We investigate the complex roles these narratives play in society, examining their potential as enchanting stories for children or darker carriers of cautionary wisdom. Join us as we trace their evolution from their blood-stained origins in oral tradition to the polished pages of the Brothers Grimm and beyond, delving into their psychological implications and the glimmers of hope they extend to listeners across the ages.
Fairy tales often wear charming masks, yet beneath lie tales of brutality and stark life lessons. We take you through the original cutthroat versions of "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Snow White" and ponder the messages woven within about the often harsh realities of life. We contrast the freedom and independence of past childhoods with today's overprotected youth, discussing the implications of these shifts for societal concepts of safety and the cultivation of creativity and resilience. The transformation of children's entertainment reflects these changes, moving from didactic tales to whimsical adventures like "Alice in Wonderland," yet still holding the power to shape societal norms and personal ideologies.
Prepare to be enchanted by the enduring appeal of fairy tales and consider their profound influence on our understanding of the world, our past, and ourselves. Whether you're a lover of lore or a seeker of hidden truths, this episode promises to cast a new light on these beloved stories that have stood the test of time.
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We investigate the complex roles these narratives play in society, examining their potential as enchanting stories for children or darker carriers of cautionary wisdom. Join us as we trace their evolution from their blood-stained origins in oral tradition to the polished pages of the Brothers Grimm and beyond, delving into their psychological implications and the glimmers of hope they extend to listeners across the ages.
Fairy tales often wear charming masks, yet beneath lie tales of brutality and stark life lessons. We take you through the original cutthroat versions of "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Snow White" and ponder the messages woven within about the often harsh realities of life. We contrast the freedom and independence of past childhoods with today's overprotected youth, discussing the implications of these shifts for societal concepts of safety and the cultivation of creativity and resilience. The transformation of children's entertainment reflects these changes, moving from didactic tales to whimsical adventures like "Alice in Wonderland," yet still holding the power to shape societal norms and personal ideologies.
Prepare to be enchanted by the enduring appeal of fairy tales and consider their profound influence on our understanding of the world, our past, and ourselves. Whether you're a lover of lore or a seeker of hidden truths, this episode promises to cast a new light on these beloved stories that have stood the test of time.
PageChewing.com
PAGECHEWING: Comics & Manga Podcast
Film Chewing Podcast
Buy me a coffee
Linktree
Logo by The GlimmerTwin Art House
Join Riverside.fm
Hello friends, welcome to the Friday conversation. I forget the number, but it's one of I don't know some bonus something. But we're here today, 104,. But we're here today to talk. Jared knows we're here today to talk about fairy tales. Are they sweet and cuddly or are they really out to get us? Is it propaganda, is it conspiracy? Is it just lighthearted fun? We'll discuss. So, jared, this is the topic you brought up. So start us off with the introduction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm Jared. I run the fantasy thinker YouTube channel and I occasionally do a blog here on pace doingcom.
Speaker 1:And Susanna.
Speaker 3:Hello, my name is Sunny. I'm a writer, and sometimes you do that at the end of the world.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I'll have all the links down below in the description. Your animals are. Your dogs are upset. Pay attention to me.
Speaker 2:So he's a demon.
Speaker 1:Yeah sounds like it. It's a fitting name.
Speaker 1:But fair tales are. I think most of his thing is. Fair tales is kind of, I don't know, like a comfort, but I don't know. I think a little bit of that. I've looked into it. They like on psychology, a couple of psychology articles about it, and they're an essential. They permit both the expression of natural violence and at the same time preserve the essential past part of life without which the child cannot prosper, which is hope. So, thinking back, I guess fairy tales can be pretty violent. Even early Disney movies are pretty dark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they go back close to the origins, go back thousands of years, and so you can imagine how they have changed immeasurably over that time. And so it's it's. You know, we were talking about fairy tales on a previous conversation and we brought them up as how some of them are dark and you know, and some of them are grim and but it's, but they've been, they've been around so long that and they originally started, as you know, oral, traditional, traditionally oral stories that were passed down from one one generation to the next, and a lot of these fairy tales had, you know, they, they involved creatures that had, like some kind of magical abilities and and they're, and they were a genre, a genre basically of folklore, and they have, but they have magical and fantastical elements and, you know, have supernatural beings and, a lot of the times, moral lessons, and so what those moral lessons encompass, you know, could have been pretty dark at some times in the past.
Speaker 1:Do you, do you both think that? Oh, go ahead, Suzanne, sorry.
Speaker 3:I was just how, I was asking how, how are they different? Or how are they different from myths, from just mythology?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 2:Actually it's, and it's it's hard to pinpoint from what.
Speaker 2:From what I could, you know, the little bit of research I did, which you know is just enough to get me in trouble here but it it seems like because they have their roots in the ancient civilizations, just like myths, do you know, including the Samarians and the Egyptians and Greeks and Romans and the Chinese and the, and then they were made more popular during the time of ASOP in the, in the Greek, uh, 6th century BC, and of course there was tons of translations from his stuff and but there was still a lot of oral stuff from that.
Speaker 2:And so what makes it different from myths is is interesting because you got several possible cultural influences on the concepts of fairy tales, and that includes the belief in supernatural beings similar to, um, ancient Greek and Roman and Egyptian mythologies, where they're associated with nature, magic and the spirit world. Uh, and I I would postulate even though it's it can't really tell by the origins that some of these fairy tale myths grew into the myths of the gods and stuff like that. Um, you know, because there's a lot of, there's a lot of animism and stuff that these things originate from.
Speaker 1:So I wonder, is it so for excuse me, for children, for them to be invested in this story? They have the imagination to, they, they, they have the imagination to, to carry, to, kind of take an interest in these fantastical stories. And as adults, when we have a little bit, maybe a little more cynical or a little bit more skeptical, do we need something like a, like mythology, something to believe in, some kind of belief system, some with some kind of weight and consequence, to be, to be, have an interest in stories like that? Do we? Can we just not be entertained in in a story like that? Do we need something to invest in? Is that?
Speaker 3:Um, but we are predisposed to like stories. You know they are far more entertaining than you know. Just lessons, um, I don't know, I don't have kids, but I guess if you try to explain something to a kid by just laying out the facts and the laws and this is what it says, uh, they're going to start rolling their eyes on lazy or looking at the window very soon. But if you start talking about dragons and dark princes and evil gods and monsters, they pay attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right. I mean, we are natural storytelling creatures. It's part of um, it's part of our evolution in order to explain what we didn't know about the world. Uh, you develop stories in order to help explain that and to try to make sense of everything. And, um, you know and part of that is part of that, of course is entertainment. As you know, in order to make the most sense of the world, you're going to want the most entertaining way of doing that, in order to engage. You know who you're talking to and stuff like that. Um, so I think you know that definitely makes sense.
Speaker 1:Hmm, yeah, I think it's interesting that the same stories are translated. They seem to be universally loved over, with different cultures and different belief systems. The same stories are are translated and still still beloved by different types of people, and I guess it's like you mentioned. It's kind of the, it's the storytelling, it's the stories that I guess the life lessons you can take away from them, regardless of what your culture, belief system is the universal stories about life or like it's like mentioned in that article, Hope.
Speaker 3:Why are they called fairy tales? And the reason I'm asking this is growing up in Portugal, fairy tales Concha de Vardes is, but our idea of what the fairy is is very different than what the fairy is here in Ireland, for example, but we still call it fairy tales, and so I was wondering why all this that happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was curious too, because a lot of what's called fairy tales you have, you know, you have stuff like Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio and all this stuff that's been Disney-fied today they don't actually a lot of them don't actually have actual fairies. You know that, that you would. You know the little creatures with wings of fluttering or something like that. You know there's a few that do. But it's kind of interesting that the term fairy tale took on a much bigger role, I guess, than just being literally about magical little magical fairies, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's one of my my Google powers. I found an article, so it looks like. In the late 17th century a French writer called the French fairy tale stories, conteste de Fis probably must pronounce that because of the fairies featured in them, this name stuck and was translated to English as fairy tales. So it just kind of one of those things were. Someone named it something and it just stuck Right.
Speaker 3:Okay, cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it was a lot of, of course, different, as different cultures interacted in exchange stories, the mythologies and folk laws and stuff you know obviously would have into, fluenced each other and you would have a you know this all a blending of different stories that you know would develop and have similar beings like fairies and, and you know, in Ireland it'd be like leprechauns.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess it's so. Why have fairy tales? Why? Why do we still, why do these look so exist after all this time, is it, I guess? Why are they still popular? Why is it? Why is this all a thing? And I think it's amazing to me the way that the older fairy tales were passed down just orally, not even written down, just generation to generation.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because we just like stories, just like telling stories, a good story will endure. The characters might change, the setting might change, but it's the message within the story that it's important.
Speaker 2:I also think there was a, there was some sort of imperative to have you know morals in these stories to teach as a teaching tool, not only to they originally, to explain the world you know around us, but also there's there's lessons in there too, in some of the you know. Some of the lessons are as simple as don't you know, don't go out by yourself in the woods, or something like that, and others may be more more societal, cultural. You know, as far as don't try to, don't leave your lane. Basically you know, and so you know as far as, like social class and what have you back in the Middle Ages and what have you.
Speaker 2:And so there is. You know, there was that imperative as well to have that kind of lesson or moral of the story.
Speaker 1:Hmm, so so could they be a form of control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 3:Certainly a form of education.
Speaker 2:Sure because when you depends on who's doing the educating, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they do change.
Speaker 2:Even.
Speaker 3:I don't have it here because there's no image or that will be pointless. But I have these little books of fairy tales, that from my grandmother's side, and those things are brutal. They are. The writing is atrocious.
Speaker 3:I had this idea of making a podcast six stories and I don't say that copyright or anything, and just they're like this tiny, tiny books is called the less of an evening, like the little and collection, and it's tiny, tiny booklets with just like 20 pages and illustrations and it takes five minutes to tell. But I can't translate because it's so okay, but anyway, it's maybe an idea. But they are brutal and they are a combination of both famous cream tales but also with Greek mythology in the mix, and it's such a mix but there's no, there's no plot to them, there's just good character, bad character, horrible thing happens. These are for children, by the way. One of them just the two little shepherds found a golden flute and one of his brothers got jealous and then killed them and stole the flute.
Speaker 3:Just bizarre stuff like this. And I think they did a re-edition of it then later in the 80s or 90s, where there were the same stories but a lot less explicit. You know, there was a lot less killings and torture, and because there are torture as well, it's so I guess they do change. Same message, same story, just a little bit toned down.
Speaker 1:I wonder why that is as well. The cautionary tales maybe just you know way to scare kids into not doing the wrong thing that killed their siblings.
Speaker 3:Like yeah, don't kill your siblings, Bad things happen.
Speaker 1:I guess, could it be that fairy tales still exist, that they're still, you know, they've even specific story fairy tales of last of the test of time. Because all those times change and cultures change and ideas change, are humans essentially the same? I mean when you break it all down? Are we just kind of the same as we've been? Do the same stories appeal to us, especially as kids? We're more of a blank slate. Are we essentially the same as we've been for over many years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say so. You know, I don't think the human race has changed that much in the past couple thousand years. We're starting to maybe tip that scale with all this integrated technology, but that's still new, you know, really new in the big scheme of things. And yeah, we're the same species.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think story wise we are pretty much the same as we were since the Bronze Age, since, you know, there were records of these stories. Of course they might have thought that it was worse recording them before and we just don't have those records, but it was around that time that the first records of fairy tales or cautionary tales or myths kind of became a regular thing and we still like them today. I think every child is predisposed to enjoy certain narratives, everything else than it's learned.
Speaker 1:You can even make the point, you can even make the case that this integrated excuse me, this integrated technology will make us dumber. That will. It'll actually be worse off for humans, not better. More of a walley type of situation and not something that will. Because if we have all this integration and we depend on it, then we do less and as the generations go, the more it'll do for us and the less it will do and the dumber will get.
Speaker 2:So, while Lee is in itself a cautionary tale, you know, you know not to not even go down that road. So yeah, you could look at it like that. Hopefully, you know, well, probably wouldn't happen in our lifetimes, but hopefully, hopefully the our children's stuff can turn that around and make better use of the technology than TikTok. But yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I never watched it.
Speaker 1:You could even no, I mean, you can even wonder is because fairy tales were created and were told through generations as a form of entertainment and that required some sort of storytelling ability and a way to to craft a story and to teach in a less like a life lesson or a cautionary tale, or entertaining or funny or whatever it may be. I wonder, with with technology, whether it's integrated or anything else, with technology, are we losing our creativity? Is the level of creativity coming dropping because we everything comes so easy to us and we have so much, we have so much to be entertained by that we don't use our imagination as much as we used to? That, you know, just in general.
Speaker 2:I mean, I wonder if, if yeah, I don't know, it's hard to guess that, because it's easy. It's easy for me to fall into old man mode and say, ah, kids these days did, did dumb, you know, but? But? But I wouldn't want to do that just as a blank, blanket statement. You know, I I'm hoping the creativity will manifest in other ways. That's what I.
Speaker 3:I think the problem is that it takes less effort for the person learning the story and the person telling the story, because before you used to be, you know well, before I wait for, before even television, you know you just sit around and tell a story and you create that environment and it was. It was a special occasion as well. So all your attention was focused on the narrative, on the narrator. Then later we'd seen him, but he had the the eight of you know we could actually see stuff happening, but you still you are. When you were at the movie theater, all your attention is on the screen.
Speaker 3:And now there's so much and you're just scrolling on the phone, you're not paying attention. There's a lot and there's not enough deaths. It's just part of that magic is kind of lost over the years and it's been quite fast. I mean I can't imagine growing up now, if I like what. While growing up I was starved for any sort of entertainment. I think the cinema was such a luxury. Having a book was another luxury. I wonder if now, if I would care so much about those things, if they were so readily available, if I would even care about the story or narrative or mythology at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah. Everything's so available that it's all available, all encompassing, available, that it can be quite difficult to pick and choose and, you know, have something be when everything is meaningful, nothing is meaningful. You know it's that kind of a situation it's. You know that's what it feels like nowadays sometimes.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised I couldn't kind of get you guys to get into the yell at cloud moment. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's happened yet, I think. But I think over the course of a few generations, if we, if we stay on the same path and everything becomes so easy and so available, we won't have to create stories anymore, because we can add some prompts to an AI, some AI and it'll pump out a story for us in 10 seconds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you would still have to create a story that you would like, based on the stories that came before. I don't know if even the AI could create something completely new from scratch that we then would enjoy or even understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or even if it gets to the point where they, where an AI, can do certain things that are that would be good enough for rapid mass consumption, I think there would. Even at that point there would still be some sort of a turnaround, some sort of a you know, a movement, a counter, counterculture movement against that type of entertainment, and you know, I think, I think it would at some point it's going to.
Speaker 3:You know it's going to, it's not going to, just be mindless, mindless robot stuff. I hope so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hold a hope. I think I guess I don't want to be, I don't want the world to turn into grim duck.
Speaker 3:No kind of like like it is with vinyl. You know CDs were great and now with all the digital stuff, you know we would think that they would not be around anymore, but people still love them.
Speaker 3:So because, it's that tactile thing collectible thing and just the act of putting the disc on the player. And I don't know, maybe in another generation or two, but I see a lot of younger people that still like enjoy doing that, so yeah, no, my kids got some records and they're fascinated with them, absolutely fascinated with it, with a turntable and vinyl. It's kind of funny.
Speaker 1:There are but there are.
Speaker 1:There are. There are a few speaking of music and physical media. There are a few, a few YouTubers that I follow that talk, you know, music and physical media and that sort of thing, and there are. I've seen a couple of them recommend recently that if you are a collector not so much vinyl, because vinyl seems to be having resurgence, at least a little bit they are recommending you go out and buy physical media, like buy your favorites before it's gone, because there's there's still selling, but nowhere near the way they used to and it's every year it's dipping a little bit. So it is a little depressing to think that will depend on streaming services for everything, or things like Spotify, or we'll never really own anything Because they can turn that, switch off whenever they want to and you lose it. So for anyone out there who is collector, it might be. If you do want, like you know, your favorite albums or your favorite DVDs or whatever it might be, it might be a good time to just have it, just in case.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you never know, it could be something that's quite in demand at some point. But if, if they do take it away from the cloud or something, you know it's yeah. But back to fairy tales.
Speaker 3:Back to fairy tales.
Speaker 2:We always get sidetracked. Oh, I know that's great, but the I was just like looking at I found some fairy tales that really went dark, like even the like the original little red riding hood. Originally she was just simply eaten by the wolf as a comeuppance for her naivety, and I guess originally it was like a moralized warning for a young woman not to listen to strangers, and so you know that's pretty dark. And of course that has many different variations of a little red riding hood over the years. And similarly it was it was Snow White's mother who wanted to eat her lungs and liver and she meets her comeuppance in the original story by dancing in agony and red hot iron shoes until she falls down dead. Wow.
Speaker 3:And yeah, Snow White, she, I got a whole bunch of other ones too.
Speaker 2:They're really dark.
Speaker 3:And it wasn't at the little mermaid that the prince would make her dance on her new legs and was agony for her, and so yes, in a little mermaid.
Speaker 2:yeah, it's yeah. She goes to the sea witch for the legs so she can find the prince she saved from drowning. And then the sea witch tells her she'll die if she fails to get the kiss from her true love. Tragically, the prince meets somebody else and marries her and, in a cruel twist, the witch gives the little mermaid one last chance. If she kills the prince, she'll be allowed to get her tail back and return to her life under the sea. And in the end she can't bring herself to murder her, so she jumps back into the sea to certain death and ends up as sea foam.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:That's one version, yeah, and then, and that's supposed to be a like, an idea that show how noble self-sacrifice could be. Oh right, yeah, in a tale to warn young readers about the dangers of having unrealistic dreams and even trying to break out of the social class you were born into, and it's Anderson's original take on that. So listen up, kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was just reading the Pinocchio rundown, so let's see. Jimmy, the talking cricket, a key character in the movie, is killed off in one of the opening chapters. Yep, and Pinocchio doesn't have any remorse for killing him. There's a bit where, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's tired of Jiminy's moralizing advice, so he kills him.
Speaker 1:And then there's a bit where Pinocchio steals some gold coins, gets caught in his hang for his crimes. He originally intended the author originally intended the story to end with the puppet hanging from a tree, dying seeing his work as a powerful morality tale for young readers. What is editors? How do they ideas?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the funny thing is the Disney movie, the original one, is kind of creepy, you know a little bit.
Speaker 3:When I was a kid watching it.
Speaker 4:I was like oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but not that dark, you know. But still, yeah, some of the stuff is really dark.
Speaker 1:So the ugly duckling. The duckling is not only laughed at, but it's subjected to some pretty horrendous abuse, though this serves to make the happy ending even more satisfying. In the original tale, it's not just his fellow ducklings who laugh at a small bird. The whole of the barnyard joins in the abuse too. At times, the taunt smocking his supposed ugliness even turned into violence. Even in a twist that's left out of modern versions, the animals' tormentors are almost all slaughtered. The ugly duckling manages to find refuge with a kindly old lady. Part of her cat is also a bully and forces him out of her home. You just can't catch a break.
Speaker 3:Geez. And what is the moral of that story? Don't be ugly. I need to get my hands on those old original stories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't be ugly. If you are, then you deserve it, I guess. Yeah, I don't see the Well. When he sees a group of swans, he expects to be shunned and mocked, but he is welcomed. When he looks in the water at his reflection, the reason is clear he has become a beautiful swan himself.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, and so all his tormentors were killed and eaten, slaughtered, oh okay.
Speaker 3:So everything works out, that's great.
Speaker 1:So you know all as well as ends well.
Speaker 3:So why? Because it was a swan instead of a duck and everyone was mocking him because they were jealous of him or something. I really need to go and find that story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he was a swan the whole time and he was abused because people were jealous of him and he thought he was a duck. But when he was able to look at his reflection he realized, oh, I'm a swan, so it's okay. So I'm not really that ugly after all, I'm okay.
Speaker 2:So he wanted to be a pop star somewhere, yeah, and a long acting career after that, oh man, oh, now there's the fox and the hound and there's some yeah, that's when the farmer finds in his dogs, find the fox family, kill his mate, kill his children and then, in the original version, the fox dies of stress and exhaustion all alone in the woods while the farmer's favorite dog gets old and needs to be shot and put out of its misery. What?
Speaker 3:It kind of makes you wonder.
Speaker 3:I mean, I guess life we are quite spoiled. Okay, because fairy tales are something that they adapt with time and society, so they are being gradually told down. And less killings and torture, yeah. But if that was the standard, can you imagine if you had to prepare a child for that sort of? What sort of world were you living in? But I guess it was a lot harsher, you could die a lot easier. And if you lived in a small community, just if you stood out just a little bit, you would get more than that. And I guess yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's probably proportional.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could say I mean a lot of these darker versions of the fairy tales probably got darker because maybe people needed to tell their kids don't go out in those woods because this really dark stuff is going to happen, you know.
Speaker 2:You know you don't go to the because you're going to wood, you're going to find the witches, the witches, gingerbread house and she's going to boil you up and eat you. That's you know. So, that's so. Yeah, you know that with during tough times, the tales probably got tougher, you know, and as a bigger warning, especially when you look at the tales of Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty, and you know they were warnings to young women don't go, don't go falling in love with the wrong guy. Bad, nothing but bad things will happen and that was part of the. You know the, the warning.
Speaker 1:I think we've talked about this before she's on another. I forget what conversation was, but we talked about the any mention of how spoiled we are and how kids, kids know the fairy tales we tell now are more watered down and art is harsh as they once were.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, Even just reading my grandmother's little stories. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:We'll get into whether that's a good or those days with those stories. Yeah, I'll say glad you can join us, hello.
Speaker 4:Yeah, hi. Sorry, I just finished the other conversation and I was debating whether to go to bed or see where you guys were up to and when. So the illustrious guest list I thought I got my head in.
Speaker 1:Good to see you we were just discussing fairy tales and the harsh fairy tales of yesterday, yesterday, year, and how they've been watered down and not quite as harsh or violent as they were before, whether that's a good or a bad thing, because I think kids in our art kind of feel like it's not good to subject kids or younger, younger audiences to violence or to really anything that would make them sad.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry for being late, but I'll tell you my school. We somehow have ended up working with a very illustrious child psychologist in Spain, the kind of guy that's always on the news, on the newspapers, on the radio TV, and he is actually a strong proponent of not sugarcoating things to kids and that dealing with rejection, seeing the ugly side of life, is a necessary part of growing up and turning into a well rounded adult. So, whether you agree or disagree, that seems to be the prevalent wisdom of the people that are prepared to know better. So maybe we should feed kids the green fairy tales, as they were written. I agree, I think, steve is muted.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was coughing. I just want to know where that came from, where that changed from telling kids a story like Pinocchio or the stories we were just talking about and having these really harsh stories. That, I think taught kids early on that if you mess around you're going to find out. And now it's not so much the case of when did that change, when did that become? We don't want to trouble anybody, let's just make everything really easy and happy.
Speaker 4:Somewhere in the last 30 years. When I grew up, I used to live in a sort of block of flats compound. There was an empty plot of land and then there was another compound next to it, and the past time was for the gangs of kids to just meet in this sort of open plot of land and just throw rocks at each other and have fights with each other. That's what we did as kids. You grew up in the streets and you walked around the city and you got marked and you got up to no good and so on, and then I wouldn't even dream of letting my kids cross the road. I think somewhere along the way the attitudes have changed majorly and I don't know what prompted that. I don't know why that is the case, but that is certainly the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, jose, that's a good point, because I remember growing up and when I got home from school I left the house. I was gone until it got dark, when supper was ready.
Speaker 4:I was gone. There were no mobile phones?
Speaker 2:there were no, you know, I wouldn't even have heard a megaphone, and you know. And our parents just trusted us to come back, you know, when we were hungry. So you know, and then you know, so but that. But nowadays, you're right, having your kid not visible, not in the area, is a scary thing for a lot of parents and I wonder if that changed with a with the greater awareness of what's wrong in the world, with, with news outlets constantly feeding bad news all the time, With, first the first, the advent of cable television made everybody more aware of things. And then, of course, you know cell phones and notifications and and everything else. And I wonder if the greater awareness prompted the greater fear of your kids not being able to have more independence going out and it must be that at some point there's some psychological thing around.
Speaker 4:That is a well established fact, that for some reason, sometimes a particular kind of story catches on. Yeah, and then similar stories that would have gone unreported start to get reported because they catch on and they become, I think so, maybe at some point. I don't know. Obviously for us Europeans is different, but in the US school shootings seem to happen every other weekend. I don't know if in Europe, you know, child kidnapping seems to happen every other weekend and all of a sudden we have these, or part of our super home, our parents. Well, we have these accentuated sense of danger that may be more perceived than justified and we are overprotective of our children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Do you think, and I wonder this all the time. I don't have an answer, just food for thought. But I wonder is the world safer today than it was when we were kids running around doing whatever it is throwing rocks at each other? Is it safer today than it was then? It's just that we didn't know all, we didn't have access to all the things that were happening. So we know networks, hyper aware of everything that happens. Now, everything is within a minute or two. We know exactly what's happening. Yeah, so hyper aware. So is it? Is it really? Is it a safer now that we're just we just know more, or is it more dangerous now than it was then? I think it's more sanitized.
Speaker 1:We live in a more sanitized.
Speaker 4:Sorry, Joe.
Speaker 2:No, you're right.
Speaker 4:No, because I think like, particularly in Spain of the last five, eight years, there's been cases of gender violence, been a couple of cases of group rape of women, and now you would have thought that every woman is at risk of being gang raped if they go out at night. And it's just. You know, I have a colleague that cried when she got told she was going to have a baby girl, because to bring up a girl in this world is like you know, and I think it's like whoa, like these things happen, but I'm sure they've always happened, and that doesn't make him any less disgusting. But I don't think that other thing. I think we're even more aware these days of how we should conduct ourselves and was right and was wrong, and certain behaviors are not as tolerated or accepted as they were 20 years ago. So I think in a sense maybe the world is safer, but we just perceive it to not be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you're right. It's. If you look at the statistics the actual statistics, the crime statistics and actual data everything is down as far as all the bad stuff happening in the world. But everything is also super reported and super. You were hypersensitive to all of it and that's the difference.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, growing up it was like you, like, when I was a kid up until puberty, then that's what the camera did I would stay outside. I would still live in town. I would stay outside playing with the kids in the streets, no problem. But I guess there was less traffic. But we were aware of the traffic and my parents would always don't take those sweets from strangers, don't get into vans, don't go with strangers. We had all those rules that we followed, because we knew what happened to kids who didn't. There was always. We were aware of stories of kids that would disappear, of girls that would be raped and so, and so we were aware.
Speaker 3:And you took the risk. I was approached more than once, didn't take any sweets. One time I thought I was being followed and got in panic. I just knocked the first door, pretending that it was my own, that I just arrived, and then oh sorry, I'm safe, and then went back. We were, I guess, a bit more prepared for those situations as well.
Speaker 3:Then I grew up. The moment I hit puberty, the walls closed around me. My parents decided I don't know, you can't go out at all because boys eventually. But it was never safe for women again after when my 20s, and many times I saw girls putting themselves in situations and it was just unnecessary. Now the only difference I see is that people don't think we can take care of ourselves Sometimes. I guess the only way to actually go out and have fun and just be independent is to take a risk Society, even what is defined as risk.
Speaker 3:I think there's a lot of girls crying wolf and just that doesn't help anything. I know that I am digressing, but just is a perception of what is dangerous, the perception of how do you deal with that danger. It's, everything is an overreaction. Things just escalate so fast that I understand that sometimes for the parents, the best solution would be well, just don't, just don't go out, just don't. They just don't wear that, don't, don't, don't. Or just protect women because you know they can't take care of themselves. Protect the children, because they definitely can't take care of themselves and that's not productive. I don't think that's that's the best way to deal with things. It's because they would always gonna be bad people out there and they just need to be prepared for them. It's not by hiding away and looking at our screens all day at home that, yeah, are we safe? Can we just live like that? They might just be plugged in the whole time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a long way outside.
Speaker 4:No, no, no, no. But I think, also think, because everything has become I don't know more professional Kids have lost the ability to socialize, like when I was a kid. If I wanted to play soccer for my fellow Americans in the chat, you would just go out to the town square, meet other kids and use your t-shirts as goalposts and play soccer.
Speaker 4:Now nobody plays soccer in the streets. You go to a soccer club and you're part of a team and you're going to spend money and it's all a lot more. The whole sports thing has become much more professional from a very young age and everything is structured. So my children move from. They live in a permanent state of structure. They're either at school or they are at the athletics club or they are with their parents. I mean, obviously they're five and eight years old, so they haven't experienced yet being unsupervised with their friends and handling themselves that way.
Speaker 2:Maybe too young for them.
Speaker 4:But at some point not that find the future. In the next six, seven years, my kid my oldest one presumably will start going out at night and we all need to make that transition. His mom, myself and him. We kind of go from being in rigid structures all the time to here go out and come back at two, three in the morning. It's just. And that's when problems will happen. Yeah, when we were kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we would. You know, when we were kids, and I was 12 or whatever, my brother and I had a paper route so we would leave and we would find other kids on the route and have an impromptu game of football, american football, for our European listeners, and we would have that impromptu game. That would you know. We would pick teams and play, and yeah, you don't see that anymore. You don't see that kind of Like you said. It was everything structured and everything has to be planned and everybody has schedules and there's not time for. There's a certain beauty, I think, for kids in boredom, in order to have a certain, in order to create spontaneity in a creation of doing something, and I don't think there's enough of that type of boredom today, my kids don't know how to do that.
Speaker 2:Especially with, because cell phones stop that from happening. Yeah, social media stops you from being bored, and so you lose that beauty of boredom, that creativity of boredom.
Speaker 4:I agree 100%. And what do you do when you are bored?
Speaker 3:If you are outside and you are bored, what do you do? You observe people, you learn, and that's something. No, you don't have a phone Like as a kid how many hours I spent with my best friends. We had this little corner in town and we just sit there after school and talk and just watch people. How much I learned just by observing and not just for writing or anything, just by observing people, hours of that and talking. It was brilliant. I don't see a kid or teenager do that at all today.
Speaker 4:I'm assuming we've all been kids here without a dime in our pockets. But spending the whole evening out with your friends yes, Walking around town.
Speaker 3:Walking around window shopping, Just being Sitting in the garden.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Just being in the presence of your friends talking and sharing Exactly and now you see them. You see the kids. They're all sitting with the phones in their hands under a tree, all doing whatever it is that they're playing. So, yeah, there's a certain innocence lost, or there's a certain I don't see the innocence.
Speaker 3:It's the opposite. I think people are a lot more naive not innocent naive now Because by doing that, by just observing being outside, by learning how to be on your own, learning how to defend yourself or to navigate around other people, you are building character. You are developing the skills to If the situation, if a dangerous situation occurred, you can deal with it. We didn't have some phones, we couldn't call the police. Even if someone got hurt, you would have to go and knock on doors or find the next payphone, or you just you have to be proactive. You could just sit around and click a button.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got bit by a dog when I was like 13 or whatever and I had to manage to get home somehow before I could tell somebody and go get it treated. But that was a terrifying ride home on a bike to have a bleeding leg from a dog bite. You learned how to deal with it, you just had to. You had to do it. Nowadays it's Encountering a dog in the first place would be rare, and then you had to so forth. Right there You'd be far away from getting bit by a dog.
Speaker 4:So sorry. This fairy tells why do we still keep reading them to our kids? I still read my kids the three little pigs and the three Billy Goats graph and the gingerbread man. And what version.
Speaker 1:The Grimduck version or the modern version? Oh, steve, no, we were reading the original stories of Pinocchio, the little mermaid, the ugly duckling, and they're pretty dark. They're very dark yeah. Pretty bleak. But, I think they taught important lessons, important life lessons, to get this out of the kids that they wouldn't kill their siblings after they heard certain stories. So it was a learning experience. It was learning process.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's not why it wasn't particularly a cheerful story, was it?
Speaker 2:Oh no, it's not.
Speaker 4:But they still have some. They demonstrated some staying power. They're still selling some way or another. I think every kid still has had them read to them. Is it because of the core? They are trying to do something meaningful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we were speculating earlier about the. You know they're used as morality tales, they're used as warnings. A lot of them are warnings, you know, for societal warnings or danger warnings of some sort, and we also were saying how they've constantly been changing over the thousands of years that they've been around.
Speaker 4:But to Steve's point. Even if today we have the sanitized version instead of the green dark version, the OGs of green dark, has the purpose been perverted or the morality hasn't changed of the story, has it?
Speaker 1:And the delivery has changed.
Speaker 3:I think the the tone of the story, and the morality has changed as well.
Speaker 4:I think you actually think that the core of the little mermaid has changed yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Drastically.
Speaker 4:Of course, and like to me.
Speaker 1:Well, Ger, do you want to fill in the original?
Speaker 4:Oh sorry, I need you to discuss this one.
Speaker 1:No, it's worth hearing twice.
Speaker 4:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, because there's someone listening to the podcast at home or something that's not. Pick another one you haven't talked about then.
Speaker 2:Both are Go ahead, George. We got Rapunzel In the, the Docker version here. Rapunzel the prince climbs up her hair into the tower. Rapunzel gets pregnant. The witch learns of her romance, in a fit of rage, cuts off her hair, which the witch then uses to entice the prince up the tower. And as soon as he reaches the window, the witch leans out, pushes the poor prince. He falls into a rose bush and with thorns impaling his eyes. That's the. That's the darker version. Yeah, so that's another one. We haven't gone over that one yet.
Speaker 4:So that's the grim dark of G Rapunzel Was the palatable 21st version ending of the story.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 4:Was the palatable 21st version ending of the story.
Speaker 2:Let's see what was the latest version.
Speaker 3:Something about the prince climbs the tower, saves the princess, or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he saves, her.
Speaker 3:They marry and they're happily a after.
Speaker 4:I'm sure she kept her hair, something like that that's a bit of a change of the story, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 3:But, I'm just going to mention the little mermaid, because that one at least it was a complete 180 from you know, you should learn your place and not dream too high, etc, etc. And then you have the Disney version of you know, follow your dreams, everything's possible, you know.
Speaker 2:Right, that's a yeah, right, a 180.
Speaker 3:You're right, so yeah, is that helpful? I don't know which one would be more helpful to teach.
Speaker 2:I mean one's a warning and one's encouraging. So it depends on what your goal is. I guess you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but not everyone can be a princess. Marry the prince.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 4:But then do we, can we blame America for repurposing and repurposing? No, I'm asking the question. I'm not. I'm being facetious. I'm asking the question Can we blame America for repackaging these traditional dark European tales and repurposing them for the American dream, whereas instead of you, know the very classist European system, know your place, don't have dreams about your station to the land of dreams. You know you. You know come and you can become and be whatever you want to dream or you can dream. Is that? Maybe that that's?
Speaker 2:interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it could be that it appeals to that that those that kind of outlook can also be just commercially. That would reach a wider audience and more people would buy it and then make more money.
Speaker 4:So which is a very American thing.
Speaker 1:isn't it Possible to?
Speaker 3:Well, horror has a big audience. Those would be excellent horror movies. Why are they not popular? I'm sure they've been done in some form. Yeah, that is a good point.
Speaker 4:Because we obviously most of is changing a little bit now, but most of popular culture post-depression, second World War, is American. We have imported a lot of American culture and ideas into Europe. I think that's changing a little bit, but maybe between 1945 and 1990, we imported a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, right there, jose, because the pre pre-World War II America was doing its best to try to be European and then, post-world War II You're right a lot of that switched as the Americans became, as America became the superpower in the super industrialization, and so you're right about that. And so that's that may be part of it, in that the American dream was, at least on the surface, was becoming realized in the pursuit of happiness, and the growth and expansionism that they experienced back then was seen to be a positive thing that you could achieve this dream and make it in America at that point. And certainly that was also the advent in time where Walt Disney got big and started breaking out and presenting these, some of these fairy tales in his version, and it probably all ties in together there.
Speaker 1:Just because it's fun, let's talk about Hansel and Gretel really quick.
Speaker 4:That's gonna be so fucked up the original one. Come on, I don't know, but I'm assuming that the witch eats them, or something like that.
Speaker 1:Oh it gets worse and they don't cut. So the two children get lost in the woods, you know. They find the witch and they escape the house that the witch is trying to kill them anything, and later in so the friend in the French version that is believed to be the what the modern fairy tale is based on. The pair actually end up stumbling across the devil himself. He is far smarter than the witch. He captures the children as they try to escape and then builds a saw horse to execute them on. In a sick twist, the brother and sister pretend not to know how they can get on the saw horse. So the devil's wife offers to demonstrate when she's on there. The youngsters use the saw to slash her throat and escape to their freedom.
Speaker 2:Awesome, they win.
Speaker 1:They're pretty resourceful.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say that's how you teach kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take care of yourself, Do it yeah.
Speaker 4:So, and what was the? Was the was the common, socially accepted version. Now.
Speaker 1:Oh, they just escaped the gingerbread house that the witch is trying to eat them, and they live happily ever after.
Speaker 4:They're happy ever after as well.
Speaker 3:Don't they burn the witch? They still that was my version.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes they put the witch in the oven. Burn up, yeah, burn her up, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we're in the middle Kids. These days, they can't even have their revenge, I believe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we haven't done the darkest one that I've come across yet.
Speaker 4:Oh, let me get out, let me get a drink. I need this. Oh, did you?
Speaker 2:So you just see a little red right. Yeah, I'm looking at sleep and beauty. It's really disturbing. I like to Jose gets back because he wants to hear this.
Speaker 3:Where are you finding all those things? I need to know.
Speaker 1:Let me. Let me send the link in the chat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a couple places that I found some of these, but I know some of the ones Steve said were some of the ones I already had to, so I you probably found some I found yeah, there's loads.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're okay, you ready, jose? This is this one. This sleeping beauty one's pretty bad. Instead of giving sleeping beauty a chase kiss, the king comes by, carries her to her large bed and rapes her Indeed, it's only after she's given birth to twins and then begin feeding on her bosom to sleeping beauty actually awakened from her long slumber. And then it doesn't end there. The king was a married man when he assaulted Sleeping Beauty. His wife, the queen, ends up hearing about this illegitimate twins and wants them not only to kill, but also tries to devise a way of making her unfaithful husband eat the dead babies. In the end, the evil queen's plan is foiled in Bazzali, the royal couple separate and the king ends up marrying Sleeping Beauty.
Speaker 4:So, despite the fact that Yumiyan began with him raping his future wife, Wow, sorry, I do show a legit website and it's not someone fucking up with traditional fairy tales.
Speaker 2:None, yeah no. I didn't know about this one, but the other ones yeah, wow, bloody hell. I'm not sure what the moral was there.
Speaker 4:Let's unpick, that Go, let's unpick that Well.
Speaker 3:it's not that different from all the well zoos and era how she would always go about punishing the way money would have affairs with. And now it's that's strong dynamic.
Speaker 4:Maybe if the queen had given the king what the king wanted, he wouldn't have had to go and do the thing on Snow White.
Speaker 3:So the moral is men always get what they want, one way or the other.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know who the audience of this podcast is, so I'm trying to reframe what I want to say.
Speaker 3:Go for it.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, I don't know, Maybe there's certain things you have to be willing to do to keep their marriage and their relationship ticking along nicely. Isn't it Compromise? It's all about compromise, isn't it? I buy you flowers on Valentine's Day. You.
Speaker 1:Be nice to me, yes.
Speaker 4:Yes, that's compromise, isn't it?
Speaker 1:And let me go for a run. Right In your case, was there.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, yes yes.
Speaker 2:Now. But you, susanna's right, there is a lot of mythology that is actually disturbingly similar to that as far as gods and mortals go. So that's that's very interesting.
Speaker 1:Did you read the original Red Riding Hood?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Why are you?
Speaker 4:smiling Jared, it's just funny, it's just funny. Go on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the warning for pretty young woman to not listen to strangers that the Red Riding Hood.
Speaker 1:So in most versions of the tale, the wolf eats the grandmother whole. He then dresses her in a bonnet and waits in her bed. Little Red Riding Hood is tricked into believing the wolf is her elderly relative and joins him in bed where she is also eaten. Most famously in the widely read version written by Charles Peralta, published in 19, or 1697. There is no happy ending. Nobody comes to rescue her and cut her from the wolf's stomach. More disturbingly, in Peralta's version the girl strips naked before getting into bed. A clear indication of the fairy tale was originally a morality tale warning girls of wildly seducers. When the brothers grim-pen their version more than a century later, sexual overtones were removed and versions where the wolf serves Little Red pieces of her own mother, her own grandmother, to eat were completely ignored. Instead, they gave the tale a happy ending, with the brave and handsome huntsman saving the day by killing the wolf and cutting both the grandmother and her granddaughter free from his stomach 1697 is the original Peralta one.
Speaker 4:Wow, these things are a lot older than I thought they were. Well, after the true version of Snow White, I mean, you know Jesus, but surely these things? I suppose the morality of the tale was different, so were they intended to be read for two children?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Although I suppose that around that time, as soon as a woman was fertile, they got given away marriage, isn't it? So girls used to be married off very, very young.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, like we said earlier, I think that it was definitely warnings. There were definitely warnings. They were saying don't do this, don't go outside the village, don't go wandering out in the woods. They were pretty grim warnings for children not to do certain things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you have to keep kids scared because it was the survival thing. You have to keep them from wandering too far away to be eaten by a wolf or get lost and not be found again because you couldn't exactly just call someone to come. And you know I'm going to add a pin. Come and pick me up. It was you know, if you wander too far, then you're probably dead.
Speaker 1:And interestingly enough, a little red writing hood. There are some versions that hint towards bestiality, in which red writing hood uses her body to save herself from death, thus consummating her love with the wolf on the very sheets upon which her grandmother was killed See that's what I wonder if some of these were used as some some sick like that's a little far.
Speaker 4:No, but I suppose maybe to bypass church morality that was so imperative at the time. Well, have we misinterpreted history? And this where, properly you know, horrifying, grim, dark stories that got minstrels later at some point as fairy tales that were not actually meant to be tells for kids?
Speaker 3:It wasn't that long ago, those versions at least 1697.
Speaker 4:Fucking long ago.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm sure there were tons of different versions floating around. You know, like like we were saying, that these things have been around for thousands of years and they've been changed over the years and they've been retold and they were originally oral traditional stories. But you know the amount of versions that there are probably just off the charts, numerous, I think. Those that website that we've been quoting is specifically like some of the worst versions that there are.
Speaker 1:You know, I hope.
Speaker 2:And so, of course, there's also much of it.
Speaker 3:You're mostly going to blame Disney for this Making a pretty version of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the pretty versions, yeah, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure that they made the original version of Pinocchio that parents will be lining up with their kids to watch that, so I guess they had to make it something fun. So it's interesting because parents tell their had been telling their kids these stories for hundreds of years. But when it's in a, in a movie, why did they change it? When it's a movie, versus something they tell their kids before bed.
Speaker 2:Well for the foot. You know, in the in the case of Disney, you had to make a product, you had to make something sellable. Movies weren't allowed to show anything bad back then.
Speaker 2:They had a strict code about what could be on the screen, and you know. So you're getting into animation and you have a certain is only certain things you can do, and and your animation, of course, was a fledgling thing and was considered more marketable towards younger audiences. And then you know serious quote movies. You know but and so you know that's that makes perfect sense that they would be lighter in nature than than some of your more you know more grim type fairy tales.
Speaker 1:It's a good part and it's considered vulgar or violent. I mean, even in the fifties, like Elvis shaking his hips was like oh my God it's. You know clutching pearls, you know it's so. Yeah, it's a good point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's one thing to tell the kids that the wolf ate the grandmother, or they cut up the belly to take it out. Then actually see it. Go to the cinema. Oh well, let's see the wolf eating. Just yeah, the whole different experience.
Speaker 4:I was just wondering if it's the time to go full circle and stop producing these movies, as the stories were originally conceived.
Speaker 2:I think some have tried. I wouldn't. Wouldn't surprise me if you found some. You know horror type stories out there that you know that were not not for kids, rated R, so to speak. I mean the action film was a Snow White, nonsman or something like that. You know that's, that's a stylized action type movie, that that was a version of Snow White you know, and I'm sure there's all kinds of other versions out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's the horror version. It's brilliant, but it's still not as bad as the original.
Speaker 2:Right, but you know, something created for some under different audience.
Speaker 1:I think people would would widely reject these types of stories if it was had anything to do with like these classics, even like, look at, like comic book characters that, like in certain movies, batman kills people and people just lost it. Because Batman doesn't kill people, it's a fictional character, like calm down. So I think you, you, if you would, all these people who grew up with these stories, if they read about Pinocchio being hanged from a tree, left for dead, I think, or have his feet burned off, I think I don't know that they would enjoy it too much. After knowing a certain version for this line, I don't know that they did enjoy it too much.
Speaker 4:But whatever you come up with some sort of advertising line. Like you know Pinocchio, if you've never seen him before.
Speaker 1:So I had the button accident. Yeah, I was going to mute myself and hit the wrong button. Sorry, that was my mistake, but we're on again, so go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, like I said, I was wondering whether, if you came up with some like a new set of movies like the original fairy tales, yeah, but you can't, I can't really do, because the problem is that there's even the ones that were written down first in 1697 and 1700s are still not original. They're just their versions of passed down oral traditional fairy tales. So what's what's original? You know, yeah, so that that's always going to pop up and everybody's these like this. There is no original really, there's every. There's different versions that different people make.
Speaker 4:No, and I suppose the Walt Disney movies are so ingrained in the common psyche that even the real life remakes are not free of controversy, aren't they? Because they've changed certain things in some of them.
Speaker 2:Walt Disney was definitely the most successful versions of some of these fairy tales, but I don't think there's any real way to determine what's original. That's a beauty of fairy stories.
Speaker 3:I've been here trying to think of any modern fairy tales that are not adaptations, because the world now changed enough, no, to allow for that, peter Pan.
Speaker 4:I think would be the most recent one.
Speaker 3:It's not that modern, but yeah, it's.
Speaker 4:No but, we're not going to call Harry Potter a fairy tale, are we?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 4:Well, is that the Peter Pan or the very hungry Caterpillar?
Speaker 3:That's the good example. When was that first published?
Speaker 4:Well, the very hungry Caterpillar. I think it's late 70s which at one point I could tell my son without looking at the book.
Speaker 2:Nice? I don't know, it depends on what. Do you consider a fairy tale that would be created recently? What's Winnie the Pooh? Is that a fairy tale?
Speaker 4:Alice in Wonderland.
Speaker 2:Alice in Wonderland. Interesting enough, in the 19th century there's a lot of stories with fairies in them, where people go to fairy land. It's like portal fantasies, I guess. Are they considered fairy tales in the classic sense that we know fairy?
Speaker 3:tales, I think, to be a fairy tale, you have to be able to tell it. It has to be short.
Speaker 2:At what point did a lot of these fairy tales then transform into stories about fairies in a different land? It's interesting. I guess it's the same question we had about the difference between mythology and fairy tales.
Speaker 4:I suppose, possibly after the Industrial Revolution, children's tales are a luxury good, so to speak. You would only buy your kid children's books if there are enough kids that can actually read and you've got enough disposable income. So I'm assuming for the vast majority of people that were struggling to make ends meet on a pre-Industrial Revolution time, these fairy tales were what Jared was alluding to, before these oral traditions, with a deep warning, moralizing side to them. The second people have a bit more money and the second you have a bit more money for fun, not just to survive. Then a new market opens up, which is children's books, and maybe that's why you get things like Alice in Wonderland and these portal fairy tales that lack that moralizing intent in them.
Speaker 2:Right and more geared towards entertainment and educational projects.
Speaker 4:And as education became compulsory by law rather than just the remit of the upper classes, who were the only ones that could afford an education.
Speaker 2:That's a good point.
Speaker 1:So I guess it could be in a way that there are form of control. Is entertainment in general a form of control? It's a big distraction.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:It can be used as such.
Speaker 4:I get that. I'm not entirely sure. I think you need to elaborate a lot more on that, Steve.
Speaker 1:I think entertainment is a way to distract us from what's really happening in the world. Whether it's whatever the case may be, there's always some distraction to distract us from really seeing what's going on, whether it's good or it's bad, or whether it's someone doesn't think or some entity doesn't think. We can handle it or we're capable of understanding what's really happening, or just kind of a sleight of hand thing. But don't look over here and see what we're doing. Just watch this game and don't worry about what else is going on in the world. Watch this movie as it escapes and don't worry about what's going on over here. It's not a part. Just stay busy with your entertainment stuff.
Speaker 4:I would buy that argument more on a pre-television time Sorry, on a post-television time, not on a pre-television time where the flow of news was a lot slower and therefore getting a sense of what was actually going on in the world, which is a little bit more complicated.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that, Jose. I think that was the original purpose of the bread and circus in the Roman Empire was to distract the populace from their troubles?
Speaker 4:Yeah, are you agree?
Speaker 3:Keep them fed, keep them entertained. That's always been. Now we're just a bit more harder to entertain.
Speaker 1:Maybe not, because back then people died constantly.
Speaker 4:But that bread and circus is more necessary on a society where you are tyrant, that is living on the edge of a social revolution, and I don't know whether then you're going to say that in the current political climate, when you're up for re-election, maybe it's even more necessary to keep the people fed and entertained.
Speaker 2:Super Bowl is more necessary than ever.
Speaker 1:Oh God.
Speaker 4:I don't know. I could talk myself out of my own argument.
Speaker 2:You could go around in circles with that. I could definitely see that happening.
Speaker 4:Thank you, but then I suppose it's hard. Then, yeah, then it's harder these days, isn't it? We are all more capable of figuring out what's going on, are we?
Speaker 3:I mean, you would think we have all the information is out there, but most people don't seem to be very good at it. They either believe anything they need or just don't even go look for it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, is it the right information? There's a whole, there's a lot to go in there.
Speaker 4:The seaving process is just too time consuming.
Speaker 2:It's not even deceiving, not even getting wrong information, but just finding the information you actually need or want is hard.
Speaker 3:You have to go and check and check. How many times is this real? At least with fairy tales, we knew where it was. They were just happy to see.
Speaker 4:But that's what I was going to say. So on a post-television time, I can see how the Britain Circus their entertainment. Forget about what we're doing here. Some Super Bowl, here's the next Big Brother show, whatever. I can see how that works because there is a means of mass distribution. But when Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland, I'm not entirely sure he had that kind of secret agenda there. These things were not produced from mega corporations that are propping up whatever faking powers are upplayed, but I think there's a big difference between authorial intent and commercial intent.
Speaker 4:Every author wants to have commercial success.
Speaker 2:They want to financially and recognition and what have you. But then when you get into what that property can be used for in a Britain Circus type of manner, that's different.
Speaker 3:That's why so many novels are. Sometimes they only become famous decades after publication. When then they become relevant, it wasn't the author's intention to be relevant. Or maybe it was, but for different reasons. I'm just selling a few books.
Speaker 2:For different reasons. Yeah, you can take Tolkien, you know.
Speaker 3:With the commercial intent to write about something, especially if it's fiction. If it's not fiction, that's something else, but if it's fiction, you can tell, and they usually backfires Because things change so fast.
Speaker 2:But with Tolkien, he had tons of reasons for writing the Lord of the Rings His own personal reasons, and I don't think that one of his intents was to be a huge counterculture success of the late 50s and 60s. That was the furthest thing from his mind, and so that's the difference.
Speaker 1:I also think entertainment can be a way to push certain ideologies, that to change the course of kind of change societal norms and to make things that weren't acceptable 10 years ago acceptable today, or expected or encouraged. I'm not talking about anything specific, just saying it's a way I don't think it's always been that in some form a way to change perceptions and right or wrong, I think it's a way of not only a distraction but also a way to change the way people think, in the way that what we deem acceptable and not acceptable Anything from fashion trends to haircut ideologies.
Speaker 3:Yeah, life imitates art. If you want to influence life, that's the way to do it.
Speaker 1:How says contemplating deeply?
Speaker 4:The thing is, I'm too stupid Because I totally understand what you're saying and obviously our society is ever changing and evolving and those changes must come from somewhere. They must originate somewhere and then they get propagated through time, sometimes quicker, sometimes slower, and you know changes. It's like a wave, you know, until it ripples out. I'm just too stupid to put myself in the situation of someone who wants to change the world and therefore, in order to do that, I'm going to write this book, or I'm going to paint this picture, or I'm going to make this movie and, you know, create a seismic change in society that's going to be felt decades from now.
Speaker 2:And who can you name? That would actually accomplish that?
Speaker 4:So obviously no, I think obviously it's happened. So in the arts, obviously Picasso, you know, revolutionize pictorial art. But do I think that he set out to do that? That the way he invented or developed the cubism was purposefully to, you know, radically alter the landscape? Was it just his own expression that then echoed with other people?
Speaker 2:I would say I would expect it was his own expression and then and then it snowballed into what it became. That's my suspicion.
Speaker 4:In the same way, like you were alluding to before, I don't think Tolkien set out to become a cultural icon. I think he has something to say about his experiences in World War One. He did say, admittedly, that he wanted to provide Britain with a mythology that he felt it lacked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but he admitted that. He admitted that he didn't set out to become the icon of epic fantasy in the future and he and he also in that mythology he was trying to create. He was doing it for his him and his scholarly pals. You know, that's, that's who he was doing it for. He admitted that he did not see the Lord of the Rings blowing up the way that it did in the 60s and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:I suppose culturally, I suppose the only aspect of the art where I can see change as being purposeful is in music, where you actually, at a different point in time, you've had new styles of music developed purposely to alter the landscape. Whether it be blues and jazz that originated in the South, in the United States, or the heavy metal that was born in Britain in the late 60s, they were purposely trying to change the musical landscape, or like punk rock in the 70s. But in literature I don't know that much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you wonder. But you wonder how many people you say they tried to change the music industry, but how many people also tried and failed? You know that we never hear about and you know we only hear about the successes. So you don't know how much history went into that, how much, how much. How many people tried to be black Sabbath before black Sabbath was black Sabbath, you know.
Speaker 4:It's an interesting point. Yeah, I suspect not very many. That's just an intuition.
Speaker 3:Kind of going back to fairy tales. I'm just wondering would you consider like the 1001 nights as fairy tale?
Speaker 2:That was actually mentioned in one of the websites that I was perusing. Because they are form of fairy tales.
Speaker 3:I think they were not written for children, so where do they? Stand. If fairy tales are fairy tales just for children or mostly for children, where are you going to draw the line there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting Because the the the origins of fairy tales were basically, they're a genre of folklore. You know that feature stories with magical and fantastical elements, and so, yeah, the fairy tales, I guess in a way. But I guess the question is, do fairy tales have to be geared towards teaching children a lesson, or can they just be? That's a good question.
Speaker 4:So, but you could say the same about fables. You know, as subs, fables, yeah, also have a huge moral component. Yeah, no, they don't have fairies. They don't necessarily aim just at children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but as a fables do have, they do usually have some sort of Like a mystical element toward them and, on some level, even if it's just, you know, subtle.
Speaker 4:They go. I don't know if he's that subtle, I think they go very clear morality.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but it's not so much of a warning like in a fairy tale. I think a fairy tale is a warning of you know what could happen if you behave in a certain way, whereas a fable is more like this is how you should behave Rather than rather than how you shouldn't behave.
Speaker 2:That's quite a distinction.
Speaker 4:But would you put them in the same category? Is it kind of the same thing?
Speaker 3:According to Google Fables, are stories that are passed down with a good, with a good lesson to be learned, but about animals, plants or forces of nature that are human, like fairy tales, are stories that are specifically for kids, involve magical characters, have good and evil characters and generally start with once upon a time. I just had to share this, so I guess that that simplifies things. So just start the story with once upon a time and write it for kids, and that's very yeah.
Speaker 4:But then a certain author of sleepstream fantasy that I know could start a fable with a sentence once upon a time and just fuck it all up for everyone.
Speaker 3:That didn't stop, but I have to.
Speaker 1:What's up on a time.
Speaker 4:I just put them all together. I would just put them all together in the same sort of moralizing this intent.
Speaker 3:Moral teaching. Okay, so they are more and I think we agreed on the, on the few things that they all. They always have to have some Moral involved, some I have to try to teach something, be fairly short, so not a novel, and that they have to be geared for kids.
Speaker 4:And they have changed a lot over time, although.
Speaker 1:Sorry, Steve, I think at the beginning when we first got on, I think it was mentioned the article in the psychology article I was reading that the stories have remained the same, but they really haven't. They've changed a lot and continue to change.
Speaker 4:And there's actually a lot of them. I went into the project Gutenberg website to download them on my Kindle and I didn't when I realized how many there are, because you know, we'll know the classics, hansel and Gretel, little writing, whatever, but the green fairy tales. There's actually like two or three volumes of them. There's loads and loads of them that actually are nowhere near as popular as the ones we mentioned, and at the end of this I didn't want another long book there on the TV out. So there's plenty of more grim, dark to unpick that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so, yeah, so are we on agreement to that? We should go back to the darker fairy tales for kids and not the lighter? Anyone can be a princess.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, Steve. How old is your youngest?
Speaker 1:15.
Speaker 4:Okay, then then Because. I was going to say how about you read to your child the original tales and tell me how it goes?
Speaker 1:Oh, they'll stay up. Oh, if you read it to look, they'll probably lose sleep. But I think that's just because of what they're, what they're used to. I mean, it's just a that's we don't subject them to the type of stories that these were originally.
Speaker 4:But then we need to find someone with young kids, because then the younger they are, the less exposed they are to this sanitized society. We should find a willing lab rat to read the original fairy tales to their kid. If someone is listening at home and they've got like a three year old, could you please let us know?
Speaker 1:Who wants to traumatize the kids?
Speaker 2:You can peel them away from the screen and say, no, you don't want that Pinocchio here.
Speaker 4:And like and luckily we couldn't be found for lawsuits for moral and psychological.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4:But you're going to miss a brilliant idea. That's a good idea.
Speaker 1:I feel bad for the kid, though They'll probably grow up and find each of us and get paid back, because they'll learn it from the stories.
Speaker 4:No, but I think if, if Holy Tinsley was here, she'd probably say something like oh I wish I had been read those stories, or something like that.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Well, she got something that will ask her. No, it's fine, it was a good. It was a good topic, jared. It was interesting, a lot of fun talking about all these crazy fairy tales. I didn't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who knew? Who knew a simple question would lead to all this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, usually does, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's always the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but so cool. So in the meantime, until next time, jared, where can people find you?
Speaker 2:You can find me at the fantasy thinker on YouTube and you can check out my occasional post on page to in dot com.
Speaker 1:And Jose.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I can be found at the horses amazing worlds YouTube channel and also on in the page to inform and Susanna.
Speaker 3:You can find me on YouTube at them of the weird place to inform and access from the dendron, and you can find my books really much everywhere. Timelessness. First book is weird gods, and there's a new one coming up, probably a next month, available for preordered. Check it out.
Speaker 1:Yes, go get your preorder while you can, so you can find all of us on the page to inform. If you want to, if you want to volunteer to traumatize your kids, contact us there and we'll we'll set it all up. So, in the meantime, we'll talk to everyone soon. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 4:Bye, bye.