Discrimination in fairytales

What do you hazard more or less faytales? Do you think about a pretty little princess waiting for her prince or a dark sensual macrocosm of make-believe that revolves around violence? I seriously doubt its the latter. This is because fairytales have drastically changed over the centuries. The current versions we know today were preceded by a much darker kind of story, one that compete heavily on the thinkers of superstition, the devil and violence. Genders werent as heavily criticised. Heroines used to save themselves and others withal, normally with brains or charm opposed to brawn. yet at least they were trying.An face of this could be Sleeping Beauty, Perraults version, where the Princess saves herself and her two children from her husbands evil stepmother, by prep argondness a goat instead of one of the children as the ogress requested. Her husband then comes in to save her. She played a crucial part in the story saving her children from the washstandnibalism of their fathers step-mother. Cannibalism is certainly frowned on in society, hardly is in event rattling a kinda common theme in fairytales Red riding Hood also originally included cannibalism. The Wolf left the Grandmothers blood and meat for the girl to eat. after(prenominal) she unwittingly cannibalises her grandmother, she sometimes strips for the skirt chaser and gets into bed with it. He then either eats her or ties her to a piece of string. She usually escapes using her own cunning. This is sort of different from the grandma-loving biscuit-carrying Red Riding Hood of today. It real comes across as a story more than about child molesting, or at the very least, lust. The story is sometimes seen as a parable of depend uponual awakening. The red cloak symbolises the blood of the current cycle or the hymen, although earlier versions of the tale do not state the cloak is red.The anthropomorphic wolf can symbolise a get it onr, a seducer, a rapist, or a molester. This is clear ly a alternatively different call for on the Red Riding Hood than were used to. It seems to be a quite a mature disturbing tale. I dont think its necessarily something we would want our children exposed to. But that was how they were originally written. At least until they were bowdlerised by the Grimm brothers. Fairy stories were originally gothic tales and scary stories about what might come and take you in the night they were cold removed from the Disney classics.The Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm, were born in Germany in the late 18th century. In an effort to preserve Germanys herit jump on and promote cultural unity, they collected a vast array of clan and fairy tales from their fellow Germans-mostly middle- and upper-class friends. Although their original intent was to preserve the stories exactly as told, one cut off led to another, and soon they had given the stories a literary style and released them as Kinder- und Hausmirchen (Childrens and Household Tales. )Becau se their incourseed listening included children, the Grimms selectively bowdlerised the tales they published, notably removing evil mothers and replacing them with step-mothers (as in the case of Snow White), and removing implications of sex and pregnancy (as in Rapunzel). However, because standards of child-friendliness have shifted in the past 200 years, some of the Grimms stories ar now considered family incompatible and the deaths written in them are considered to be shockingly violent. This was not the view at the time.So basically they took a fornicating girl in a tower, and turned her into a damsel in distress. This was not quite the homogeneous idea. This gave rise to the dependent needy princesses and maidens that feature so heavily in todays fairytales. These are images that belittle everything that women fight and give their lives to achieve. And ironically it is the past stories that show less anti-feminism even though muckle were actually more sexist in that per iod. At least those women had some self-respect and the ability to plot, and in old cases, use weapons.The light-haired assort of women in modern fairytales is unparalleled. From a young age, its almost as if we are being trained to indulge in the ideals of vanity and sexual dependence. Well excuse me but Id rather not. It seems to me that this is the start of young girls urge and desperation for the carriage this is something that many women will diet and exercise to achieve. Although as girls age they graduate off pretty princesses and onto fashion icons and models. Im completely against this idea, partly because Im a perpetrator of wanting the look myself, and the fact that I will never achieve it.In other fairytales, a heroine is willingly bound by a spell, whereas a male character whitethorn be cursed because he has refused to yield something, for example shelter, in Beauty and the Beast. If the female character is cursed unwillingly, she is cursed by a malignant character that is as ugly as her personality. This is the exact opposite of the maiden who is cursed. This amplifies the idea that beauty is idyllic and sincere and ugliness is evil and unforgivable. This isnt a very good role model for children and I find this elicit because it seems to reflect our desire for beauty.However, the reality is that women are not all beautiful and if they arent, it doesnt necessarily mean that they are nasty unpleasant people. Some villains do have a sort of beauty, but this is usually a sharp-featured frightening beauty that terrifies the younger generation. A wronged women in a fairytale may take the resile of a special animal to escape an evil stepmother or an unwanted marriage. The animal they take is usually reflective of their main traits. For example a graceful and delicate woman may take the work on of a swan or a doe. These are animals that are considered to be beautiful.Their fellow animals will allow some company and will somehow help the charact er to regain what they have lost. This animalistic rule gives the character a connection to nature and separates them from society. They become wilder and less sophisticated, embracing a more instinctual kind of beauty. So characters have also gone from blonde to beast, the opposite of the current situation-where blondes prevail far more than beasts. Beastly women, however, are often considered to be connected the Devil, like wild woman who is the devils offspring.Lots of coppers-breadth or fur seems to show some relation to evil, perhaps as it isnt very attractive. This can be compared with the Elizabethan saying Bush natural more hair than wit which means that people with lots of hair or fur are supposed to be primitive, inferior, sexual and beastly. These werent exactly desirable traits either at the time or now. Nowadays there seems to be a teeming population of blondes in fairy stories. An example could be La Belle aux cheveux dor who had hair finer than gold that was marvel lously wonderfully blonde and was curly and fell to her feet.This is a rather pleasing image a beauty with long wondrously blonde hair. The story claims you couldnt look upon her without loving her. A rather amazing claim that a woman or man may right gaze upon her and find themselves desperately in love with her, whether in a sexual centering or not. This seems to be an illustration of the power possessed by mere appearances. The backchat blonde comes from the Latin blandus meaning charming. So in the past it had no implications of sex or great femininity.It also comes from the knightly Latin blundus meaning yellow, which and serves to describe the colouration not the appeal. In the 14th century, Chaucer began to use the expression blondinet or blondin, which was an affectionate diminutive. In fact it was mainly used for boys. Nowadays we dont think of boys being blonde in the same way girls are. Blonde began to become exclusively female and suggested sweetness, charm and yo uthfulness everything a young princess would desire. Only in the 30s and 40s did the word acquire hot vampirish undertones and begin to be desired almost obsessively.The word blonde symbolises femininity and beauty things that women crave beyond reason. However, the reality is that its just a hair colour and that there are women of all hair colours- black, brown, red, grey white, if you count albinos- that are as beautiful as blondes. More disturbingly perhaps, in recent years the word blonde has been yoked with dumb to depict a particular character type. Not only is the heroine nearly always blonde, but she is always young. This seems rather ageist to me and isnt the sort of idea that we would want our children brainwashed with.Do we want them to idolise the youthful and not respect that the elderly can achieve things themselves? No. They should understand from a young age that you cant use people and that OAPs are not a step of the stairway of success, as people is fairy stories o ften do. The heroine never possesses great perception and seems to get things and assistance by flicking her hair and batting her eyelashes. Wow thats very useful. I dont think that that should be something that children aspire to be like. Intelligence and knowledge are more important than beauty, and fairytales seem to miss this.So the prince can slay a dragon, but can he win a game of checker? I wouldnt count on it. It seems to me that in fairytales, only the villains seem to possess a decent IQ, as theyre the only characters that use their brains or cunning to conjure up a scheme. Heroes rely on courage. I think its almost sad that in the stories strength and beauty are idolised and seem to prevail over intelligence. This is similar today, however, if we think about how the bullies of the world act all big and tough, but arent the brightest bulbs around.They tend to pick on the weak, so in todays world that would be the geek. Rather sad, dont you think? The stereotype of a mai den in fairy stories is dependent, needy and waiting for her happily-ever after. This is not exactly an image to aspire to. after all why would a woman need a man? She could get on short well on her own. As the feminist saying goes, A women needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle. However, I think this is a little extreme. Perhaps this dreadful stereotype of women could be remedied if half the time the women went out to save the men.Perhaps it would ruin the mens egos, but at least the women could be portrayed with a little self-respect and not a day-dreaming ditz who has the attention sweep up of a goldfish. The 90s Disney movies tried desperately to do this. Ariel, Belle and Mulan who rush to the aid of their lovers are the examples of this. I decided to frame about fairytales because there are so many issues surrounding them. I remember them with fondness from my childhood, and I would want to read them to my children and grandchildren. I think gender discrimination is a ser ious issue.Just because somebody has an X and a Y chromosome or two Xs, it doesnt mean they are any better than the other. I think feminism is a step too far in the other direction however. macrocosm co-dependent isnt necessarily a bad thing. Men need women too. Fairytales show both sides of this as well. The prince rescues his princess as he cant live without her and the maiden loves the man because well who can resist a man on a white horse? Not me They are simple stories that are debated hotly because of the context of them. Are they too violent? Are they too idealistic? Are they too perfect?Fairytales are all about love and romance. They are about good triumphing over evil in a series of incredible events. They tell us of deeds of valour and undauntedry in a time that we can only imagine. They show us how a poor little maid can fall in love and become a princess. The characters may be seriously flawed and have many issues, but they are stories. Wonderful stories. Stories that we read time and time again so that we can dream of being that brave knight or that damsel in distress. I think that my childhood would not have been the same without Chicken Licken or the Princess and the Pea.I think that even though they are unrealistic and give people impossible expectations and dreams, they are a part of our culture. To edit them, as the Grimm brothers did, would destroy a time long-forgotten. I think that they still exist today. The royalty of today is the celebrities-actors and models. We look at them and wish we were like them, just as the people of the Renaissance would have looked at a princess and thought I wish I was her Dreaming is in our nature and to change that for the sake of a few misconceptions would be unforgivable.