faery tales

do you have a favourite children's story? you know the type that your parents used to read you when you were little(-er). one of them belonging to the brothers grimm, perhaps? what about one of mr. disney's originals?

i'm talking about fairy tales!! cinderella, snow white and the 7 lil' men, hansel and gretel, the 3 little pigs, beauty and the beast...everybody knows the ones!

fairy tales have been around since the dawn of time, (or so it seems). we've built societal norms around them, morales have been formed from fairy tales, and some of the first lessons we learn are from the stories that are read to us as kids.

they've been told, retold, remixed, redone, twisted into filth, and dissected to the point of being almost un-recognizable! why the fascination? has time ruined them and society warped them, or do their initial meanings still hold true and intact?

did anybody see "freeway"? it was a modern retelling of little red riding hood, starring a super young reese witherspoon and keifer sutherland as a perverted psychopath who's performance still makes me nervous. reese plays a white trash teenager who leaves her abusive-trailer-trash family to stay/visit with her grandmother after her mom's arrested for prostitution. unfortunately on her way there, she hitches a ride with 'the wolf' (played by kiefer sutherland) and ends up almost killing him after he tries to rape her...this was based on little red riding hood, right? i don't really know why i enjoy it so much, seeing as how it strays so far from the original concept. but i think that's what i appreciate so much about it.

i find it funny how much we dwell on the whole fairy tale concept; you know the whole prince charming riding up on his white horse to rescue the damsel in distress concept...do you think we're all looking for that in life? are women just really looking to be rescued? and are men looking to be their white knights??

i think we all seek a little fairy tale aspect in life, don't you? maybe not as cut and dry as the princess and the white knight scenario, but we're all looking for a happy ending, aren't we? i guess we can say that the fairy tales we read as children are the basis for what we look for in life! is that too bold a statement? they teach us our first valuable lessons, and they teach us morales. for examcple, if it weren't for beauty and the beast, we might not know that appearances can sometimes be deceiving...if it weren't for pinnochio we might not know the ramifications that a lie can have...and if it weren't for snow white, we might think it inappropriate to be friends and live with short little dwarfs in a kinky sort of way and to eat apples from decrepit old ladies we meet in the woods...

well maybe not the last one...but you know what i mean...

have a happy ever after...