Sta.sh
May 30, 2012 by $techgnoticA Thousand Years Tradition of Scaring Children at BedtimeContinues for Children of All Ages
News of the discovery of 500 “new” fairy tales collected over 150 years ago in Germany and locked away in a forgotten archive has me thinking about the enduring importance of these narrative treasures in the lives of human societies worldwide. My worry, have fairy tales been marginalized by modernism?
Do you remember being read fairy tales as a child? Or was your earliest immersion into children’s literature dominated by Dr. Seuss and The Magic Treehouse series? And how long was it before a Harry Potter novel or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other TV cartoon characters captured your imagination and supplanted parents as curators of storytelling time? Has something been lost in the shift away from the classic fairy tales toward a less “upsetting” childhood syllabus? Has a part of our identity been denied us, an important anchoring to our past generations and their most basic teachings been allowed to come undone and set us adrift?
Check out this chart I found from a few years ago
Top Bedtime Stories of 2008
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle (1969)
Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves (1971)
The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson (1999)
Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne (1926)
Aliens Love Underpants, Claire Freedman & Ben Cort (2007)
Thomas and Friends from The Railway Series, Rev.W.Awdry (1945)
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (1908)
What a Noisy Pinky Ponk!, Andrew Davenport (2008)
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Robert Southey (1837)
Top 10 Fairy Tales We No Longer Read
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Hansel and Gretel
Cinderella
Little Red Riding Hood
The Gingerbread Man
Jack and the Beanstalk
Sleeping Beauty
Beauty and the Beast
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Emperor's New Clothes
From a poll of 3,000 British parents, by TheBabyWebsite.com
At some point along the way, parents were told that fairy tales are too violent for children’s bedtimes, a sure cause of fright and insomnia, a possible cause of more serious psychic trauma. Even when classic tales like “Peter Pan” are given a Walt Disney film treatment, all of the much darker parts of the story are “disappeared” to deliver a more harmless and more commercial product. (Tip to the wise reader: Be sure at some point in your adulthood to treat yourself to the more satisfying original sources of everything you’ve ever enjoyed as a movie or TV show; whether it’s “Peter Pan,” “Dracula,” or “James Bond,” you’ll be glad you did.)
Societies tend to censor in their pursuit of public tranquility, but it’s hard to keep a good story down (suppressed). Fairy tales keep reemerging at regular intervals in new, transformed, even futurist iterations. The basic lessons these stories teach are simply too resonant with the vibrations of the basic questions in our lives recurring generation after generation, to not be as a riveting and relevant as when they were first circulated in voices by candlelight. This week it’s the opening of “Snow White and the Huntsman.” Early reviews indicate that the film improves upon the main “lesson” of physical beauty possibly disguising a black heart together with inner goodness being the truest beauty has been improved upon. According to early reviewers this updated version emphasizes the severity of the overemphasis on attractiveness in women’s lives generally and the modern woman’s struggle to be herself and rise by her own abilities rather than on her looks. What on it’s trailer surface looks to be just the sort of summer fantasy and action entertainment I’ll certainly enjoy on Thursday midnight – also presents some important life lessons that younger viewers need to know. The fairy tale, and its sacred mission, lives!
It’s not just in new retellings of classic fairy tales that this desire to revisit these stories resurfaces in later adulthood. The current inundation of competing movie superhero canons seems to reflect the need to sort out basic human questions about right and wrong, patriotism and treason, honor and deceit, valor and cowardice, etc. Yes, I am especially thinking of Joss Whedon's wonderful Avengers screenplay. The complexity and gray areas that make these issues so difficult in adulthood makes our basic grounding in the ethics and absolutes of a childhood fairy tale “education’ all the more important.
Fairy tales forewarn and prepare us for a life that will be loaded with dangers – but dangers that can be intelligently calibrated so that we’ll know when we must be brave and fight despite the odds, and when we should retreat to seek a safer way around. Moving beyond films, I am hopeful an upcoming video game being developed by Krillbrite entitled "Among The Sleep" brings this classic fairy tale aesthetic to the gaming medium with a compelling and rich narrative to go with it. I also believe the Latin American literary movement known as “magical realism,” exemplified in novels like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is another example of the reemergence of the fairy tale in “adult” storytelling. Not to be confused with “surrealism,” in “magical realism” the narrative remains absolutely realistic – but with the moments of magical epiphany just as emphatically asserted to be “real.” The effect is a powerful statement that there is more to life than what the controlling “order” demands life must be limited to. The novels of Isabel Allende also comes to mind as examples of "magical realism”. In his “real” fairy tales, Marquez teaches that there is real magic in our lives, but it is only attainable by those with the truest and most faithful hearts.
Also, this is written really well!
Concerning my own personal experience my parents read me fairy tales when I was little. And second them I asked often for the Little Red Hood and Little Thumbling, so I guess they were my favorite but I couldn't say why, maybe because of the main character's resourcefulness from the second tale, I don't know. I only realized how disturbing these stories might get on some aspects only later (the incest in Donkeyskin for example).
About all I've just read in the comments about the bowdlerization and the sugar-coated aspect of the fairy tales today, especially in the Disney's adaptations, I would like to put my two cents in.
First, the toning down of these fairy tales had begun long before Disney, the versions collected by the folklorist have been selected and are much less horrifying than some other versions or the originals (which really means a lot when you read Grimm). For example, Perrault has toned down the tales and the versions selected for his time: by our standards indeed they are horrifying though generally a bit less violent than their Grimm's counterpart, except for the Little Red Hood. In Perrault's version there's no happy end, except of course from the wolf's point of view since he gets two meals.
About this tale, to show you how disturbing to say the least were some of the older versions, I remember that we studied the Mother Goose Tales by Perrault in literature class they showed us the older versions of some tales, among them an older version of the Little Red Hood that implied cannibalism and near-rape.
You can read a more detailed summary of this version here in French:
[link]
or a version of the tale itself:
[link]
... or English:
[link]
However we have to keep in mind that these tales were not only for children but for everyone and that kids weren't as sheltered as they are today for most of them, they were indeed exposed to the harshness of life quite early, so sheltering them wouldn't have come in mind to their parents or anyone. That's mainly in the nineteenth century, and more exactly in the wealthier classes, that the idea of sheltering the children came in mind, followed by toned-down version of fairy tales whose violence was more accepted before.
And about Disney's adaptations, granted they are not as violent and dark as the original sources (they would have been classified as horror stories otherwise, at best), but I think the fairy tales adaptation are not as watered-down as some have said. For example, the witch in Snow Whitewas genuinely scary, especially during her transformation, so were the oubliettes in her castle and the forest. This movie can't be reduced to the jolly dwarves and the cutesy animals in my opinion, I'm defending this one and it is not even my favorite Disney. And it never disturbed me how different these adaptations were from the original tales since I had been exposed to both and knew what to expect from a Disney's adaptation and generally didn't chose a favorite between Disney movie and the fairy tale that inspired it. Except for Beauty and the Beast: I really prefer the Disney's version because Mme d'Aulnoy's tale isn't as interesting to follow, but that's only my opinion.
Now, concerning the women in fairy tales, I think the fact they get armors and weapons in some recent adaptations may be a way of empowering them, if a) it is done right, and b) if they're not reduced to that aspect. Also, I would like to point out that making them warriors at some point is only one way to empower them, not the only one. The most important second me is the personality given to the characters, whatever their sex is. And about the personality, let's be honest, it is nearly impossible to adapt faithfully any fairytale, not only because it would be awfully short, but also because most of the characters can come as pretty pretty, let's be honest, dumb, especially the female ones, who on top of it are often quite passive. But I understand that these stories were not meant to be realistic and have believable characters, which explains the nature of most of them. Concerning the portrayal of female characters I know it was illustrating the virtues expected from a woman at the time, especially patience and obedience. Though, surprisingly some tales present active female characters like in the Finta Nonna (The False Grandmother), a primitive Italian version of the Little Red Hood where the girl manages to save herself without any help.
Now, if you want to see the most misogynous and despicable portrayal of women, and men given the main male character, then go read Grisélidis. Another Perrault' tale inspired by Griselda by Boccace and The Clerk's Tale by Chaucer. Basically, the marquis of Saluzzo is a misogynous jerk who doesn't want to get married unless he finds a woman who would accept to obey him in all things. He marries a virtuous, sweet, patient peasant named Grisélidis. Then he decides to test his virtue by taking away from her their daughter and pretending she's dead (in other versions he takes away from her their two kids by saying he wants them killed (he doesn't) and she's okay with that !). He still treats her like crap after that, rejects her and she accepts all this without any complaint. Later, he has the nerve to ask her to be the servant of his new bride (their grown-up daughter), she accepts. Finally he reveals her the bride is her daughter and takes her back and they all live happily ever after. And I'm not kidding, this is supposed to be a happy ending and even a positive portrayal of women since Grisélidis has feminine virtues of patience and obedience. So, we have a female character with absolutely no backbone and a male character who's a cruel bastard (who on top of it is presented as a good beloved king in the story).
Finally, to answer some of your questions:
3) Well, if the Disney version counts, the Witch from Snow White and Maleficent used to scare me a lot.
5) Well, maybe Thumbelina since the eponymous character was much more active in the original Andersen's tale for what I remember.
2.)Know they are not helpless any mire thats great
3.) The flinty heart/ Heart of stone
2) Sure I like it, it's great that modern human kind is starting to appreciate the until now un-worshiped gender.
3) No not really, not that I can remember anyway
4) When I was a kid? I don't remember any. Now? There are many stories that do.
5) Maybe Sleepy Hollow with Johnny Depp, Red Riding Hood with Amanda Seyfried, there are probably others...
2: Why does a woman have to put on armor to suddenly become more "empowered?" Alice didn't really need to be dressed up in armor. I haven't seen Snow White yet. I even found Maid Marion's sudden battlefield appearance in the latest Robin Hood movie rather absurd. Not because, "le gasp! It's a woman on the battlefield!" but more because she had no real purpose in being there. Sticking with the fantasy genres, Eowyn is the one of the few females-in-arms so far where I've felt it was right. It's in her character from the get-go, without any kind of reimagining her personality to make her fit current modes of thought.
4: Most of them are pretty amazing to read. I just remember curling up with Grimm's Fairy Tales and having at it on rainy days. Page after page, my imagination didn't really settle on one that was lifted more than the others. But when you're already traveling among the stars, how much higher are you expecting to go?
5: Off the top of my head, Burton's Alice in Wonderland. It felt more like it was "Hatter of Wonderland" rather than Alice. Hazards, I guess, of having such a high profile actor for what ought to have been a more minor character. Don't get me started on the jig at the end. Alice in Wonderland seems to be a miss more than hit kind of fairy tale, anyway, when getting translated to the screen. I'm sure there have been others, I just can't think of one right now.
2. I haven't seen "Snow White and the Huntsman", but the new "Alice in Wonderland" was too bizarre for me to really form those kind of opinions (courtesy of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp). I'd go for Eowyn from Lord of the Rings for a warrior woman.
I'll answer the other questions in a later comment.
2) I loved Snow White and The Huntsman. Alice in Wonderland, to me, could've been sooo much better, it was honestly kind of boring to me. I would take it as an empowerment also, but more like "not everything is pink, princess". Without the completely depressing aura.
3) Not a fairy tale, it was a myth what scared me.
4) Never been that much into fairy tales. Specially disney ones.
5) In general, none. It's technology what did that. In specific...I'd say the puss in boots movie.