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"Mum Demands School BANS Sleeping Beauty Because She 'Didn't Consent to Being Kissed'"
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
I survived a childhood filled with Road Runner demolishing Coyote, Bugs Bunny singing arias as he dispatched those who would off him, Grimm fairy tales full of darkness and suffering and the like. And I turned out fine except, of course, for liking predators and gingerbread.
Epic Beard Man
Bearded Philosopher
Ban pooh bear cause he wore no pants
Good policy doesn't ignore the past, it talks about it. We are already talking to kids about overturning the Disney era princess ideal, not by banning it but giving female characters more agency than Aurora ever had. We should neither resort to historical revisionism nor be surprised when stories are updated for new eras. After all, originally Aurora didn't wake up until she had a child...which she conceived while asleep.
Augustus
…
"Prince Charming gazed upon sleeping beauty and longed to kiss her and release her from the curse. However as an opponent of the patriarchy, he accepted all men are potential rapists and that, without informed consent, he had to respect the personal boundaries of sleeping beauty.
Over time, sleeping beauty's body withered and atrophied until it was nought but a shrivelled, lifeless husk. Tormented by watching his true love fade away, Prince charming slumped into a deep depression.
Racked by guilt and impotent rage, he forlornly tried to fill the empty space in his heart by joining an expressive dance troupe, but ultimately slumped into dependence on heroin and whores.
Having sold off all his possessions to fund his addictions, shortly after his castle was repossessed by the bailiffs, he was found in an alley slumped in a puddle of his own **** having overdosed on smack unprofessionally cut with fentanyl."
The end.
I am pretty sure rebelling against unjust authority is a good moral lesson. The point here is overall, the fairy tales specifically (unlike, say Aesop's fables) provide a rather unflattering narrative for young girls to emulate (passive and vulnerable damsels in distress waiting to be rescued by prince charming). Though there is no need establish bans in schools or anything. Maybe greater prominence to Alice in Wonderland, Jungle Book and more such tales?
Augustus
…
Then they'll be accused of promoting colonialism and white supremacy.
Drug addled 7 year old wanders off and spends time with a mentally unstable man while trying to avoid being decapitated by a bloodthirsty tyrant and consuming more drugs.
And antiscience. There's no orangutans in India. Psh.Then they'll be accused of promoting colonialism and white supremacy.
And snakes don't have sacroiliacs.
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
Have to ban the scisor man too. Cant have kids going around snipping off peoples fingers, because they sucked the sugar off them when eating doughnuts.
Aesops are kind of boring, violent and brutal but boring nonetheless. Which is a far more serious crime IMO. And Sleeping Beauty is not the only fairy tale in existence.
The original little mermaid is very proactive as a character, has agency and all that.
Belle is pretty proactive as a character. The Snow Queen has a girl (Gerda) literally saving the boy (Kai) and even the Queen herself is rather proactive, if a bit morally ambiguous.
Disney has made several fortunes with strong gutsy female role models for decade upon decade.
Even Snow White isn't that bad of a character, if you look at her. A bit bland sure, but she has some authority and spunk to her.
All narratives are important as long as there is balance. Some girls are naturally passive and it's okay to have role models that reflect their personality types as well as strong ****** female heroines. Which ironically are being seen as more and more boring the more they over saturate the market.
And Alice is pretty passive as a character, IMO. But that's okay because?
Personally I don't think anything should be banned I'm just saying, one has to be weary of the thought police constantly trying to take away literature.
Mine was shaped by Roald Dahl, Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, the looney tunes, all the original fairytales from Grimm to Perrault and even folklore from my own culture. Tales of epic graphic battles and giant monsters being beaten up.
I have yet to go on a murderous spree.
Although there is still time I suppose
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Probably best not to touch Briar Rabbit and the Tar Baby. .. .Then they'll be accused of promoting colonialism and white supremacy.
Drug addled 7 year old wanders off and spends time with a mentally unstable man while trying to avoid being decapitated by a bloodthirsty tyrant and consuming more drugs.
Clearly my memory regarding fairy tales is failing me. Thus I retract everything I have said in the past in this thread and promise to keep mum regarding fairy tales from now on.
Augustus
…
Struwwelpeter is pretty dark. Little kid gets his thumbs cut off by a psycho with giant scissors because he won't stop sucking them. Mum tells him he deserved it.
Was scared witless of scissor dude when I was a kid.
The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissor-man.
Oh! children, see! the tailor's come
And caught out little Suck-a-Thumb.
Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out "Oh! Oh! Oh!"
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast,
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home: there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;
"Ah!" said Mamma, "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb."
Also has a merry little rhyme about a girl burning to death.
And see! oh, what dreadful thing!
The fire has caught her apron-string;
Her apron burns, her arms, her hair—
She burns all over everywhere.
...
So she was burnt, with all her clothes,
And arms, and hands, and eyes, and nose;
Till she had nothing more to lose
Except her little scarlet shoes;
And nothing else but these was found
Among her ashes on the ground.
The story of the inky boys certianly wouldn't pass the PC brigade today either...
I was taken with the simple morality of the little girl who coming out the baker's drops a loaf of bread in a mud puddle. The beggar boy says, 'Now it's spoiled, do you mind if I have it?' The girl says, 'What? You?' and treads on the loaf.
And falls through into hell.
Or something like that. Mr H. C. Andersen, I think.
Hey I think that is the story that the Pieman episode of Grizzly Tales was based off of (or it was a German Fairy Tale with the same premise, don't know.) Same deal, but instead the "Pie Man" cuts the kid's thumbs off and uses them to hold up the crust of his pies.
There was also an episode where this butterfly catcher comes in and all the butterflies are made of kids' eyelids haha. Or the barber who cuts the "bits of children's tongues that causes them to be smart alecks." There's even a scene where a kid swallows one of the tongues on a dare, (the kids thinking they're slugs.) Mind you this is G rated cartoons shown after school on free to air TV.
How this show never gave younger me nightmares I'll never know. Although I was a bit creeped out by the narrator, affectionately called "Uncle Grizzly" by fans. Voiced by the guy who played Neil on the Young Ones, for you lovers of 80s Brit TV. And how he would torment poor Spindleshanks, his pet spider. If you can get an Aussie kid to empathize with a spider, you have mad skills lol
Although Animorphs which was shown directly after Grizzly Tales did haunt younger me a bit. I always thoroughly checked my ears of a night time lmao!
Looking back, I think I liked the honesty of the show. With other kids' shows, even ones based off horror (like Are you afraid of the dark or goosebumps) there was often, though not always, a happy ending. In Grizzly Tales, none of that Disney dues ex machina nonsense!
Here's a good ep, about an attention seeking jerk and cannibalism. Ahh children's media.
Then of course there was the very Aussie Round the Twist. Which was basically a children's version of the Twilight Zone, but in the 90s. Not gonna lie, some of those eps did kind of freak me out as a youngster. But it was all in good fun. And everything I mentioned is pretty much based off the (then) modern children's retellings of classic fables and fairy tales anyway.
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I think because I still read (and collect) them regularly my memory is a tad more clear by default. So don't be too hard on yourself.Clearly my memory regarding fairy tales is failing me. Thus I retract everything I have said in the past in this thread and promise to keep mum regarding fairy tales from now on.
Stanyon
WWMRD?
All of which is nothing like the original, thank god---or whomever.A MOTHER has asked her son’s school to take ‘Sleeping Beauty’ off the curriculum for its "inappropriate sexual" message.
Mother-of-two Sarah Hall, from Northumberland Park, says the fairytale promotes unacceptable behaviour which should not be read to young children.
She argued it teaches children that it is ok to kiss a woman while she’s asleep, which she says is not acceptable.
Ms Hall was reading a school book with her son, Ben, six, which was based on the traditional story.
She said: “I think it’s a specific issue in the Sleeping Beauty story about sexual behaviour and consent.
“It’s about saying is this still relevant, is it appropriate?”
She said she is worried about what message the tale, which features a Prince waking up a Princess by kissing her, sends to impressionable youngsters.
The 40-year-old left a comment in her son’s record book, and contacted the school to ask if books featuring it could be taken out of circulation for younger classes.
She said: “In today’s society, it isn’t appropriate - my son is only six, he absorbs everything he sees, and it isn’t as if I can turn it into a constructive conversation.
source
"In the original sleeping beauty, the lovely princess is put to sleep when she pricks her finger on a spindle. She sleeps for one hundred years when a prince finally arrives, kisses her, and awakens her. They fall in love, marry, and (surprise surprise) live happily ever after. But alas, the original tale is not so sweet (in fact, you have to read this to believe it.) In the original, the young woman is put to sleep because of a prophesy, rather than a curse. And it isn’t the kiss of a prince which wakes her up: the king seeing her asleep, and rather fancying having a bit, rapes her. After nine months she gives birth to two children (while she is still asleep). One of the children sucks her finger which removes the piece of flax which was keeping her asleep. She wakes up to find herself raped and the mother of two kids."
source
I imagine If they changed sleeping beauty to having gay and transexual characters it would probably be endorsed and might even be included as part of the curriculum.