Today I’m gonna talk about fairy tales.
Fairy tales are everywhere.We all read them when we were younger, or had them read to us, or watched animated versions of varying quality of them. Chances are, if you have any kids you’ve read a fairy tale or two to them.
Fairy tales exist as cautionary tales: Little Red Riding Hood teaches us not to talk to strangers. Snow White warns us about accepting gifts from strangers. The Three Little Pigs lauds the merits of hard work now. Jack and the Beanstalk teaches us not to be dumb and trade a cow for five beans…okay that may not have been the primary lesson in that one. Oh! But love is definitely blind! How else can you explain so many wicked stepmothers?
Over the years, the stories have been somewhat sanitized. I remember reading a copy of Little Red Riding Hood where Red and her grandmother both got eaten by the wolf, only to be rescued by the hunter who cuts the wolf open while the wolf is sleeping. He then replaces Red and her grandmother with large stones and sews the wolf back up so that he’ll be none the wiser. Well that had to go. We wouldn’t want our kids to be traumatized by a fairy tale. That’s what television, movies and video games are for.
Over time, some fairy tales have fallen out of popularity for unknown reasons. Sure everybody remembers Snow White, but what about her sister (in some stories) Rose Red? Does anyone know the story of the Water Nixie nowadays?
Because everyone’s familiar with the classic fairy tales, they’re easy to adapt to various mediums.
In my younger days, my record collection of stories was a prized possession. Danny Kaye kept me entertained for many an hour with the stories of Clever Gretel and Rumpelstiltskin. He was a great storyteller, let me tell you.
Disney built an animated empire on the backs of the Brothers Grimm amongst others. Back in the days of First Choice Pay TV, I used to look forward to new installments of Shelly Duvall’s Fairy Tale Theatre. There’s a lot of star power in her adaptations of popular tales often with a little of the dark edge maintained.
And those are just examples of straight adaptations. Fairy tales lend themselves well to parody, such as the Fractured Fairy Tales of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and numerous Looney Tunes and Disney shorts.
I’ve been noticing a recent renewal of interest in fairy tales in popular culture these days. And why not? They’re in the public domain so anybody can use them. Everybody is familiar with them, so you can count on same name brand recognition. And there are loads of them out there. For an industry starved for ideas, fairy tales are a gold mine. Just add a twist here and there as needed to keep things fresh.
Red Riding Hood was adapted as a motion picture where the wolf is actually a werewolf. Snow White and the Huntsman will be an empowering tale where the Huntsman teaches Snow White to kick butt so she can defeat the wicked queen. I would imagine dwarfs will be at a premium. Felicia Day starred in Red, a Made-for-TV movie where she’s the descendent of Red Riding Hood, the original werewolf hunter.
On television, no less than two new shows premiered with a fairy tale foundation this season: Grimm is a Buffy the Vampire monster of the week show, while Once Upon a Time asks the question “What if the characters in your favorite fairy tales were real and living in the present day?” Sounds like the comic book series Fables if you ask me, but then if I want Fables (and I do) I’ll read the comic. I’ve been watching both Grimm and Once Upon a Time and I find the latter to be more enjoyable than the former.
Through it all, there’s something comforting about these stories. Now I need to go find those Danny Kaye recordings.