To think fairy tale promote a dangerous narrative.

[Mollymoostoo]

My DD (aged 10) has been reading the book series 'The school for good and evil' qnd this has prompted discussions about how dangerous fairy tales are in perpetuating stereotypes and outdated attitudes. For example....
Prince Charming kissed Snow White whilst she was asleep (consent issues)
Red Riding hood naively trusted a stranger in the woods and had to be rescued by a father figure.
Belle put up with the beasts behaviour even though he was aggressive, falling in love with her captor.
Beauty is seen as good, ugliness evil.

AIBU or is it time to rewite the narrative with balanced perspectives. I am not saying go to the extreme of getting rid of heros, but we need to stop putting pressure on boys to be rescuers and girls to be passive in their own stories.

I grew up with all of the Disney classics, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella etc. And I LOVED them, still do and I will definitely be getting my little girl in the them as she gets older. I never once thought about or questioned 'the other side of the story' to these films that people talk about today, I saw a fairytale with a Prince and Princess in love. I actually didn't even think about what people say these films are portraying until I read about it on the Internet as an adult a few years ago. Watching these films has never affected me or made me feel less worth or that I need to rely on a man etc etc. I was an innocent child enjoying a fairytale. At the end of the day it's a story, and they now make films showing strong, independent woman such as Frozen and Enchanto etc. I would talk to my daughter about these sorts of things when she is a teenager, but certainly not before then, I just think it takes away their innocence.

Fairy tales are stories not aspirations. It’s up to parents to voice if and why they don’t agree with the lesson. But the snowflakes can bloody well leave fairy tales alone.

I did LOL a bit about the SJW woke 10yo. Of course she thought of all those problems all on her own 😂

Margaret Atwood has already said that the regimes in the Handmaids Tale were based on regimes that are already in existence in the world though, and used them specifically to highlight that fact. So it’s well known it’s not “just a story”… she’s been very vocal about this

Oh bore off it's fiction.

Or a fairytale could just bloody well stay a fairytale FFS 🙄 not everything has to be about real life, this crap really winds me up

Most fairy tales were never written for children. Some are truly gruesome and have a very "Tales of the Unexpected" or "inside number 9" vibe.

Over the years they've been adored and changed to different markets and been pushed to children, losing a lot of the original messaging.

Not read the thread but, fairytales are archetypal. They exist across cultures and time for a damn good reason. They tap into our collective unconscious and play a vital role in understanding of the world. That there are issues and roles and stereotypes in them is part of the point, and children generally learn to critically think if you are engaging with them appropriately. Many fairytales have been rewritten, some successfully snd some not.

[N.B. I’m an academic in the area of fairytale]

’Childhood’ is a relatively recent concept. So therefore fairytales were technically written for everyone.

As an aside, there’s plenty of research that suggests children are better able to handle darkness than adults. Their grasp on reality is tenacious and therefore the blurring between reality and fantasy is how they live their lives. Therefore I personally don’t think they should be patronised or considered ‘too young’ for darker concepts. See: Delusion of Death.

Wouldn’t you need a passing familiarity with the classic tales to get stories like these? Honest question.

It’s like Biblical reading: you don’t have to believe in it, but you have to know it to understand a lot of later works. I think fairy tales probably work on that level too

Once they are old enough to read Terry Pratchett, (I started reading him from aged 12) all will come good :)