Is anyone else a fan of the ABC show “Once Upon a Time?”

I adore that show (though it’s a guilty pleasure because it’s incredibly corny), and I think it’s very relevant to Young Adult literature because it takes traditional children’s stories and tries to apply it to a modern, more mature and adult atmosphere. Some people don’t agree with me, because it does seem to be still very very silly. Regardless, I think the show is most interesting because Disney produces it. Not many people know that ABC and Disney are the same company, thus explaining just HOW Once Upon had the rights to change and play with classic tales and themes.

I was actually surprised to find that so many people are better acquainted with the Perrault version of Little Red Riding Hood, compared to the Grimm version. Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods is actually the most vivid example of fairy tales told in a modern way, and the musical is very faithful to the Grimm brothers’ versions; having seen the 1991 version of the musical at an early age, it tends to be the first thing I pull from when considering fairy tales.

That being said, the sexual nature of the Little Red Riding Hood story is really rather explicit in Into the Woods. The wolf always looks more like a man than an animal, and Little Red Riding Hood is typically played by an actress in her mid-to-late teens. When the wolf first encounters Little Red Riding Hood in the woods, he sings “Hello Little Girl” to her, featuring lyrics like “Look at that flesh/Pink and plump/Hello, little girl/Tender and fresh/Not one lump/Hello, little girl.” The song is essentially a back and forth between the two, the wolf trying to convince her to stray from the path while the girl attempts to avoid temptation.

Afterwards, when the girl and her grandmother are saved by the Baker (in lieu of a Hunter), Little Red Riding Hood sings “I Know Things Now,” some of the lines of which are, “And he showed me things/Many beautiful things/That I hadn’t thought to explore” and “And he made me feel excited/Well, excited and scared.” What’s interesting is that Little Red Riding Hood is decidedly childlike for the rest of the musical; it’s only in her encounters with the wolf that she appears otherwise.

If you’ve never seen any of Into the Woods, I highly recommend watching at least the Little Red Riding Hood numbers. It really brings the Grimm version to life and definitely “washes the windows” as Tolkien would say.

“Hello Little Girl” 2014 version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNKQ06BBx_8

Beastly by Alex Flinn was the first and probably only modern retelling of a Fairy Tale that I’ve encountered in my life. It’s the story of Beauty and the Beast retold from the beast’s perspective, and in modern times. The most popular guy in school and running for school president, he seemingly has it all . . . until the goth girl he just tricked into going to Prom with him as a joke turns out to be a witch and casts a curse on him. It’s really touching, and there’s also a movie version. I recommend only the book, however, because its ending was really thoughtful and really really good. Below is the cover.

http://library.tulane.edu/exhibits/exhibits/show/fairy_tales/gustave_dor–

Maybe it’s because there are too many changes happening after the classics or just because I have been feeling sentimental lately but I much prefer Disney to any other recent version. There is something to be said about classical stories that every child reads at a young age and I don’t want to ruin the image nor erase the happiness I felt reading those stories. Fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White were more than fictional characters to so many young girls who aspired to be brave like Cinderella and graceful like Snow White. Young children don’t look at those characters as flawed wretched women who are looking for a savior; they simply look like young girls who grew up to be graceful women that didn’t let their unfortunate predicaments cloud the rest of their future. Their stories are more heroic, iconic and teaches the suited audience of patience, kindness and ironic karma that only children will enjoy.

Well, unlike Cinderella, I actually preferred the Perrault version on this one. It seemed a little more clear in what it was trying to accomplish. Spelling out the moral at the end was a little much, though! I found the addition of the story about the second wolf in the Grimm version very bizarre…

I don’t know if anyone watched the movie Into the Woods last year, but I had no idea that it stayed so true to the Grimm fairy tales. Now at least I have some idea of just why that movie was so bonkers…

In middle school I purchased a compilation of stories titled, A Wolf at the Door and other Retold Fairy Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. The book had short stories by acclaimed authors such as Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, Garth Nix, and Nancy Farmer. My favorite work was not a short story, but a mini-epic poem by Gregory McGuire from the point of view of the seven dwarves in Snow White after Snow White’s happy ending. “The Seven Stage a Comeback” is divided not by stanzas, but by numbers on the left side of the poem, indicating which dwarf is speaking. After Snow White left with her prince to live out her happily ever after, the dwarves are left to pick up the pieces of their lives, and come to grips with the realization that she is gone. They decide to take the glass coffin with them over the mountain to track down Snow White and “visit” her. They waiver between the idea of just visiting her and putting the poison apple in the coffin, to keep it fresh for when they give it to her, in order to put her back in the coffin and take her home. The ending of the poem has a twist and switches perspectives into Snow White’s, where we see she has a hazy recollection of her time in the coffin and before. I don’t want to give too much away, but everyone gets their happy ending in this re-told story too.
I liked this retelling the most because it was well written, you can clearly assign which dwarf is speaking without being told, it’s a fresh point of view of a story we all know, and it is a little quirky with it’s choice of focusing not on a prince, princess, or even a witch, but dwarves.