Fairy Tales: X is for X-Rated

Originally, fairy tales were far more like manga and anime than even Western fairy tale analysts want to admit. That is, they were not inherently MEANINGFUL--at least, not all the time. They were whatever people wanted them to be--horror, romance, sermons, adventure stories...

And porn, dirty jokes, and raunchiness.

 

The original "Little Red Riding Hood" involved an older Red Riding Hood, a blatantly seductive wolf (see Sondheim), and cannibalism (of the older woman by the younger). In the original "Sleeping Beauty," the prince fathers children on Sleeping Beauty while she is still sleeping. In Basile's version, the reader is then given a strip-tease followed by an execution followed by a reunion.

 

Basile's Rapunzel, Petrosinella,

gets pregnant. She is also

far more proactive.

And then there's Donkeyskin and the whole incest motif!

 

When the Grimms became aware that children were reading their tales, they steadily, over several editions, removed the "bad" bits. In that time period, the "bad" bits were mostly associated with sex. As the Victorian Era neared, scatological humor was also pushed off the table (ah, poor 10-year-olds and their poop jokes!). Now-a-days, people get upset by the violence.

 

Eventually, I suppose Little Red Riding Hood will never leave home or encounter anything more frightening than a puppy.

 

Actually, no, the inherent flexibility of fairy tales--like anime and manga--means they will keep changing and adapting. Bowdlerize them by all means! Another version will come along, darker or lighter or stranger or...

 

...just something else.

 

Robin McKinley tackles incest and abuse directly in Deerskin. Tanith Lee unapologetically presents fairy tales as adult--not children's--fiction. And hundreds of romance writers and, for that matter, mangaka, have thrown sex back into Cinderella and Beauty & the Beast.  

In Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis gives his characters notable insight regarding ancient tales. During the romp, in which Aslan frees all the kids locked up in boring classrooms, the possession is joined by Baachus and other pagan gods and creatures. Lucy or Susan mentions that they wouldn't feel entirely "safe" if Aslan wasn't there. I like this reminder--which sometimes contemporary pagans miss--that real myths were more dangerous and often cruel than cute. 

 

I'm not going to read Grimm before I go to bed, but I'm not going to chuck Grimm--and everything the Grimm fairy tales involve--out the window either.