Fairytale Violence

What exactly is the deal with fairytales?

What happens when Jack and Jill go up the hill to fetch a pail of water? Jack falls down and smashes his head open on the concrete. Hurrah, children! Now you have learned to never to walk down hills with pails of water.

What's next? Super stalker wolves gobbling up innocent, sick grandmothers who live in the woods.

You can't forget the evil stepsisters who cut off a heel and a toe to fit into a shoe. They also get both their eyes pecked out by cute little sparrows during Cinderella's wedding. Whoopee.

If you're a mermaid with red hair, always remember to poison yourself and turn into seafoam when you can't be with your Prince Charming.

And of course, never trust strangers who live in a house completely made of candy, because they're just going to fatten you up and then shove you into a burning furnace to make meat pie out of you. Dang, don't you just love the stories we grew up on?

These stories are all pretty violent, no? The list of violent children's stories goes on. But hey, they are pretty entertaining. What would children be like if Disney had not decided to completely alter and romanticize Grimm stories? We all turned out fine, really! Well, if you ignore the fact that we all find it so excruciatingly hilarious when others get hurt, that is.

Admittedly I adore fairy tales, I think they're rather fascinating. To me, a story about a King enslaving young women in an empty stone room filled with bales of hay would be much more fascinating than a story about  how Joe had another boring day at work in his secretarial office.

The moral of the story? Whatever you do, try not to end up like the little old lady who lived in a shoe!

Of course this one is a nursery rhyme, but you get my point, no?