Fairy Tales -- What a Crock!!!!

when i say the word "fairy tale", what is the first word that pops in your head? quite often, the answer would be "Disney". that's too bad. for me, however, the word would be, "unfair, brainwashing desceptions, coated in sugar, shoved down the throats of unsuspecting youths by the faceless rule-makers and stereotype-setters of society." yeah, okay, word-S. whatever. but think about it; all the social insinuations, all the double standards, not to mention over-suggested caste distinctions and sexist ideals! someone needs to call them out, and if no one else dares don the shining armour of truth, i take it upon myself to desperately reveal the hidden reality of these stories.

to start with, the all-too-sweet, shiney happy fairy tales we all know today (as fed to us through modern film and other dilluted media) are but sad, malnourished shadows of the dark tales of evil and woe they once were. take "Snow White" for instance, Walt Disney's first attempt at a feature-length animation (granted, Walt was a varitable genius in the ways of film and art -- but, surely, he could've stuck to the story a bit more!); the story of an ambiguously-aged young woman who is treated unfairly by her wicked stepmother, only to be chased away by the huntsman who was to kill her, lands in a tiny cottage with seven miniscule miners who find her pretty and allow her to stay and do the cooking and cleaning they are none too keen on doing themselves, only to be tricked by the wicked stepmother who simply could not keep well enough alone and who disguises herself as an old woman with a poison apple, causing the young woman to go into a coma lasting, oh, a couple weeks at most, to be awakened by a handsome prince who happens along her glass coffin in an abandoned medow, marries said prince, leaving behind her seven former caretakers for dust and death.

dark and shallow though this tale seems, it is, as most recreations are, nothing compared to the original short story by the Grimm brothers, in which the wicked stepmother isn't so wicked to start out, but after giving birth either to a stillborn baby, or a deformed one which was promptly killed to be put out of its misery (versions dispute -- either way, they agree that she kept the corpse), she spirals into depression and, later, madness, jellous at the fact that her husband's daughter, Snow White, was still alive, well, AND beautiful. the king offers to do anything to help her become happy again, and she snaps and orders him to kill his daughter (Disney failed to reveal the fact that the huntsman was supposed to be her father). when this happens, she is only about seven or eight years old, but she stays with the seven miners (not necessarily dwarves) until she is thirteen or fourteen, as was the proper marrying age back then (a fact that still baffels me; girls that age are just getting over the fact that their skin is covered in cistuous bumps and they are bleeding from oriphaces they weren't entirely aware they had -- add the prospect of marriage and the fact that twenty was considered the age of old spinsterhood, and you've REALLY got some raging horemones...). the pig's heart that replaced Snow White's was found out, and the stepmother comes to her three times, not one, and not in a magical disguise, just an old robe and wig, the first time with a poison comb she stabs into her scalp, then with a corsit to suffocate her (both times the miners were able to save her using some type of extracting lotion and a good old fashioned knife), THEN with the poison apple (you'd think, being German, one of them would've known the heimlech meneuver before the rest of the world... huh). her coffin was made of diamond, not glass, but the origin of prince charming is still unclear. the story doesn't stop there, of course, but goes on to the wedding (where the miners were still abandoned for the royal lifestyle). Vendetta Laws are never applied in Disney films, but the Grimms depicted a rather grizley scene where the mad stepmother was forced to dance at the reception wearing red-hot iron shoes, to the point that her feet were no longer of use for the rest of her life, which was spent in exile to a swampland.

see? two totally different stories.

despite the changing of fairy tale plots to fit today's standard, certain foul distinctions remain intact, as they are the very essence of the characters within them. caste distinction, for example, is very important, as you never hear a fairy tale about a commoner, unless they become royalty in the end. and the sexist ideal, of course, is that women are helpless little chatterboxes that are exposed to situations that simply do not befit their status as women, while men are the big, strong men of mark (princes and kings, or just rich mama's boys), and are always the ones that end up saving the day, never mind where else they have been during the rest of the story. it is this stupid ideal that has girls letting the guys win, no matter what, and which sends "tomboys" and "femenists" into exile. it is also what makes so many men go mad, as the "big, strong leader" deal does not allow them to have emotions, so they snap and beat up/kill whatever they are taught to be weaker than themselves (that's why i don't mind angry girls -- as long as they're not annoying with it, i don't care how many men did you wrong, if you don't shut up i will slap the crap outa you myself! -- or crying boys, as that is a perfectly natural way to express frustration, fear, anger, worry, and, of course, sadness).

then there's my most dispised of distinctions: that of physical appearance bing synonomous with moral code. it's always a kind, beautiful maiden facing an ugly, wicked witch/stepmother/stepsister. you never hear a fairy tale about the kind, ugly maiden prospering, no matter how sweet and generous she is. and one need not be ugly to be evil, and vice versa. only recently is today's dilluted media showing stories about "pretty bitches" -- most of the antagonists are viewed as protagonists in their world, just because of physical beauty, both male and female.

my favorite fairy tale is "Beauty and the Beast" (not Disney, although that one is fairly okay -- a leading lady who prefers intelligence and imagination to beauty and social standing is something i can always support -- the fact that she ended up pretty, too, was merely a happy accident). the version i like, it starts out with the protagonist, Honour (not Beauty), being the plain-looking middle sister, absolutely nothing special about her, except for her thirst for knowledge and desire for adventure (Disney corp. got that right -- too bad Walt sr. had already died). her sisters giver her the nickname of "Beauty" as a cruel joke. one day, her father ventures through the enchanted wood toward the city to look for work, and all of Honour's sisters demand a preasent for when he comes back -- clothes, jewelrey, fashionable pets, etc. -- but when asked what she wanted, the girl who expected very little special treatment from life just asked for some rose seeds to plant a garden. the father returns some months later, completely shaken. he'd struck out in a wave of unemployment (sound familliar?) and could not afford to buy the presents his pretty daughters demanded, but did come accross an abandoned estate with some roses growing on the gate, so he thought he'd take one for his mostly-forgotten plain middle daughter, when a talking beast demanded retribution for the stolen property. so he traded the rose and a sack of rose seeds for his daughter for his daughter (yes, you read it twice, now think about it). hard worker though she was, she wouldn't get much in the way of a marriage, and they were already shelling out a fortune for her dowry (a bribe for young men to pretend to find her attractive), so she wouldn't be completely missed... so Honour (Beauty) goes to live with the Beast, who asks her every evening for a year to marry him, to which she replies, "No, Beast" -- at first because, duh, he's a friggin' Beast! then later because, even if she has come to love him, she fears herself too plain, and that he's only marrying her out of convenience, and if it were one of her sisters instead of her, he'd be slightly more eager. (how screwed up is that logic? i'm not saying i don't understand it, i probably do more than i think. but refusing becaus you think you're too ugly for the qote-unquote-"hiddeous creature"? wow.) of course, eventually, after recieving gift after magical gift (a time-travelling library with every book that will ever be written, botomless chest, a ring -- not mirror -- that shows her whatever she wishes to see), and before she can say yes, she finds that, without her hardworking help, the farm is failing, and her family's ailing, so he lets her go to them, but not before saying he would die without her.

now, if the story had stopped there (and it probably did in the Grimm's original original version), it would've become this wonderful, tragic tale of unrequited love, and that is a wonderful thing. but no. it went on until the family got fixed, but Honour remained broken-hearted at leaving her true love, no matter how fuzzy and toothy he happened to be. when her roses started dying, however, she somehow knew they were connected to the Beast, fled back to his manor, to find him almost dead when she declares her love. yeah, you know what comes next; the Beast turns into a handsome prince, which so goes against the whole point of the story, i could spit acid every time i read it! and, as if that weren't bad enough, SHE turns beautiful, TOO!!! bringing out the inner-beauty is the point, i suppose, but then they both started acting all flippant and shallow, wearing pretty clothing, and hiring servants to take on the chores the now-permenantly-deemed "Beauty" once found cathartic. and i gotta ask, what the flap, jack?!?! why? why?! WHY?!! one of the few original fairy tales with a "happy ending", and i hate it. love the story, hate the ending. it's supposed to be about transcending traditional lables, but when they find themselves in the more favored lable, suddenly leaving stereotypical behavior behind seems too much trouble...? how much more double can a standard get?! ugh.

fairy tales are read to children with impressionable little minds, and are depicted as the ideal way. girls are meant to be beautiful and perfect, whose only flaws are naiivete` and gullability, and the occasional too-good-for-her-own-good. i.e., if you are sweet and submissive, you can become a princess. on the other hand, little boys are meant to be chivalrous and tough; also cute and rich and romantic and perfect doesn't hurt. no pressure. fairy tales are the reason for the underlying psychological pressure in our society; why girls torture themselves to achieve the ideal beauty, and why boys alter their entire personality just to be the "right kind" of guy. if you don't believe me, look at any high school in existance. friggin' fairy tale characters-in-training, man! and anyone who goes against the code are shunned to the proverbial swampland.

that's where i choose to live; where wicked step-people can tell their side of the story and beauty is truely found within, where a girl can be a knight and a boy can be a beautiful poet's soul, and the endings are almost always tragic, but at least they're not false.