"Illustrations of Little Red Riding Hood"

These are illustrations of Little Red Riding Hood that was nicely hand drawn since 03/22/11 by Julie or by the user name "juliefofisss" from deviantart.com

As I observed this illustration, it looks quite similar to the Brothers' Grimm version. This image shows Little Red Riding Hood who is not an innocent, helpless little girl who gets eaten by the big bad wolf but a little girl who took over leadership and control of the wolf. Instead, she is depicted as a girl who is empowered, strong minded character, and she was able to show the big bad wolf who's boss. This image tells me that Little Red Riding Hood shows no mercy and would not let anybody get in her way.

"Breaking the Disney Spell" by Jack Zipes

In the article “Breaking the Disney Spell”, Zipes point out that because “Disney was so obsessed with the fairytale genre and he felt drawn to fairytales because they reflected his own struggles in life” (p.343), this is what led Disney to ruin the classics by making some changes from the original fairytales. I personally don’t think that Disney has ruined the fairytales, instead I think Disney made an expansion and accessible to many different people at different ages. I disagree with Zipes’ argument because it seems to me that Disney has succeeded in making alternatives changes in order to target audiences including children and he probably didn’t want most of the children to be exposed to several contents that are quite disturbing. What Disney had in mind is that, he wanted to take the original classic fairytales and turn it into something even more beautiful, colorful, and pleasurable for the viewers in order to attract more audiences by adding a happy ending, new background scenes, creating motion pictures, and redesigning the characters because he wanted to have much better dreams rather than following the original plot of the fairytales.

Newspaper Articles

After I finished reading two articles from "The Daily Mail" and "The Huffington Post", I was very sadly disappointed due to the fact that today there are certain fairytales books (like Cinderella, Hansel & Gretel, Rapunzel, etc) that are not being read to children and that parents are choosing modern books over classic tales because they thought classic fairytales are considered to be scary. It is true that there are some classic fairytales that contains themes that are negative, too unrealistic or quite disturbing such as the kidnapping, stealing, executions, inappropriate word like 'dwarve' (quite hard to believe) but I would encourage parents to give their children the moral of the story after reading it instead of omitting books that they felt it was inappropriate for them, to wait until their children reach the age of 5 so that parents can select which fairytales are suitable for them and to gain more knowledge to help them prepare to answer any questions their children might have. By the time children get older, they want to be able to experience many other fairytales that they haven't read yet.

"Snow White and Her Natural Beauty"

Snow White is one of the greatest classical fairytale. Because of her natural born beauty, the 7 Dwarves were nicely enough to let her stay at their home and provide her food as well as protection in only under one condition, she has to maintain the house and keep everything spotless and well organized. In some other classical fairytales, men would reward women with beauty under any condition depending on the situation. There are several other women who get jealous of a woman’s beauty and they are quite similar to the evil witch. The evil witch was so jealous of Snow White’s beauty; she would simply come up with a plan to kill her and it is also the same thing as what Snow White's mother wanted to do. The prince chose Snow White for her beauty and Snow White accepted the marriage proposal without thinking about it because of the fact the he is a prince and he’s rich & powerful. She was not given any other choices for that matter, she would rather live with him and have a happy life.

"Someday My Prince Will Come"

When we discuss about gender roles, we learn about the behavioral and associational patterns towards many children and the effects they have after reading or watching their favorite classical fairytales. According to Leiberman, “Only the best known stories, those that everyone has read or heard, those that Disney has popularized, have affected masses of children in our culture (p.383-84). It is absolutely true, whenever children read or watch any fairytales whether it is from a book or video, they became brainwashed into thinking there will always be a happy ending such as perfect marriages, a kiss from a charming prince or becoming a beautiful princess. Leiberman pointed out that children are under the impression that their beauty and asset can get them exactly what they always wanted especially rewards. Leiberman stated that “Since girls are chosen for their beauty, it is easy for a child to infer that beauty leads to wealth, that being chosen means getting rich” (p.386). It is true and today this kind of behavior still happens. Today, beauty and money isn't everything at all, we all have to work really hard in order to earn a reward. A woman can be very beautiful from the outside however; most men may not know is that her attitude might unacceptable, for the things they say and how they portray themselves. This is something that we all need to be aware of. What most girls (under the age of 10) may not know is that sometimes beauty can lead to jealousy, rage, and it can also be very competitive.

"Folk Literature: An Operational Definition" by Utely

When it comes to fairytales, everything was passed out from generations to generations simply by telling a story. Utley raised a point that stories can be altered by the reader because they’ll either tell it from their point of view or how exactly did they remember it. Without any evidence, it’s impossible to tell whether the story is real or a fiction. The term Folklore has been defined as a “part of culture but not the whole of culture which includes myths, legends, tales, proverbs, riddles and the texts of ballads and other songs” (Utley 4). Folktale has been defined by Utley as a verbal art or a tale that simply let the story be passed down from one person to other people. What really surprised me about this reading is how complicated it is to find the original version of the folktale that is written by the original author. A lot of people may not know what was behind the origins of the folktales because as a child, we were first introduced the printed version of the folktales that was altered by different authors which led us to believe that each folktales includes a happily-ever-after ending. Today, the printed version of the folktales is not nearly the same as the original version and it’s hard to believe whether these folktales are fictional or non-fictional unless there exist a biography that is done by the original author. Due to a number of folktales, the quest to find the origins could be a major issue.

Introduction to Folktales & Literary Fairytales

"What image of womanhood is represented in this piece and how does that image uphold or subvert expectations regarding the female gender?"

Every week there will be a post answering this question regarding a specific reading.