The innocence of fairytales

When did we decide that children were too innocent for fairytales as they have been told for generations? Instead of the little mermaid sacrificing herself and becoming foam on the green green waves, the wolf dying of a belly-full of rocks, the evil stepmother dancing to death in a pair of heated iron shoes... we have - well, you know how it goes. When did we decide that children needed to be lied to?

As a child, my favourite fairytale was of the selkie wife: a seal who could change into human shape. A fisherman stumbles upon a group of selkie women dancing. He steals one of the seals' coats and holds it hostage, forcing one of the beautiful woman to marry him. He locks her coat in a chest, so she is indentured to him for years, even having having children with him, while her selkie husband and children wait for her. One day, the man forgets the key to the chest at home and she frees herself, escaping back to her family. So what does her second husband do? Of course he kills her selkie family, and in return she vows to kill every man in the village.

Every fairytale is a moral tale, whether you can verbalise this moral or not. That's what I love about the original tales: the rich symbolism, which as a child I would puzzle over - I could feel the meaning (almost literally taste, smell, touch, those underappreciated faculties) but still not explain or even construct a thought about that feeling. The anxiety, the suspense, the unforeseen and foreseen twists and turns, the bad choices, the beautiful tragedy - and of course the illicit pleasure in the sense of fear that is the heart of any fairytale.

The best equivalent I can think of is Hamlet - most will have read Shakespeare and some will have enjoyed the plays. In the end, our hero is the cause of his own destruction, as are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and Othello. The initial event just sets them rolling down that slope. Macabrely we wonder: Would Hamlet have destroyed himself anyway? Could he have dug his heels in and stopped mid-roll? What is it that makes this type of hero curl into a ball before their enemies have even aimed a kick? Most importantly for this post: Why do we enjoy watching them roll downhill? What are our minds distilling behind the scenes? The answer rolls like a sweet in our mouths.

Fairytales make our conscious mind shudder and our unconscious mind shiver. They warn that nothing is what it seems - that the unwary will suffer - that we must mete out punishment ourselves, because there is no one to appeal to - that bad people do good things and they do bad things and so on and so on. They warn that life is not fair, but sometimes you get lucky, and another but: you have to work for what you want and stay away from anything that so much as touches trouble. Do you think these stories are primeval? No they are not! They attribute happenings to people. They recognise that some events have no rhyme nor reason. They warn us about wolves and evil stepmothers and vicious men, but they also hand us a set of tools with which we can understand the less obvious menaces of nature and human nature, even if only on an unconscious level.

They prepare us for life.

What sparked this meander? The movie Red Riding Hood, which is really just a mishmash of Grimms' and Perrault's and Angela Carter's versions, with some movie studio rep's meddling. Even a sanitised version - imagine: the wolf is re-released into the wild (because international law forbids wild animals being housed in zoos), and the 'girl' and the woodcutter live (here it is, folks!) happily ever after - would have been less offensive. Actors with more than one facial expression would be preferable but perhaps that's taking the hand when you're offered the finger.

Illustration in Old-time stories (1921) New York: Dodd, Mead. Perrault, Charles, 1628-1703; Johnson, A. E. (Alfred Edwin), b. 1879; Robinson, W. Heath (William Heath), 1872-1944, ill

For anyone who would argue differently (and if so, I'm offended that you're reading this blog) consider these conventions of romantic cinema: the love triangle wherein Bella - I mean Valerie - has to choose between the good boy and the bad boy, the unveiling of a family secret, another unveiling: of the bad boy as a good boy (unlocked by love's virtue) and the good boy as a good loser, finally, the resolution of the lovers' trial - and, again... The conventions of the plot masked by a red cape set in relief by black and/or white. (By the by, we've been through the bad-boy-needing-to-control-his-dark-side in Buffy, Mrs Meyer, with not a whiff of abuse in seven seasons.)

What do our sanitised fairytales teach children? That life is fair, that there is a clear line between good and bad, that bad is just bad, that these people will be punished by their own plots turning back on them, that the reward for good behaviour is a picket fence (or moat), that the happiness (or sadness) of a moment will define your life, and that wealth is woven in there somewhere. Is life just less harsh nowadays that we don't need more severe warnings? Are these the things we should strive for - do they have a moral value I have overlooked? I still prefer the original tales. I like to think they taught me a few things. When I stumble, I don't fall on my ass and ask 'Why?' I regain my balance. Because I know there are far worse things to watch out for than skinned palms.