Topic: Fairy Tales
I'm going to do something with this...
The damsel in distress who is saved by the handsome knight on the beautiful white horse only happens in fairy tales. It is in these tales that the sexist stereotypes of women are exploited to the maximum. We need the man to remove us from danger. We need the man to validate our own happiness and self-worth.
I don?t care how much danger I find myself in, I will not have a man climb up my hair in order to be a hero. I would be scalpless or in the moat long before that happens. At the very least, I?d have a broken neck. This is not for me.
Today?s woman might very well take care of seven little men and bite into a bad apple. Instead of being revived by the kiss of the handsome prince, she?d be kissing a stomach pump in the local emergency room.
Fantasies such as these just don?t exist any more. The harsh reality and complexity of life would make it very difficult for the fairy tale to gain any acceptance in the adult world. Things used to be so much simpler. There weren?t so many choices. What used to be deemed as make believe is now so far removed from reality as to make it almost absurd. Only the innocence of the child allows the fairy tale to exist. The perception of the adult makes them laughable.
Even so, fairy tales live long after the telling. I, personally, haven?t read a fairy tale since I was a child. Okay, I did write one and I read that. I?m referring to the classic fairy tales that have been around forever. There haven?t been any new Snow Whites or Rapunzels of notary fame in recent years.
Maybe we need to revive the fairy tale. Escape is still very popular. Some escape to their vacation places to remove themselves from reality. Others crawl into the pages of a book to find escape on a more consistent basis.