Revelation

To say that 2012 hasn't been eye-opening, enlightening and a huge year for me at the start of its 4th month would be an understatement.

Alas, we don't choose (wholly) which years impact our lives the most, who comes into our lives and who leaves and I'd be lying if I said as wonderful as it's been there have been some very hard realities about life and myself I've had to face.

The bright side? It gave me a blog topic. ;)

This weekend I've been having a Dawson's Creek marathon. A bit ago I had a Ringer marathon. In December, I watched all the season's of Gilmore Girls.

When life gets hard for me, I turn to television, and more importantly television I watched when I was young, that meant something to me then.

I always wanted to be like Rory, have her mother and her boyfriends, and her life. She knew herself and she always held onto that. But she still allowed herself to change and grow and try new things.

Dawson's Creek will always bring me back to grade 4 and my best friends and I discussing it and using it in projects. And my secret hope that someday I'd be Joey and my best friend would realize he loved me.

I don't typically watch oodles and oodles of television and I love reading. I was the kid who walked home reading a book-walked into many a pole that way- I still carry a book with me when I leave my house. But when things get rough now, I don't read.

I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but slowly I've come to realize that the real reason I do it-and I think the world does it-is because television, movies, they make you feel different than reading. Reading touches people deeper, forces them to feel their own emotions because there's no laugh track, no visible person crying in pain, the subtexts and subtleties of books is raw emotion, and as humans we can't deal with that. We run away to fantasy worlds on screens where we can laugh and just chalk it up to "television."

Even in the most fantastical books there's always some truth, the revenge, the lust, the love, the fear, is real, even if the creatures can't be.

Or perhaps, I'm just philosophizing and books/television/movies all provide the same escape.


“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” 
                                                                           -Charles William Eliot

Little Red Riding Hood

I'm sure you've noticed that I have a love of Fairytales and often refer to them for various advice and reference. This post is something I would love to take further and by further, I think this would be a wonderful dissertation for when I get to Grad school. That being said, this won't be using academic sources and lots of my own thoughts.

I have been watching the TV show Once Upon a Time and besides it being fantastic and entertaining, I love watching to see how the writers write and rewrite the Fairy Tales they are using. This is the basis of my fascination with Fairytales and why I've been missing my copy of Grimms since I got to Vancouver.

This past Sunday the focus was on "Ruby" in our world or "Red" in Fairytale world. In this version of the tale Red is in love with Peter ("Peter and the Wolf") but Granny is a hardass and won't let them be together, especially during "The Wolf's Time" and is constantly yelling at Red to wear her hood, which as most teenagers do, she rebels against.

So her and Snow White track the wolf during the day so they can kill it while it sleeps and Red will be able to run away with Peter only to discover that the tracks lead to her window! The very window Peter stood under the night before their was a massacre by the wolf.

Red goes to tell Peter that he's the wolf (werewolf) and ties him up with chains and then decides to stay with him all night....not wearing her hood because Snow is wearing it to cover for her.

Granny figures it out and freaks out. Snow doesn't understand until Granny explains that Red is the wolf! The Red Cloak has been enchanted to keep her from turning on the full-moon so they rush to find Red and Peter....but alas, Red has already devoured Peter.

Quite a change from the original right? I'd recount it but most should know the basics and if not click to read a few versions.

So this is what I want to talk about how the story changes due to cultural influences. How the stories evolve and what the folk tales of cultures reflect about that culture.

My quick analysis without any research attached beyond my head knowledge (which we all know is vast and a bit intense) is focused on the sexual aspects of the tale rather than any other focus. Red is known to attract men more than any other colour, yet in the original story the young girl is learning to fear "the wolf" and the sexual advances of the wolf, only to be rescued by another male, warning girls essentially (keep in mind this is a blog so I'm not elaborating) of sex and reminding them of their role in life.

Now in today's televised version the female is told to wear the red hood to keep the wolf away but its when she takes it off that she becomes the wolf...hmm...perhaps commentary on the ever changing sexuality of females and warning men to be careful? It is when she takes the red (known to attract men because they see it as making the wearer more sexually available) cape off that she can pursue and kill those who've hurt her. OR it's a commentary on how females are now taking sex into their own hands and essentially flipping the bird to the old tale. Rewriting it so men are to be warned off of casual and elicit affairs.

They could end up devoured by the wolf.

A gentleman is simply a patient wolf.
                                              -Lana Turner