Saturday, 10 January 2009

Snow White and the Seven Vertically Challenged People

Is this a case of political correctness gone mad or just parents wrapping their children in cotton wool?




Recently I read an article online about politically correct parents ditching traditional fairy tales. I'll post a link to the article at the end but I'll basically summarise it here.

In the UK a bunch of parents were surveyed (3,000 of them) and the survey revealed that one in four parents believe that fairy tales are either too politically incorrect or too dark to read to children. One in ten parents even said Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs should be re-titled,  because 'the dwarf reference is not PC'.

And 17% of the parents were worried that fairytales would give their children nightmares.

LOST CLASSICS
These are the 10 most neglected fairytalesSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Hansel and Gretel
Cinderella
Little Red Riding Hood
The Gingerbread Man
Jack and the Beanstalk
Sleeping Beauty
Beauty and the Beast
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Emperor' s New Clothes


I don't know about you but I loved fairytales/fables as a child and both of my children enjoyed them as well. In fact fairytales are a great way to teach young children morals, how many fairytales can you think of where the bad guy triumphs in the end? As for nightmares....well I'm sure five minutes watching the evening news on television would give a child more night terrors than a story!

Are we raising a generation of namby pamby's who have to be sheltered from anything bad or scary? Real Life is scary....Get over it!

My favourites were not the stories that Disney chose to make blockbuster movies out of. I was a big fan of Rumplestiltskin and Snow White/Rose Red. I also loved The Porridge Pot and one I think was called The Tinder Box.

So did you have a favourite or two? Please share....


I decided if you can't beat them, join them. Had a go writing a politically correct story:
The Politically Correct Adventures of Little Red Riding Hood

You can view the article in full here : http://tinyurl.com/8m7bdj


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9 comments:

  1. Iri Ani10 January 2009 at 02:35

    Only thing that really bugs me about fairy tales is the way young women keep having to be rescued by dicky young princes. Its sends the wrong messages, just as bad as buying them pink ironing boards. I would like to see the princess doing the rescuing for once or at least being a bit less of a milksop.

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  2. Angie10 January 2009 at 02:41

    Actually i meant to mention that whole knight in shining armour/princess mentality thing. Is the whole Prince Charming & fancy wedding a product of fairytales or a product of fairytale glamorisation by the likes of Disney?
    Surely this is a better reason to boycoutt fairytales than the reasons given in that survey?

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  3. Iri Ani10 January 2009 at 02:45

    Well I think so. They never gave me nightmares - mind you the fairy tales I read were from Grimms Fairy Tales in the main with only the occasional animated epic from Disney.

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  4. Iri Ani10 January 2009 at 02:50

    Incidentally I found a sequel to Goldilocks where Baby Bear has followed Goldilocks to her house. So the 3 bears go there and eat all her muesli and weet bix etc, jump on all her chairs like they were trampolines and have pillow fights in her bedroom. In the middle of it all Goldilocks turns up and says "what are you doing!" "Doing to you what you did to us" they say. "But this isn't my house", says Goldilocks. "I only came in here to have a snack, a rest and a liedown like I always do!"

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  5. Angie10 January 2009 at 02:58

    lmao...love it!

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  6. jessica mcguire10 January 2009 at 12:02

    i loved the Grimms Fairy tales and Red Rose. All of the parents that are raising the issues were probably the "namby pambys" that had nightmares from them, lol.Fairytales are just that, and if a parent doesn't like em, then don't read them/ to your kids. snow white and the 7 vertically challenged people, what the F is that

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  7. Angie10 January 2009 at 15:18

    Dwarf isn't even a derogatory term in the first place, midget is considered offensive by some.

    I found this article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/4349726.stm about a pantomime script where they called them gnomes instead of dwarfs.

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  8. Lee T10 January 2009 at 20:22

    Fairytales were and still are crap lol

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  9. jessica mcguire11 January 2009 at 06:37

    i also think that midget is offensive.

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