I took a storytelling course as an undergrad. I'll never forget the day our prof, a Methodist minister, growled, "Whaddya think the evil queen was doing with Rapunzel up in that tower?"
We read early translations of the fairy stories shared on the Silk Road. Disney they weren't.
Not a fairy story, but just as shocking...read Felix Salton's original Bambi sometime. It's a harrowing, anti-war screed right up there with Johnny Got His Gun.
Seriously. How anyone read that book and came away with the Disney version, I'll never understand.
"Whaddya think the evil queen was doing with Rapunzel up in that tower?"
OMG. I'm gonna have Rapunzel nightmares tonight!
Also, you know, Rapunzel's Prince is thrown out of the tower and has his eyes put out on thorn bushes, and Rapunzel is sent to wander alone in the desert and bears twins.
An aunt told me, my mother, and my sister to forgive the cousin who threatened to have me deported and blackmailed my parents. Said it might cure my migraines.
In your shoes, my response to this would have been "Is the cold air from Hell freezing over supposed to soothe headache pain?"
"Is the cold air from Hell freezing over supposed to soothe headache pain?"
Having her sit across from her sister and say that her sister's cancer would be cured by the same thing was "all" I needed in terms of talking back.
Also, you know, Rapunzel's Prince is thrown out of the tower and has his eyes put out on thorn bushes, and Rapunzel is sent to wander alone in the desert and bears twins.
Yeah, but she cries on his eyeballs and he's all better.
Asspull!
forgive the cousin who threatened to have me deported and blackmailed my parents.
WHAFUCK??!!
Re: ruining fairy tales -- um, illiterate much? Man, I had the unbowdlerized version of Grimm's from 8 on and I KNEW that fair tales were...well, fucking GRIM.
Also, in one of the original Sleeping Beauties, she is woken by the suckling at her breast of the child Prince Rapey got on her while she was in a magical freaking COMA.
Look away, LeN, look away. But keep checking over your shoulder, just sayin'.
