It Looks Grim Brother...

Have you ever actually read a fairy tale by the Brother’s Grimm? I’m sorry but those things are fucked up. My friend Sophie has a copy of the complete works from those two nutcases so we started leafing through it. For example, here is a general outline of a story called, "The Little Red Hen."

Ok, so a Hen and a Rooster are looking for food. They decide that they will share anything they find. But then the Hen finds a big juicy piece of grain and decides she will have it for herself (typical…). So, I thought to myself, we’re building up to a morality story about selfishness. Not quite. The Hen tries to eat the grain herself and it becomes lodged in her throat and she starts to choke. She calls out to the Rooster to get her some water or else she will die. She says that if the Rooster loves her, he will find her water. I was thinking that the Rooster might have said, "Serves you right, you selfish bitch," but no, he runs off for help. He gets to the stream and explains the situation. The stream is sympathetic but will only give him some water if the Rooster brings some red silk (Red silk? Why does a stream need that?) So the Rooster runs off to the princess to ask for some silk, who says she will give it to him if he retrieves something or other from the willow tree, I don’t even remember what it was. So the rooster finally gets something from the willow tree, gives it to the princess, gets some silk, gives it to the stream and gets some water. Finally. Then he runs back to the Hen, and what do you know, after all that runaround, she’s dead. So the Rooster cries. Then he loads her body on a cart, harnesses up a bunch of mice to pull it (wouldn’t have been my choice of beast, but whatever). A bunch of animals ask the Rooster if they can ride along on his cart, including the sly fox and the clever wolf. Ah, I thought, now the Rooster is going to get snuffed, but not so. He just tells the animals to sit at the back so the weight balances out and the mice can still pull them. What? Seriously, soon enough he’s picking up lions and tigers and everything. These were some kind of Super Steroid Rats of Nimh type mice I guess. Then they get to a stream and realize they have to cross. A branch offers to lie down and let them cross over him. But as they make the attempt the branch washes away and the mice are swept under and drown. End of super mice. Then a grain offers to lie down so they can cross over him. I didn’t think this was a good idea since this whole thing was caused by a grain in the first place. So they try to cross the grain but it swells with water or some such nonsense and a bunch more animals drown. Then a rock feels pity for them and lies down in the river, which runs contrary to what I would expect since I always heard that a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries. So they cross the rock and everyone else falls off and drowns except the rooster who makes it to the other side with the body of the hen. He has reached his destination, but he is so sad that his heart breaks and he dies. And the last sentence of the story is literally: And everyone was dead.

What the hell is that? I don’t really care about old fairy tales being dark and grim, that’s what kind of makes them cool. But they should at least make some semblance of sense. And really, why does everyone have to die? We read another one that ended, "And then the princess’s heart was so filled with happiness and joy that she died." I mean seriously, does that make any sense at all? Someone is finally happy and because of that she also dies?

Violence on television, video games, Marilyn Manson, you can say what you want about modern influences, but we’ve been messing with our kids for a long, long time.