G - Grimm Times

Remember all those fairy tales? Sleeping Beauty tried to do work, got poisoned, and took a nap? Snow White took the apple without telling the dwarves like a selfish bitch, got poisoned, and took a nap? Rapunzel got forcibly adopted by an awesome evil witch, never got a haircut, and probably took a nap at some point?

See? You remember. That’s why, in spite of how the trends might seem to be going, fairy tale retellings are never going to go out of style. They haven’t yet. Look at all those Disney movies: Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Alice in Wonderland. Sure, maybe they’re not all technically fairy tales, but they’re all very much a positive turn-around from the source material. Trust me.

Now, you would think that we’d all be heading back around to the source, which is dark enough as it is. But no: we’re still doing retellings. Snow White and the Huntsman, Jack the Giant Slayer, even back a little ways to Ever After.

Why do they stick around? Because we think they’re familiar. And, in many ways, you still do. But, when they change something, it’s more powerful. That’s why they work. We go in, expecting that everything’s going to be perfectly fine. That’s how we were raised. Or maybe you go in expecting the Grimm versions. Fine. But then that doesn’t happen. You sympathize with the evil queen, the helpless princes…isn’t so helpless, or Cinderella doesn’t need a man to keep her safe. Whatever the change, it jars us. And we, as humans, like things that jar us, that keep us on our toes…well, at least in our entertainment.

Of course, I’ve been known to be wrong before. It happens once every couple…hours. What do you think? Are fairy tale retellings here to stay?

Voss