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*cracks knuckles* my time has come.
(Except, hilariously, I’m hella busy this morning and may not actually have the time to...) BUT.
Fairytales tell us fundamental truths about the world in which they were conceived, and evolve naturally to reflect that. However... https://twitter.com/louiestowell/status/1389921179020955649
(Except, hilariously, I’m hella busy this morning and may not actually have the time to...) BUT.
Fairytales tell us fundamental truths about the world in which they were conceived, and evolve naturally to reflect that. However... https://twitter.com/louiestowell/status/1389921179020955649
The fluid and unobserved nature of oral storytelling has been periodically “set” by the use of print, film, and recorded media, meaning that the cultural myths we have access to currently lack some of that ability for natural shift.
(Which, incidentally, verbally “editing” the stories restores to them.) But it is more than that. According to, I think... Adam Fox (?) the oral tradition is in equal parts conservative and subversive - the former because it is controlled by prevailing cultural norms...
... (Ong studied how things that do not fit our conception of the world are not retained in memory) and the latter because they are often stories of the disempowered, and are untraceable to second that they are told - whereas text leaves evidence.
The shift, therefore, from oral to textual *innately* instils caution because it opens your tale up to people beyond your immediate and intended audience - but it is more than that. Fairytales were often recorded with a (nationalist) agenda, and *for* a different audience...
While literacy was far more widespread than conventional wisdom would lead you to believe, access to print books - especially academic print books - was a mark of privilege. The fairytales as we know them were marketed to middle class, academic, or fashionable audiences...
(Depending upon the collector and the edition. I’m not assuming those three terms are identical. Some were also made up from the whole cloth.)
There is a whole wealth of folktale and fairytale that therefore did not make it in to the popular consciousness, because it was not deemed appropriate by or for those audiences.
They were also, crucially, not conceived of as children’s stories.
They were also, crucially, not conceived of as children’s stories.
The development of a separate literature for children is a fascinating area of study - but it is not mine. Children *heard* these stories, sure, and they were told *to* children, but they were also just *told*.
The Grimms, for one, were appalled that some of their tales (eg, “The children who played butcher with one another,”) were being read in nurseries, and produced a second, sanitised edition of their work for that purpose.
(Class comes in to it. Class always does.)
But put simply, “traditional” fairytales, in whichever form they come to us will be full of references, assumptions, and world knowledge that would have been apparent to their original audiences. They are sophisticated social documents.
But put simply, “traditional” fairytales, in whichever form they come to us will be full of references, assumptions, and world knowledge that would have been apparent to their original audiences. They are sophisticated social documents.
Which is one of the reasons why they feel important to us - they are not simple, “flat” tales for children. There is, or should be, something more. Some awareness, some connection that is missing. Whether that is genteel, literary associations, or a whole whack of sex and death.
The problem is, like light that has been run through too many filters, all that they seem to preserve now is a very specific set of class and gender expectations from the whole long period of their development. And we don’t know what to do with that.
And, an addendum to parents, I guess... While I love a smart retelling of a well know fairy tale, I’m not sure what good, useful, or genuinely disruptive work can be done by simply throwing yet another filter upon it. If you really want to deconstruct dominant cultural myths...
... finding different voices - the ones that didn’t make the cut - is a really interesting place to start, as is looking back to older versions see what messages these stories were originally meant to contain, and how they have changed over time.
Fairytale is *full* of resourceful girls and sensitive boys, of peasants who speak truth to power and triumph. What is more, these stories we think of as being about women patiently waiting to be rescued by a man are often about the careful escape from abusive situations.
Told mindfully, fairytale should not merely replicate our biases, but offer the beginning of a conversation where the attested facts of the world can be challenged, or reappraised. Either through fantasy careful social commentary.
