to wonder if this mum calling for Sleeping Beauty to be banned is going a step too far, or not?

[ShatnersWig]

Don't worry, I've not linked to the Daily Fail.

metro.co.uk/2017/11/23/mother-wants-sleeping-beauty-pulled-from-school-because-it-teaches-bad-lesson-about-consent-7101539/

Is this taking things a step too far or has she got a point?

I saw it as a kiss of life as well. Reading way too much into it and picking it apart.
PP with the long story. ????😐

Eliza
Perhaps it is because red is the colour of shame and menstrual blood. Once shamed she can never regain her place in society and is doomed til death.

@Mummyoflittledragon

Bit of a stretch but I see what you mean.

Whilst I don’t want to sound like a perpetually offended person, we talk about feminism all the time and about how women and society are subconsciously affected by how we are socialised. Surely reading books/watching films has something to do with that too? I actually think that our exposure to stories in our most informative years can have an affect on how we conduct ourselves as adults. So no, I rarely read my daughter fairy tales where the only possible positive outcome is that they marry the handsome prince. I think it sends a terrible message actually. Like we should all be eternally grateful for finally realising our dreams by the medium of abuse / rape etc etc. I teach my daughter that she can sort her own shit out just fine, and if she meets a partner in the process that’s a bonus.

My worry about this is it makes serious discussions around consent and rape culture even harder by making out that a flaming cartoon is the problem.

It trivialises the issue in much the same way as idiots claiming a man can't pay a woman a compliment anymore due to 'political correctness gone mad' trivialise serious sexual harassment and discrimination.

It's a handy little ditty to use to beat feminists with 'oh look how irrational these wimmins is - complaining about a cartoon! Oh ha ha silly old things' I don't think it's a positive thing, it makes a mockery out of the people who are trying to address the very real and serious issues surrounding our hyper sexualised and intrinsically misogynistic society.

Actually I was reading SB to my 5 yr old son a couple of nights ago for the first time and came away feeling awful. Did I really just read a story to him that told him women were objects and you can kiss them and they'll automatically fall in love with you? And yes, consent.

Afterwards I thought that I would ave a serious discussion about removing all 'fairytale' books from the house as they are actually horrific in terms of how they position girls and women, across the board!

Have a serious discussion with DH...

Bloody hilarious.

I agree with you totally ZigZag - I read the little mermaid to my dd the other night (v reluctantly) - selling your VOICE to please a man in the vain hope that he might think You worthy enough to love. Errrr get to fuck!!!!

There is so much wonderful literature out there for children which sends beautiful, empowering and positive messages. I won’t be reading any more of that utter misogynistic shite to my dc ever again.

Oh Lord. REALLY?! its a fairytale. The mother needs a grip. A super big one at that.

DH believes that Gaston is actually the hero of B&theB

Your DH is quite wrong. Gaston does not love Belle. He says she is the most beautiful girl in town 'and that makes her the best, don't I deserve the best?' He objects to her reading, and wants her to go and admire his hunting trophies because he is a huge narcissist and thinks she should do what he wants ('Gaston you are positively primeval'). He plans a wedding for them before he has proposed and when he proposes he does so by throwing her book out of his way and describing 'her' dreams - which is actually what he wants. He then tries to force a kiss on her and she only escapes by opening the door so he falls through. He lands in the mud and pronounces with the utmost fury 'I'll have Belle for my wife, make no mistake about that!' Not only has he attempted to sexually assault her, when she has made her 'no' beyond explicit he refuses to accept that.

When he is miserable in the tavern it's the disgrace and humiliation of being turned down that rankles, not the loss of Belle. He then decides to bribe the man from the lunatic asylum to commit Belle's father if she refuses to marry Gaston.

When Belle still refuses, and proves her father isn't crazy by showing them the beast - Gaston refuses to listen to Belle telling him that Beast is kind and gentle and her friend (I mean he hears her - he says if he didn't know better he would think she had feelings for the beast - but he doesn't respect her viewpoint) and instead riles up the mob to go and attack the beast in his castle. The beast has been there for years and done no one in the village any harm, they didn't know he was there - but Gaston makes out that he will come to the village in the night and steal their children. In order to prevent Belle from intervening he imprisons her and her father.

The beast refuses to fight back, because he has lost Belle and doesn't see the point, and only defends himself when she returns. He easily overpowers Gaston but refuses to kill him as he realises how very wrong this is. He tells Gaston to leave and goes to Belle, the two of them are quite clearly enjoying a happy reunion when Gaston creeps up behind them and stabs the beast.

There is no way that Gaston as he appears in this story could ever be interpreted as the good guy. Sure in most stories the handsome man who rescues the girl from the monster is the good guy - but the whole point of beauty in the beast is that it is what is on the inside, not the outside, that counts - and Gaston is the monster.

I hate people ragging on Beauty and the Beast when it clearly comes from a place of not really knowing the film well enough. That also goes for claims that Belle is suffering from Stockholm syndrome, but this post is already long enough without getting into why that is wildly inaccurate and frankly offensive to people who have been forced to employ coping strategies in traumatic situations.

Haha my DD loves Cinderella and whenever I read it there's a running commentary from me on what a sap she is :)

Snow White is so sappy that even DD (aged 5) can't stand her,

I quite liked Gaston in the recent movie **

But she's so well read. And you're so... athletically inclined.

And I think examination of the original fairy stories is fascinating, but the Disney stories don't stand up to any sort of scrutiny...

Don't conflate "fairy stories" with "Disney"

Eliza
Yes, for today’s society it is. But both the angel condemning her soul and the shoes preventing her from entering church is a very strong message of non conforming and shame - the shame of self importance and vanity. Self mutilation isn’t enough. It’s only when she repents before god that she finally is granted mercy. And being female, she has “the curse”, which has been mostly reviled for centuries.

She needs to get a life.

My issue is exactly that though, and actually I think that the fact that Belle is hanging onto the hope that the beast will turn into the man she knows he is inside is worse. This is IMO why women stay in abusive relationships for so long - in the hope that one day the ‘true’ man will show himself. That’s certainly why I stayed in an abusive relationship for 20 years.. except he never did. It’s a dangerous thing to be teaching our daughters. Fairy tales are always about A significant sacrifice on the woman’s part.

I hessitarw to post because I am conscious of being a feminist stereotype, but I actually do think that we need to be careful about normalising this sort of stuff for kids. It's very easy for the stories to become past of their "mental furniture" so to speak, At the. Dry keast, there needs to be some counterbalance.

Fuck me! So glad im the parent of an young adult and teen. I dont think i could have kids again with the amount of hand wringing and stressing out about every possible angle of anything introduced into my childs life.
Parenthood in 2017 just seems one long hard difficult drag.

Goldfish is right about some of the original and earlier versions of Sleeping Beauty.

Aren't fairy tales a wonderful way of educating children about the horrors of the past and the dangers of the present? They're part of our culture for a reason, and while new stories with new messages are being spun all the time; we need to tell the old tales and decode their messages too.

its not about unnecessary hand wringing, it’s more About being aware of the unhealthy normalisation of abuse. Which in my opinion is my responsibility as a mother to examine before blindly perpetuating these messages to my children. Things change, people become more educated and enlightened ie racism and sexism. Just because something was ok 50 years ago means nothing.

Do people really think that fairy tales teach young boys about consent and non consent?

Do people really think that the 'talk' they have with children outweighs the massive tsunami of cultural messages that tell them that consent is optional?

Of course it's not Sleeping Beauty or Beauty and the Beast or even Twilight alone. But all the messages that awful men can be changed, and obsessive stalking is love and that being a good guy eventually gets you the 'prize' of a woman go in. They all go in. Plus advertising, songs, peers.

TrojansAreSmegheads I never knew of the original, but fucking hell!

uncoy.com/2006/05/sleeping_beauty_1.html

At last he came to a large, beautiful drawing room, where he found an enchanting girl who seemed to be sleeping. He called to her, but she would not wake. As he looked at her, and tried to wake her, she seemed so incredibly lovely to him that he could not help desiring her, and he began to grow hot with lust. He gathered her in his arms and carried her to a bed, where he made love to her. Leaving her on the bed, he left the palace and returned to his own city, where pressing business for a long time made him think no more about the incident.

But Talia, who was not dead, but merely unconscious, had become pregnant, and after nine months she gave birth to twins, as beautiful a boy and girl as ever were born. Kindly fairies attended the birth, and put the babies to suck at their mother’s breast. One day, one of the infants, not being able to find the nipple, began to suck at his mother’s finger. He sucked with such force that he drew out the splinter of flax, and Talia awoke, just as if from a long sleep. When she saw the babies, she did not know what had happened or how they had come to her, but she embraced them with love, and nursed them until they were satisfied. She named the infants Sun and Moon. The kindly fairies continued to attend her, providing her with food and drink, which appeared as if delivered by unseen servants.

The king at last remembered Talia, and thought to himself that he would go again to the palace in the wood, to see if the lovely lady was still sleeping there. - To rape her again?