based on Jung‘s view of fairy tales as a spontaneous and naive product of soul, which can only express what soul is.[73] That means, she looks at fairy tales as images of different phases of experiencing the reality of the soul. They are the “purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes” and “they represent the archetypes in their simplest, barest and most concise form” because they are less overlaid with conscious material than myths and legends. “In this pure form, the archetypal images afford us the best clues to the understanding of the processes going on in the collective psyche”. “The fairy tale itself is its own best explanation; that is, its meaning is contained in the totality of its motifs connected by the thread of the story. [...] Every fairy tale is a relatively closed system compounding one essential psychological meaning which is expressed in a series of symbolical pictures and events and is discoverable in these”. “I have come to the conclusion that all fairy tales endeavour to describe one and the same psychic fact, but a fact so complex and far-reaching and so difficult for us to realize in all its different aspects that hundreds of tales and thousands of repetitions with a musician’s variation are needed until this unknown fact is delivered into consciousness; and even then the theme is not exhausted. This unknown fact is what Jung calls the Self, which is the psychic reality of the collective unconscious. [...] Every archetype is in its essence only one aspect of the collective unconscious as well as always representing also the whole collective unconscious.[74]

text: Other famous people commented on the importance of fairy tales, especially for children. For example, Albert Einstein once showed how important he believed fairy tales were for children’s intelligence in the quote “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales."[75]

text: The adaptation of fairy tales for children continues. Walt Disney's influential Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was largely (although certainly not solely) intended for the children's market.[76] The anime Magical Princess Minky Momo draws on the fairy tale Momotarō.[77] Jack Zipes has spent many years working to make the older traditional stories accessible to modern readers and their children.[78]

text: Contemporary tales[edit]

text: Literary[edit]

text: In contemporary literature, many authors have used the form of fairy tales for various reasons, such as examining the human condition from the simple framework a fairytale provides.[79] Some authors seek to recreate a sense of the fantastic in a contemporary discourse.[80] Some writers use fairy tale forms for modern issues;[81] this can include using the psychological dramas implicit in the story, as when Robin McKinley retold Donkeyskin as the novel Deerskin, with emphasis on the abusive treatment the father of the tale dealt to his daughter.[82] Sometimes, especially in children's literature, fairy tales are retold with a twist simply for comic effect, such as The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and The ASBO Fairy Tales by Chris Pilbeam. A common comic motif is a world where all the fairy tales take place, and the characters are aware of their role in the story,[83] such as in the film series Shrek.

text: Other authors may have specific motives, such as multicultural or feminist reevaluations of predominantly Eurocentric masculine-dominated fairy tales, implying critique of older narratives.[84] The figure of the damsel in distress has been particularly attacked by many feminist critics. Examples of narrative reversal rejecting this figure include The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch, a picture book aimed at children in which a princess rescues a prince, and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, which retells a number of fairy tales from a female point of view.[85]

text: There are also many contemporary erotic retellings of fairy tales, which explicitly draw upon the original spirit of the tales, and are specifically for adults. Modern retellings focus on exploring the tale through use of the erotic, explicit sexuality, dark and/or comic themes, female empowerment, fetish and BDSM, multicultural, and heterosexual characters. Cleis Press has released several fairy tale themed erotic anthologies, including Fairy Tale Lust, Lustfully Ever After, and A Princess Bound.

text: It may be hard to lay down the rule between fairy tales and fantasies that use fairy tale motifs, or even whole plots, but the distinction is commonly made, even within the works of a single author: George MacDonald's Lilith and Phantastes are regarded as fantasies, while his "The Light Princess", "The Golden Key", and "The Wise Woman" are commonly called fairy tales. The most notable distinction is that fairytale fantasies, like other fantasies, make use of novelistic writing conventions of prose, characterization, or setting.[86]

text: Film[edit]

text: Fairy tales have been enacted dramatically; records exist of this in commedia dell'arte,[87] and later in pantomime.[88] The advent of cinema has meant that such stories could be presented in a more plausible manner, with the use of special effects and animation. The Walt Disney Company has had a significant impact on the evolution of the fairy tale film. Some of the earliest short silent films from the Disney studio were based on fairy tales, and some fairy tales were adapted into shorts in the musical comedy series "Silly Symphonies", such as Three Little Pigs. Walt Disney's first feature-length film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released in 1937, was a ground-breaking film for fairy tales and, indeed, fantasy in general.[76] Disney and his creative successors have returned to traditional and literary fairy tales numerous times with films such as Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). Disney's influence helped establish the fairy tale genre as a genre for children, and has been accused by some of bowdlerizing the gritty naturalism – and sometimes unhappy endings – of many folk fairy tales.[82] However, others note that the softening of fairy tales occurred long before Disney, some of which was even done by the Grimm brothers themselves.[89][90]

text: Many filmed fairy tales have been made primarily for children, from Disney's later works to Aleksandr Rou's retelling of Vasilissa the Beautiful, the first Soviet film to use Russian folk tales in a big-budget feature.[91] Others have used the conventions of fairy tales to create new stories with sentiments more relevant to contemporary life, as in Labyrinth,[92] My Neighbor Totoro, Happily N'Ever After, and the films of Michel Ocelot.[93]

text: Other works have retold familiar fairy tales in a darker, more horrific or psychological variant aimed primarily at adults. Notable examples are Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast[94] and The Company of Wolves, based on Angela Carter's retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.[95] Likewise, Princess Mononoke,[96] Pan's Labyrinth,[97] Suspiria, and Spike[98] create new stories in this genre from fairy tale and folklore motifs.

text: In comics and animated TV series, The Sandman, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, Fables and MÄR all make use of standard fairy tale elements to various extents but are more accurately categorised as fairytale fantasy due to the definite locations and characters which a longer narrative requires.

text: A more modern cinematic fairy tale would be Luchino Visconti's Le Notti Bianche, starring Marcello Mastroianni before he became a superstar. It involves many of the romantic conventions of fairy tales, yet it takes place in post-World War II Italy, and it ends realistically.

text: Motifs[edit]

text: Any comparison of fairy tales quickly discovers that many fairy tales have features in common with each other. Two of the most influential classifications are those of Antti Aarne, as revised by Stith Thompson into the Aarne-Thompson classification system, and Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale.

text: Aarne-Thompson[edit]

text: This system groups fairy and folk tales according to their overall plot. Common, identifying features are picked out to decide which tales are grouped together. Much therefore depends on what features are regarded as decisive.

text: For instance, tales like Cinderella – in which a persecuted heroine, with the help of the fairy godmother or similar magical helper, attends an event (or three) in which she wins the love of a prince and is identified as his true bride—are classified as type 510, the persecuted heroine. Some such tales are The Wonderful Birch; Aschenputtel; Katie Woodencloak; The Story of Tam and Cam; Ye Xian; Cap O' Rushes; Catskin; Fair, Brown and Trembling; Finette Cendron; Allerleirauh.

text: Further analysis of the tales shows that in Cinderella, The Wonderful Birch, The Story of Tam and Cam, Ye Xian, and Aschenputtel, the heroine is persecuted by her stepmother and refused permission to go to the ball or other event, and in Fair, Brown and Trembling and Finette Cendron by her sisters and other female figures, and these are grouped as 510A; while in Cap O' Rushes, Catskin, and Allerleirauh, the heroine is driven from home by her father's persecutions, and must take work in a kitchen elsewhere, and these are grouped as 510B. But in Katie Woodencloak, she is driven from home by her stepmother's persecutions and must take service in a kitchen elsewhere, and in Tattercoats, she is refused permission to go to the ball by her grandfather. Given these features common with both types of 510, Katie Woodencloak is classified as 510A because the villain is the stepmother, and Tattercoats as 510B because the grandfather fills the father's role.

text: This system has its weaknesses in the difficulty of having no way to classify subportions of a tale as motifs. Rapunzel is type 310 (The Maiden in the Tower), but it opens with a child being demanded in return for stolen food, as does Puddocky; but Puddocky is not a Maiden in the Tower tale, while The Canary Prince, which opens with a jealous stepmother, is.

text: It also lends itself to emphasis on the common elements, to the extent that the folklorist describes The Black Bull of Norroway as the same story as Beauty and the Beast. This can be useful as a shorthand but can also erase the coloring and details of a story.[99]

text: Morphology[edit]

text: Vladimir Propp specifically studied a collection of Russian fairy tales, but his analysis has been found useful for the tales of other countries.[100] Having criticized Aarne-Thompson type analysis for ignoring what motifs did in stories, and because the motifs used were not clearly distinct,[101] he analyzed the tales for the function each character and action fulfilled and concluded that a tale was composed of thirty-one elements ('functions') and seven characters or 'spheres of action' ('the princess and her father' are a single sphere). While the elements were not all required for all tales, when they appeared they did so in an invariant order – except that each individual element might be negated twice, so that it would appear three times, as when, in Brother and Sister, the brother resists drinking from enchanted streams twice, so that it is the third that enchants him.[102] Propp's 31 functions also fall within six 'stages' (preparation, complication, transference, struggle, return, recognition), and a stage can also be repeated, which can affect the perceived order of elements.

text: One such element is the donor who gives the hero magical assistance, often after testing him.[103] In The Golden Bird, the talking fox tests the hero by warning him against entering an inn and, after he succeeds, helps him find the object of his quest; in The Boy Who Drew Cats, the priest advised the hero to stay in small places at night, which protects him from an evil spirit; in Cinderella, the fairy godmother gives Cinderella the dresses she needs to attend the ball, as their mothers' spirits do in Bawang Putih Bawang Merah and The Wonderful Birch; in The Fox Sister, a Buddhist monk gives the brothers magical bottles to protect against the fox spirit. The roles can be more complicated.[104] In The Red Ettin, the role is split into the mother—who offers the hero the whole of a journey cake with her curse or half with her blessing—and when he takes the half, a fairy who gives him advice; in Mr Simigdáli, the sun, the moon, and the stars all give the heroine a magical gift. Characters who are not always the donor can act like the donor.[105] In Kallo and the Goblins, the villain goblins also give the heroine gifts, because they are tricked; in Schippeitaro, the evil cats betray their secret to the hero, giving him the means to defeat them. Other fairy tales, such as The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, do not feature the donor.

text: Analogies have been drawn between this and the analysis of myths into the Hero's journey.[106]

text: Interpretations[edit]

text: Many fairy tales have been interpreted for their (purported) significance. One mythological interpretation saw many fairy tales, including Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, and The Frog King, as solar myths; this mode of interpretation subsequently became rather less popular.[107] Freudian, Jungian, and other psychological analyses have also explicated many tales, but no mode of interpretation has established itself definitively.[108]

text: Specific analyses have often been criticized[by whom?] for lending great importance to motifs that are not, in fact, integral to the tale; this has often stemmed from treating one instance of a fairy tale as the definitive text, where the tale has been told and retold in many variations.[109] In variants of Bluebeard, the wife's curiosity is betrayed by a blood-stained key, by an egg's breaking, or by the singing of a rose she wore, without affecting the tale, but interpretations of specific variants have claimed that the precise object is integral to the tale.[110]

text: Other folklorists have interpreted tales as historical documents. Many[quantify] German folklorists, believing the tales to have preserved details from ancient times, have used the Grimms' tales to explain ancient customs.[111]

text:
One approach sees the topography of European Märchen as echoing the period immediately following the last Ice Age.[112]
Other folklorists have explained the figure of the wicked stepmother in a historical/sociological context: many women did die in childbirth, their husbands remarried, and the new stepmothers competed with the children of the first marriage for resources.[113]

text: In a 2012 lecture, Jack Zipes reads fairy tales as examples of what he calls "childism". He suggests that there are terrible aspects to the tales, which (among other things) have conditioned children to accept mistreatment and even abuse.[114]

text: Fairy tales in music[edit]

text: Fairy tales have inspired music, namely opera, such as the French Opéra féerie and the German Märchenoper. French examples include Gretry's Zémire et Azor, and Auber's Le cheval de bronze, German operas are Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, Siegfried Wagner's An allem ist Hütchen schuld!, which is based on many fairy tales, and Carl Orff's Die Kluge. Even contemporary fairy tales have been written for the purpose of inspiration in the music world. "Raven Girl" by Audrey Niffenegger was written to inspire a new dance for the Royal Ballet in London.

text: Compilations[edit]

text: Authors and works:

text:
Mixed Up Fairy Tales
Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales (United Kingdom, 1984) by Alan Garner
Fairy Tales (United States, 1965) by E. E. Cummings
Fairy Tales, Now First Collected: To Which are Prefixed Two Dissertations: 1. On Pygmies. 2. On Fairies (England, 1831) by Joseph Ritson
Giovanni Francesco Straparola (Italy, 16th century)
Grimms' Fairy Tales (Germany, 1812–1857)
Hans Christian Andersen (Denmark, 1805–1875)
Italian Folktales (Italy, 1956) by Italo Calvino
Joseph Jacobs (1854–1916)
Legende sau basmele românilor (Romania, 1874) by Petre Ispirescu
Madame d'Aulnoy (France, 1650–1705)
Norwegian Folktales (Norway, 1845–1870) by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe
Narodnye russkie skazki (Russia, 1855–1863) by Alexander Afanasyev
Pentamerone (Italy, 1634–1636) by Giambattista Basile
Charles Perrault (France, 1628–1703)
Panchatantra (India, 3rd century BC)
Popular Tales of the West Highlands (Scotland, 1862) by John Francis Campbell
Ruth Manning-Sanders (Wales, 1886–1988)
Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (Germany, 1810-1886)
Kunio Yanagita (Japan, 1875–1962)
World Tales (United Kingdom, 1979) by Idries Shah
Kaloghlan (Turkey, 1923) by Ziya Gökalp
The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales (United States, 2002) by Maria Tatar


document_title: Pitch Perfect

question_text: who plays the main guy in pitch perfect

question_tokens: who plays the main guy in pitch perfect

text: Pitch Perfect

text: Plot[edit]

text: At a 2011 national a cappella competition, Barden University's all-female a cappella group, the Barden Bellas, perform well until Aubrey Posen (Anna Camp) projectile vomits on the audience during her solo. They are publicly humiliated, losing the competition. Four months later, newly arrived Barden freshman Beca Mitchell (Anna Kendrick) has no desire to attend college, but she is forced to do so by her father (John Benjamin Hickey), a professor at the university, with whom Beca has a strained relationship. Wishing she could instead pursue a career as a music producer in Los Angeles, Beca spends her time making mash-up mixes of songs and takes up an internship at the school radio station, where she gets to know fellow freshman Jesse Swanson (Skylar Astin).

text: When Beca's father discovers she has not been attending classes, he comes to her with a proposition: if she joins a club and still does not want to remain at college after one year, he will allow her to leave college, and he will pay for Beca to move to Los Angeles to pursue her music career. After some persuasion from Chloe Beale (Brittany Snow) the co-leader of the Bellas along with Aubrey, she reluctantly joins the Barden Bellas. Aubrey does not initially approve of recruiting Beca, but yields nonetheless due to a desperate need for members and Beca's talent. Beca joins alongside a group of other women who do not fit the Bellas' typical mold: Cynthia-Rose (Ester Dean), Stacie Conrad (Alexis Knapp), Lilly Onakuramara (Hana Mae Lee), and Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson). Jesse is also revealed to have joined the Bellas' all-male rival group, the Treblemakers, but his roommate Benji (Ben Platt) was rejected after being called "weird" by Bumper (Adam DeVine).

text: The Bellas participate in the southeastern regional competition at Carolina University where, at Aubrey's insistence, they perform the same medley that helped the Bellas advance to the finals the previous year. In spite of their old set list, the group manages to place second, thanks to Fat Amy putting her own spin on her solo, which sends them to the semi-finals. Unfortunately, disaster strikes for Beca when the Treblemakers cause an uproar with an old a capella group after the competition. The Bellas try to intervene, but Beca and Fat Amy accidentally smash a window with the trophy, which alerts a police officer standing outside who then arrests her. Jesse kindly waits for Beca outside the police station, but makes matters worse by getting her father involved in the situation, who is furious and tells Beca that he will no longer pay for her to move to Los Angeles because of the incident. This infuriates Beca, which turns her budding friendship with Jesse sour. In the meantime, Beca suggests to the Bellas to try to be more daring, but Aubrey insists that they will win with the repertoire the group has always used in the past.

text: At the semi-finals, Beca provides an impromptu layering of one of her favorite songs into the "traditional" song on the Bellas' set list in an attempt to reinvigorate the crowd after they seemed to have lost interest. Even though the audience seemed to enjoy Beca's remix, the Bellas come in third in the competition behind the Treblemakers and the Footnotes. Aubrey becomes furious with Beca, who in turn quits, with the Bellas losing on their chance to advance due to their third place ranking. Benji, however, finds out that the Footnotes have recruited a high school student into their team and reports it, causing their disqualification and simultaneously advancing the Bellas to the finals by default. They re-form after spring break, with the notable exception of Beca. During rehearsals, Chloe stands up against Aubrey's stubbornness. The group starts to fall apart, which sparks a fight. Meanwhile, Beca tries to apologize to Jesse, which he declines. Beca then apologizes to the Bellas for her actions during the semi-finals and asks to have another chance, which Aubrey eventually allows. After having a group heart-to-heart conversation, the Bellas decide to adopt Beca's more modern and original music style. Aubrey and Chloe relinquish their leadership to Beca. Meanwhile, Treblemakers leader Bumper leaves after being offered a job as a back-up singer for John Mayer. With Bumper gone, Jesse persuades the Trebles to let Benji join the group in Bumper's place.

text: At the a cappella national competition, the Treblemakers perform, with Benji performing for the first time. The Bellas sing a piece arranged by Beca, which includes "Don't You (Forget About Me)" a song featured in The Breakfast Club, one of Jesse's favorite movies. This acts as a more effective apology from Beca, and after the performance, she and Jesse kiss. The Bellas win the national competition, and six months later auditions for new members take place.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Anna Kendrick as Beca Mitchell, an introverted and rebellious 18-year-old freshman who joins the Barden Bellas to appease her professor father and finds herself starting to enjoy being a part of the Bellas and ends up becoming the new leader.
Anna Camp as Aubrey Posen, the uptight and traditionalist co-leader of the Bellas. She is 22. She doesn't like Beca's attitude at first, but later she decides to let Beca lead the Bellas.
Brittany Snow as Chloe Beale, the kinder and more civil co-leader of the Bellas. She is 21. She had nodes before it was removed during the spring break. After Beca leads the Bellas, Chloe hits low notes.
Rebel Wilson as Patricia "Fat Amy", a comical member from Tasmania who is 19.
Alexis Knapp as Stacie Conrad, a highly sexually driven member of the Bellas.
Ester Dean as Cynthia-Rose Adams, a soul singer.
Hana Mae Lee as Lilly Onakuramara, a strange quietly-spoken student but a talented beatboxer. After Beca leads the Bellas, she becomes audible.
Kelley Alice Jakle as Jessica, bubbly yet absent-minded.
Shelley Regner as Ashley, a beatboxer.
Wanetah Walmsley as Denise, the group's original bassist. She is presumed to be an ex-lover of Cynthia Rose because she mouths, "l still love you," as Cynthia Rose "confesses" to being a lesbian.

text:
Skylar Astin as Jesse Swanson, an outgoing Barden freshman at the age of 18 who hopes to one day become a film score composer. He joins the Barden Treblemakers. After Bumper left the Treblemakers, Jesse takes lead and take Benji into the team.
Ben Platt as Benji Applebaum, Jesse's roommate, friend, and an illusionist. A fan of the Treblemakers, he was rejected during auditions. However, he became a Treblemaker after Jesse takes lead.
Adam DeVine as Bumper Allen, the 22-year-old egotistical leader of the Treblemakers. Before The Finals, he got a call and decided to leave the Treblemakers. He gave Jesse his place.
Utkarsh Ambudkar as Donald, Bumper's right-hand man, who beatboxes, raps, and is a lead vocalist. He had sex with Kori, leading to her expulsion from the Barden Bellas.
Michael Viruet as Unicycle
David Del Rio as Kolio
Gregory Gorenc as Greg
Wes Lagarde as "Hat." He is never referred to by his real name; Hat is Bumper's nickname for him.
Steven Bailey as Steven
Brian Silver as Brian
Michael Anaya as Michael

text:
Kether Donohue as Alice, the former leader of the Bellas when Aubrey and Chloe were juniors.
Nicole Lovince as Kori, a former member of the Bellas who was kicked out for having sex with Donald, one of the Treblemakers.
Caroline Fourmy as Mary Elise, a former member of the Bellas who was also kicked out for having sex with a Treblemaker.
Freddie Stroma as Luke, the radio station manager who plays Beca's DJ mixes on the air. He calls Beca as "Becky".
Jinhee Joung as Kimmy-Jin, Beca's Korean American roommate, whose initial cold reception leads Beca to ask if she can speak English.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Tommy, the university's constantly harassed audition launcher.
John Michael Higgins as John Smith, a commentator for the ICCAs.
Elizabeth Banks as Gail Abernathy-McKadden, a commentator for the ICCAs.
John Benjamin Hickey as Dr. Benjamin Mitchell, Beca's father, a professor at the college, who insists that she attend classes and get involved
Drew Seeley as male voice #5, he sings for the Treblemakers

text: Production[edit]

text: The film is based on Mickey Rapkin's non-fiction book Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate a Cappella Glory. Rapkin, senior editor at GQ magazine, spent a season covering competitive collegiate a cappella. He followed the Tufts University Beelzebubs, the University of Oregon Divisi (the loose inspiration for the Bellas), and the University of Virginia Hullabahoos, who have a cameo in the film. Rapkin's book mainly covers the singing, groupies, partying and rivalries. Two members of the a cappella community, Deke Sharon, who founded the International Championship of College A Cappella, and Ed Boyer, both in Rapkin's book, were brought on board to arrange songs, produce vocals and act as on-site music directors, where they ran a month-long "a cappella boot camp".[8] The film was shot throughout campus and inside buildings at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[9] Elizabeth Banks is a co-producer and a co-star in the film.[9]

text: Casting[edit]

text: The casting department included Justin Bieber, Rich Richie, Allison Williams, and Michael Broth.[10] Producer Elizabeth Banks appears throughout the film alongside John Michael Higgins as commentators for the competitions.[11]

text: Paul Brooks stated "First and foremost, we were looking for actors who had comedic instincts and thought we'd get lucky with terrific actors who happened to be funny and can actually dance and maybe sing. It turns out we did get lucky with our cast!"[12] According to producer Elizabeth Banks, "The character Beca required someone who was grounded, who has a strong point of view on the world, who is funny and empathetic and someone who we can all relate to and root for." Of Kendrick she said, "Anna is all those things, and there was no other choice." Fellow producer Brooks said "I saw Anna in Up in the Air and thought it was the most exquisite, elegant, balanced, sublime performance. Anna was our first choice for the role of Beca."[12]

text: When casting the character of Jesse, Max Handelman said "We were looking for a young John Cusack-type guy. We needed to find someone who was kind of awkward but not a geek, but not so cool that you're not rooting for him." Skylar Astin was chosen for the role. Of Astin's audition, Banks said the chemistry between Skylar and Anna when they read together prior to shooting was "clear and they were able to riff off each other."[12]

text: Rebel Wilson was recognized for her performance in the comedy film Bridesmaids upon auditioning for the role of Fat Amy, which she won instantly. Moore recalled Wilson singing Lady Gaga's "The Edge of Glory" while beating "on her chest with her fists." He said, "I didn't even hear the end of the song because I was laughing so hard. There's this beautiful openness to the way Rebel approaches everything, and that's what works great for the character. She's fearless."[12] Adam DeVine was personally chosen by Banks and Handelman for the role of Bumper after they saw him on the television series Workaholics. Banks confessed that she and her husband are "big Workaholics fans," and after watching one night during the film's casting, they saw DeVine and "immediately thought" he would be a good choice for Bumper. He initially declined because he was not a singer. DeVine eventually surprised Banks and Handelman with his vocal skills.[12] Anna Camp was chosen for the role of Aubrey. Producer Max Handelman said, "Elizabeth and I were huge fans of Anna's from True Blood. Aubrey is set up as the antagonist for Beca, and Beca's already a bit hard-edged, so it was so important to find an actress who could play Aubrey as someone who could marshal the crazy but also was sympathetic."[12]

text: Release[edit]

text: The film was released on September 28, 2012 in the United States.

text: Home media[edit]

text: Pitch Perfect was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray/DVD combo pack on December 18, 2012.[13]

text: Reception[edit]

text: Box office[edit]

text: Pitch Perfect grossed $65 million in the North America and $50.3 million in other territories for a total gross of $115.4 million since release, against a $17 million budget.[2]

text: The film opened in limited release in the United States and Canada on September 28, 2012, and wide release in the United States and Canada on October 5, 2012. It grossed $1.8 million upon its opening day of limited release and $4.9 million on its first day of wide release.[14] In its wide opening weekend, the film opened at number three, behind Taken 2 and Hotel Transylvania, grossing $14.8 million.[15] The opening weekend audience was 81 percent female, which is considered overwhelming. The opening weekend also attracted a younger audience with 55% of the opening weekend audience being under the age of 25.[16] The film is the third-highest-grossing music comedy film, behind its sequel, Pitch Perfect 2, and School of Rock.[2]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: Pitch Perfect received positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 80% based on 143 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Pitch Perfect's plot is formulaic, but the performances are excellent and the musical numbers are toe-tapping as well."[17] Metacritic give a score of 66 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[18] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[19]

text: NPR's David Edelstein selected it as one of the top films of the year[20] and Entertainment Weekly chose the soundtrack as one of the year's best.[21] Chris Tookey of the Daily Mail praised Rebel Wilson in particular for her performance.[22] Roger Ebert gave the film 2 stars out of 4, praising Rebel Wilson for her "ebullient, unstoppable and raucous" performance, but also stating that "It's a twentysomething song-and-dance movie built around rival a cappella groups. That's more exciting than dueling string quartets, I suppose - but no, the quartets would be performing better material." [23]

text: Accolades[edit]

text:
List of awards and nominations for Pitch Perfect

Award
Category
Nominees
Result

Broadcast Film Critics Association Award
Best Actress in a Comedy
Rebel Wilson
Nominated

Detroit Film Critics Society Award
Breakthrough Performance
Rebel Wilson
Nominated

Motion Picture Sound Editors[24]
Best Music in a Musical Feature Film
Pitch Perfect
Won

MTV Movie Award[25]
Best Breakthrough Performance
Rebel Wilson
Won

Best Musical Moment
Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, Brittany Snow, Alexis Knapp, Ester Dean, and Hana Mae Lee
Won

Best WTF Moment
Anna Camp ("Hack-Appella")
Nominated

Best Female Performance
Rebel Wilson
Nominated

People's Choice Award
Favorite Comedy Movie
Pitch Perfect
Nominated

San Diego Film Critics Society
San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
Rebel Wilson
Nominated

Teen Choice Awards[26]
Choice Movie: Comedy
Pitch Perfect
Won

Choice Movie Actress: Comedy
Anna Kendrick
Nominated

Choice Movie Actress: Comedy
Rebel Wilson
Won

Choice Movie Actor: Comedy
Skylar Astin
Won

Choice Movie: Scene Stealer
Ben Platt
Nominated

Choice Movie: Scene Stealer
Hana Mae Lee
Nominated

Choice Movie: Breakout
Adam DeVine
Nominated

Choice Movie: Villain
Adam DeVine
Won

American Music Awards
Favorite Soundtrack
Pitch Perfect
Won

tag: table

text: Soundtrack[edit]

text: Pitch Perfect: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released digitally on September 25, 2012, and physically on October 2, 2012.[27] Three of the songs from the album, including the highly covered "Cups", charted on the Billboard Hot 100. It was 2013's best-selling soundtrack album and has sold 1.2 million copies in the United States as of April 2015.[28][29]

text: On September 14, Kira Kazantsev won Miss America 2015 after performing "Happy" with cup percussion,[30] in a manner that was similar to Anna Kendrick's character in Pitch Perfect.[31]

text: Sequels[edit]

text: Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)[edit]

text: In December 2012, Skylar Astin revealed that he and Rebel Wilson had meetings with Universal about a potential sequel.[32]

text: In April 2013, it was confirmed that a sequel would be released in 2015.[33] Elizabeth Banks would direct the sequel, with Kay Cannon returning as screenwriter.[34] Brooks would produce for Gold Circle Films alongside Banks and Max Handelman. Cannon would co-produce with Gold Circle's Jeff Levine. Kendrick, Astin, Wilson, Camp, Snow, Platt, DeVine, Dean, Knapp, Jakle, Regner, Walmsley, Banks, and Higgins would all reprise their roles in the sequel. Additionally, Hailee Steinfeld and Chrissie Fit would join the cast as Emily and Flo, new Barden Bellas, while Katey Sagal would join as Emily's mother, and German YouTube star Flula Borg would appear in an unknown role.[35][36]

text: It was announced in January 2014 that the sequel would be released on May 15, 2015.[37] On June 10, 2015, plans for a third film were officially confirmed, with Kay Cannon returning to write the script.[38]

text: Pitch Perfect 3 (2017)[edit]

text: On June 10, 2015, a third film was officially confirmed, with Kay Cannon returning to write the script.[39] The film was slated to be released on July 21, 2017, before being pushed back to August 4, 2017, before moving back to the July 21 slot.[40] Finally it was decided to be released on December 22, 2017. Several days later it was announced both Kendrick and Wilson would reprise their roles, and later Brittany Snow was also confirmed to return.[41] Hailee Steinfeld is also going to reprise her role.[42] On October 18, 2016, Anna Camp was also confirmed to be returning. On January 2, 2017, Ester Dean and Chrissie Fit both confirmed that they were heading to Atlanta to film the third installment, reprising their roles.[43] Banks was going to return to direct, and also as a producer along with Max Handelman and Paul Brooks.[44] Banks later announced that she would be stepping down as director due to scheduling conflicts and parental responsibilities, but would remain a producer.[45]


document_title: The Elves and the Shoemaker

question_text: who helps the shoemaker make the nice shoes

text: The Elves and the Shoemaker

text: Plot summary[edit]

text: There are variations depending on the rendition of the story.

text:
A poor shoemaker and his wife need money to pay the rent. He gives away the last pair of shoes he has to a needy lady. He has leather to make one more pair of shoes. He cuts out the pieces of leather, before going to bed, so that he can sew them into a pair of shoes on the morrow. Elves come in the night and make the pair of shoes which he sells for more than his asking price the next day. He uses that money to pay the rent, buy food and more shoe leather. He feeds a poor traveler.
He has just enough money to buy enough leather for two pairs of shoes. He cuts the pieces of leather for two pairs, and retires for the night. The elves come, again, that night and make two pairs of shoes with the additional leather. He gives away one pair to a needy person and sells the other pair to a referral from the first customer who is immensely satisfied.
He buys leather for three and stays up to find the elves making the shoes. The shoemaker and wife make clothes for the elves the next day, but the elves are freed when given clothes, so they leave, and the shoemaker and his wife never see them again.

text: In popular culture[edit]

text: Friz Freleng created a musical adaption of the story for his 1946 Merrie Melodies cartoon Holiday for Shoestrings.

text: Four years later, Tex Avery adapted the story for his 1950 MGM cartoon short The Peachy Cobbler.

text: The 1956 Looney Tunes cartoon short Yankee Dood It is based on this fairy tale, with Elmer Fudd as the king of industrial elves. 150 years after this fairy tale took place, he visits the shoemaker to retrieve the elves he has employed, while also imparting the virtues of mass production capitalism to him.  The same basic plot was also used in the 1946 cartoon short Holiday for Shoestrings.

text: In the Due South episode, "The Deal", Det. Ray Vecchio vaguely recollects this story when discussing a poor cobbler with his partner, Constable Fraser.

text: In Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love, a spinoff miniseries of the Vertigo comic-book series Fables, the shoemaker appears as an employee in Cinderella's shoe store, while the elves are the builders and suppliers of the store's inventory.

text: Muppet Classic Theater had a version where a shoemaker (played by Kermit the Frog) faces ruin until his livelihood is saved by a group of philanthropic entertainers (played by The Elvises) who, naturally, make only blue suede shoes.

text: In a Barney & Friends episode called If the Shoe Fits..., the kids are rehearsing for their play about this story.

text: In the Harry Potter series of books, there is a large volume of House Elves. These elves take care of the needs of human wizards. They are also free of their obligation once given clothes.

text: In the TV show Supernatural, the season 6 episode Clap Your Hands If You Believe has a variation of the tale, of a watchmaker and some fairies.

text: In Jane Shields and Rosemary Doyle's The Shoemaker and the Pantomimes Cinderella goes looking for elves to help her father in his obligation to the evil designer Kenneth Coal, but all she ends up with are Mimes, a resourceful mother Twanky, and an even more resourceful cat. Premiered Red Sandcastle Theatre, Toronto, 2012.

text: The fairytale is alluded to in two episodes of The Big Bang Theory. In The Extract Obliteration, Leonard Hofstadter mentions it to Penny after he does her essay for her. In The Bus Pants Utilization, Sheldon greets Leonard in the morning with "Good morning, Shoemaker", in reference to the fact that he has been up all night working on Leonard's differential equations app project.

text: In the 2003 Christmas movie Elf, shoe making is one of the jobs for elves.