to think that the classic fairy tales ate deeply deeply disturbing?

[bejeezus]

And give terrible messages to little girls?

I give you

Sleeping Beauty Surely a strange man who kisses you whilst you are sleeping needs reporting to the police not marrying, regardless of his social status?

Beauty and the Beast should include a page explaining the 'Stockholm Syndrome'?

Rumplestiltskin Where to start?! A father traffickers his daughter to a man who imprisons her and threatens her with death if she fails to turn his hay into gold. A 'friend' helps her out and she is overjoyed to ne spared death. She marries her abuser and has a child with him. 'Friend' cashed in favour and attempts to manipulate girl and steal child to take to his little house in the woods

Surely she should have packed a small bag of essentials, called the police and Women's Aid and have had herself and her baby taken to a refuge?

moonstorm

Thank you!

I thought that the non disney fairy tails were cautionery tales. sometimes I get glimpses of serial killers in them.

Allow the kids to watch the only way is essex and x factor instead.
Over thinking is making people think not a lot methinks.
They are nursery rhymes how many parents are robbing their children of a childhood they enjoyed by being offended?

Traditional nursery rhymes are similarly very interesting - often they are about the politics of the day, a couple are even about prostitutes! Most people know about Ring-a-Roses. They seem to be dying out more so than traditional fairy stories.

I often wonder what they cradle was doing in the tree tops!!

I'll suggest you read Angela Carter, her perspective on fairy tales is brilliant!

I have Women Who Run With Wolves and also Carter's entire collection. I don't mind posting of someone wants to borrow them? I also have "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories".

As kid I did not find them disturbing, as an adult I think... yikes!
Same with some nursery rhymes. My version of Three Blind Mice

She cut off their tails with a carving knife gave them a glass of coke with ice.

Oh yes, I forgot rock a bye baby. My version for the ending line...
And mommy will catch you, cradle and all

bejeezus
Think I should take my beanbag over to the feminist boards and have a listen in. Think I might be one

For you :) feminist

Funny how as you get older and supposedly wiser these fairytales take on a whe new significance. Angela Carter's another one who's rewritten them from a feminist perspective (The Bloody Chamber, Company of Wolves). Vladimir Propp did a lot of research into original folktales and found they're composed to a formula and all contain versions of the exact same elements- all of them, yes, about power, oppression, incest/abuse, sexual awakening, escape, empowerment (or not), rite of passage, forces of evil, mysticism etc. It would be interesting to know if our formulaic soaps do the same thing. I certainly get that watching EastEnders

I had a bit of a Little Mermaid epiphany recently when my (now ex) BF asked me to marry him - but only if I would move to where he lives, 600 miles away, which would mean moving my 3 kids -again, since I already moved post-divorce - their school, their friends, my home, which I'm working on, and
a business I've built up here fr scratch. I think the Mermaid is also about the sacrifices women make for men. Vagina or no, I ain't cuttin off ma swimmy tail for no man.

Agree that the disneyfied versions don't have great messages for little girls. But I had thought the whole point of fairytales originally was to help children deal with disturbing thoughts and fears. For example many of them have children whose mothers are killed or they are abandoned by their mother.

I worry that by sanitising things too much we don't provide children with a way of dealing safely with difficult fears or thoughts.

I always remember a cartoon version of old fairytales I saw as a child. Somehow death was defeated. As a result all the old people were wailing because they weren't going to die and would have to carry on living. I was very puzzled by this and asked my mum why old people would want to die? But I didn't find it upsetting - just that it was a new concept that hadn't occurred to me.

I love fairytales, this is very interesting!

Ooh I love the "proper" fairy tales, the way they were meant to be before Disney got their mitts on them. Mine and DCs favourite book is the collection of grimms fairy tales :) love it!

I've just found this thread again- I had hidden it, by accident. Thanks for all the information people have brought, its really interesting. My reading list has grown! Haves just bought the Company of Wolves book and the Jewish Fairy tales. Interested also inthe Carter books, would love to borrow yours exquisite really kind offer. I know I would be hopeless at remembering to post them back though, and so would end up stealing them- best not!

at that picture iscream Yep! That's me x still jacent got round to visiting the feminist board!

Really need to watch little mermaid again. I didn't read anything into it at all! Probably only put it on to keep kids quiet so I could have a snooze! Aye aye to not cutting off your swimmy tail tsunami x

Is Bluebeard the one there man gives his wife a key to the room and tells her not to go in there but she does and there's the bodies of all his ex wives?

Haha Laura is it? What's the moral of THAT story?

I had this exact convo with DH yesterday! I had a right old go about most of the Disney princesses, and half of the fairy tales (Goldilocks - breaking and entering, criminal damages, porrige theft and squatting, Jack and the Beanstalk - consumer issues, theft, murder and ecological vanalism). OK so DD likes the Disney stories, so I'm trying to steer her towards the slightly stronger women i.e Mulan, Jasmine, even Fiona in Shrek Forever After saving herself! After chatting to DH, he even agrees it makes him uncomfortable and he's normally fairly oblivious to that sort of thing.

Didn't realise I could qualify as a feminist! :D

The original fairy tales were quite gruesome

In Cinderella the Ugly Sisters cut their toes off to try to fit into the shoe

I can't remember which tale, but the Wicked Stepmother was made to dance in red-hot metal shoes.

And the saddest,IMHO, The Little Match Girl

Fairytales weren't initially intended for children, but instead for adults. It wasn't until the Grimm's began collecting and translating them that parents, who bought the original volume of "Household Tales" asked the Grimm's to make them more "child friendly".

The 16th Century version of Sleeping Beauty featured rape and cannibalism. Rumplestiltskin is supposed to be an allegory for the devil. Snow White was based on a real person. And Rapunzel was originally pregnant when she left the tower.

LordOfTheFlies, that was Snow White. In the original Grimms version of the tale, it was the mother who tried to kill Snow White. They changed it to a step-mother, after believing that having a mother try to kill her own child was too sadistic.

The origional punishment for Cinderella's stepmother is horrible.

Fairytales were not origionally for children, they were to keep adults amused on long winter nights.

Ooh, what a fascinating thread. I did Propp as part of my degree - only vague memories now but it's striking that so many stories are common across cultures - not just European but Chinese and Indian tales share some fundamental narratives.

On a less academic note, Terry Pratchett's written some good stuff about fairytales and broader myths and legends. Obviously makes good use of them in the Discworld novels but there was a book he wrote with an expert on fables that was very enlightening. Each chapter starts with some aspect covered in his novels, but broadens out to talk more widely about versions of different archetypes, such as Death or heroes.