Looking at the Grimms

Phew, I need a break from my paper. Blog post! I haven't posted much lately, but I have been doing lots of research. As I was writing today, I realized that I needed to do some more research on the Brothers Grimm to find out if their writing was meant to be subversive in any way. What I found was actually quite fascinating.

The Grimms, being a part of the Romantic movement, included a lot about nature in their writing. It was meant to be a reflection of a purely German heritage, to take things back to their own roots. Interestingly enough, though, quite a few of the stories in their collection of fairy tales, such as "Little Red Riding Hood" can be found in earlier collections, like in Charles Perrault's collection of French fairy tales. I didn't find much about the Grimms intending to subvert children (in fact, the Grimms' fairy tales, in one of their later editions, even had a sort of parental advisory in the introduction because of how violent some of the stories were). However, I did find that during the rule of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, they instituted the Grimms' fairy tales in every school. These tales were good for children because "they increase German self-consciousness and stimulate the fighting spirit, the will of victory, which, luckily, is reborn with every German youth and every German girl again and again."

This quote was taken from the article, "Grimm's 'Household Tales' and Its Place in the Household: The Social Relevance of a Controversial Classic" by Linda Degh.

I had no idea about this before, but I'll definitely be using that in my paper. I'm certain that the Grimms had no idea that their fairy tales would be used for propaganda. Their aims were much more literary than that. And the propaganda did have a bad effect after World War II because they wanted to separate themselves from that mentality. Still, that passed and the Grimms' fairy tales are quite prevalent in our society.

On a different, but slightly related subject, I have been watching ABC's Once Upon a Time. I'm enjoying it, seeing how they play with the various characters. Still, I kind of wish that Disney wasn't in charge of it though. Sometimes the show can be a bit cheesy, but it's still interesting to see what they do to the fairy tales. I wish that they would branch out a little more too. Granted, I've only just finished the first season (playing catch-up here) but they could branch out to some lesser-known fairy tales, like "Bluebeard". That's an interesting one if you haven't read it. Even something like "Briar Rose", something similar to what we've already encountered, but new. By the way, most of these fairy tales that Disney has made into movies and that are in Once Upon a Time come from the Grimm's collection.

Also, I had a super cool idea the other day, though I'll bet that someone has already done something like this. What if someone rewrote a bunch of the fairy tales as science fiction? It would probably mean taking out the magic and replacing it with technology, and obviously the settings would need to change somewhat. Wouldn't it be kind of cool to see though?