revisiting fairy tales

My Cultural Diary

Revisiting Fairy Tales

Topic : Imagination créatrice et visionnaire

Contents

Documents studied in class

Personal documents

• Little Red Riding Wolf

• TV serie : Once Upon A Time

• Snow White and the Huntsman

• A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish

• Fallen Princesses : Snowy

• Red Riding Hood

Documents studied in class

Little Red Riding Wolf

This document is an extract from Revolting Rhymes, a book written by Roald Dahl in 1982. In this story, Little Red Riding Hood kill the wolf with a pistol, and later, someone came across her in the wood, while she is wearing the wolf’s skin as a coat.

I didn’t really like this document, because I think that the original story is better than this retelling : I prefer that the girl rescue her grandmother, and not just that she kill the wolf and wear his skin, because this story is no longer a fairy tale.

Snow White and the Huntsman

This document is a poster, for the movie Snow White and the Huntsman, released in 2012. On this poster, we can see the Evil Queen holding a dagger, the Huntsman looking ready to fight, and Snow White looking shy but determined for her war against the queen, who wants to kill her.

I liked this document, because I think that change the Snow White’s personality and give to the huntsman a bigger part of the story is really a great idea. I think also that a focus on the struggle between the queen and Snow White will create a completely different story of the orginal fairy tale. The only thing that I regret from the first version of the Snow White’s is the importance of the seven dwarfs, they are missing on this movie poster, but they are still present in the film.

Fallen Princesses : Snowy

This document is a picture, taken by the artist Dina Goldstein, in 2009. Dina Goldstein made many pictures as this one : the princesses’ condition if they lived at our time, and not in their fairy tales.

I don’t really like this document, because it makes fall all what we can imagine when we think about princesses, it shows that the fairy tales is not real and it will never could be. It proves to us that the fairy tales can’t be trusted, because they don’t represent the reality, the real future of women. Acoording to her, the happy endings don’t exist in real life. I liked it anyway just because the artist wanted to convey a important message, a criticism of today’s society : that women are still not equal to men.

Personal documents

A Cinderella story : Christmas wish

This document is an american film, directed by Michelle Johnston and released in 2019. This film is about a girl, who lost her father and have a detestable stepmother and 2 odious stepsisters. She works hard to get some money while her stepmother ask her to do every chores. As the fairy tales, she meet a good man, and we know the end.

You can find the trailer here.

I think that this documents is relevant with the chapter because it has almost the same story that the Cinderella fairy tale, the only difference is the time at which it takes place.

Red Riding Hood

This document is an amercian film, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and released in 2011. This film is about a girl, Valerie, who lives in a little village, which is suffering wolf’s attacks since decades. They discovered that it is a werewolf, and so that he had a human form. Valerie decided to find out the werewolf, because she can understand him when nobody else can't.

I think that it is a revisiting of the Little Red Riding Hood original fairy tale, because there is a wolf, a grandmother who lives in the woods, and of course a red cape, but the story is a little bit diferent, still at an indefinite time.

You can find the trailer here.

Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time is an american TV serie released since october 2011. This serie mixes several fairy tales : Snow White, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Hercules, Frankenstein, every princesses that we know and many others. After the Evil Queen’s maledction, all the fairy tales of the Enchanted Forest were transported to Storybrooke, in Maine, at our time, forgeting who they were. To break this malediction, they have to wait the Charmants’ (Snow White and her Prince Charming) daughter, Emma, who could be saved just before the malediction, she lives in Boston without knowing who she is. I really recommand this serie !

I think that it is the perfect document for the chapter Revisiting Fairy Tales, because every fairy tales is rewrited in this serie, we discover that some character have a family relationship, or that 2 characters are in fact the same person, it is really interesting.

<-- You can find the trailer here.

Conclusion

The imaginary allows to go out of the today’s reality, it allows to dream of a princesse’s life, castle and Prince Charming. But this chapter « Revisiting Fairy Tales » shows to us the other side of fairy tales, the princesse’s story if they lived at our time, and I found it very interesting.

My Cultural Diary

The End