Chloe Chen, Period 6, 9/22/2023

 Chloe Chen

Period 6

09/22/2023

Modern Mythology 2024

As an introduction to fairytales and an attempt to perceive ourselves as folklorists, we read an article titled “Why Grown-Ups still need Fairy-tales”. I always thought fairytales were for children because they were light-hearted and always managed to keep them quiet for a long period of time. Having three younger siblings, listening to fairy tales was a night routine for our family. Despite growing up in an Asian family, I have not failed to miss any Disney Classic fairytale in the form of Chinese picture books. But as I grew up, the amount of fairytales I continued to read has drastically declined because they were unrealistic. Even if they were different stories or different characters, the plots were always similar to the Disney stories. To think these stories had such gory and complex origins, I believe that my childhood dreams have been crushed after this class. It’s weird to think that fairytales were made for adults that detailed brutality, violence, and other taboos because it has been engraved into our brain as “children’s stories”. 

This article doesn’t just describe the distinctive traits of classic fairytales but also how people manipulate reality into stories. The article describes the life of Princess of Wales which was characterized as a “real life fairy-tale story,” with well-known characters like an evil stepmother, witches, and princes. While reading this, I thought of how delusional people had to be to bend the lives of real people to the stories they liked. However, upon continuation into the article, a new perspective was introduced to me. Perhaps people were just trying to find an escape from reality and find hope in the real world. Elements from real-life like abuse, lack of access to money, and struggles of the social class are depicted in these fairytales for adults. I reflected on my judgments and realized that I fantasize about the possibilities of life all the time. Like most people I’d wish that I had magic powers that would let me escape reality for a while. 

Learning about the disneyfication of these fairytales, I also learned how artists interpret and critiqued them. Through feminist lenses, female artists have created works that depicted injustice and societal problems revolving traditional gender roles. I never would have thought to observe fairytales and how they could have different meanings because they seemed to be simple concepts. When reading the annotations I made on the Cinderella stories, I realized that all my comments criticized male authors on the way they described female characters. Without realizing it, I was reading them through the feminist perspective. 

I thought that reading Fairy Tales would be light work for me because who doesn’t know the stories of Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. I didn’t think I could possibly learn anything else about these stories but the first few days of Mythology class has proven me wrong. I learned about critical perspectives, archetypes, and the different axes of transformations. But the biggest takeaway was that no matter the language, culture, or time period, fairytales are always told by the people and that interpretations of them are fluid.

Sources:

Johnson Professor of Classics, Marguerite. “Friday Essay: Why Grown-Ups Still Need Fairy Tales.” Edited by Beth Daley, The Conversation, 29 Aug. 2023, theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-grown-ups-still-need-fairy-tales-87078#:~:text=They%20convey%20messages%20of%20overcoming,and%20the%20benefits%20of%20courage.&text=Fairy%20tales%20are%20also%20extremely,punishments%20are%20ruthless%20and%20complete.