I always hit submit before I mean to, so sorry. While in many of the original tales, it was the mother and not the stepmother responsible for all the protagonist's woes, there is a whole new level of grisly in introducing the stepmother as the evil one. In the times when these tales were "new", women often died in childbirth, leaving their husbands to raise the children. When he remarried, the evil stepmother archetype developed because she would have wanted to put her own children with this husband first. So you have to wonder, if and when these tales were altered, if the Grimm's weren't trying to make them more cautionary than they already were.
These stories were told in different variations from region to region throughout Europe, and in some cases, beyond. When the Grimm's collected and wrote them down in the way we know them, they became the definitive versions. I was never a big fan of Disney because I heard the originals from my parents and grandparents before I saw Disney movies, which sanitized them beyond recognition and robbed them of the point they were attempting to make. More importantly, they robbed them of the fun.
The messing around with Humpty Dumpty, the Black Sheep, and other beloved tales and rhymes is just sad, really. Even if the cautionary aspect of the tale is no longer relevant (and in some cases, it is), the historical aspect always is, because it is a part of our past and culture. Whitewashing it isn't going to change it, and doing so also paints a false picture of what we've all come from.
Parents that want to shelter their children from even the most harmless nursery rhymes are doing their children a huge disservice. The minute they step out into the real world, they'll be in for a nasty surprise.
This was in England, Skipweasel. There was a big to do about it in the news a few years back. It was ridiculous, really. A lot of local day care centres have decided that the sheep are some other color (pink was deemed offensive as well, because it alienated boys).
I would hate to be a kid in this day and age. You can't actually be a kid and do something naughty without getting slammed in jail for it. While I do have to wonder if we are getting the whole story here, if this is the whole story, then I can only say that such a gross overreaction to something that just about every kid has done at one time or another is a sad statement about the way this society is headed.
Another point to add: They were forced to change "Baa Baa Black Sheep" because some white person thought it was racist. Apparently, they thought it was somehow related to picking cotton. Everyone blindly and numbly went along with it and changed the color of the sheep. What I would like to know is what paranoid idiot thought this up, and why they think that wool and cotton have anything to do with one another.
All of this stuff falls under the same PC umbrella. Someone is always crying that they are offended because they look to be offended. Do you actually know a child that has been upset that Humpty Dumpty couldn't be put back together again?
I would think that it's obvious. It's all part of sanitizing everything for the precious snowflakes and it's tiring. That is a part of being overly PC, not "making something more cheerful" because nothing negative is allowed to happen in the fantasy that people seem hell bent on creating for their children and for themselves about the world around them. I see it as being no better than revising history for PC purposes. Why change it? There is no point, and as Minnesotastan pointed out, it destroys the original meaning and makes it into something stupid and unrecognizable.
This is silly and can only be taken on a comical level. For one, the real fairy tales, not the sanitized Disney versions, are not only grisly,entertaining horror stories, but were at one time, relevant cautionary tales. Heck, some of them still are. Secondly, it's a fairy tale. When you start insisting that fairy tales be adjusted to reflect feminist or other modern values, you sap all the fun out of them.
While I understand your point about kids and bowling, that frustration need not exist. I, as well as most kids I knew and grew up with were made well aware that we would probably not be good at bowling until we were "big", and that was if we practiced. Fooling a kid into thinking he or she is good at something with a ball like this isn't really teaching them anything. Half the fun at that age is just rolling a heavy ball around without being competitive. It can still be enjoyable.
My issue with this ball, and other things like it is that it sends out a false message to little kids. I can see a typical helicopter parent using this and telling their little darling that they are talented little bowlers. The day that they don't have the help of this cheating tool, they will be far more disappointed than they were when they would be if they were made to understand that bowling, or any activity, is not something people are automatically good at, and that if they enjoy it, they can practice to improve.
These stories were told in different variations from region to region throughout Europe, and in some cases, beyond. When the Grimm's collected and wrote them down in the way we know them, they became the definitive versions. I was never a big fan of Disney because I heard the originals from my parents and grandparents before I saw Disney movies, which sanitized them beyond recognition and robbed them of the point they were attempting to make. More importantly, they robbed them of the fun.
The messing around with Humpty Dumpty, the Black Sheep, and other beloved tales and rhymes is just sad, really. Even if the cautionary aspect of the tale is no longer relevant (and in some cases, it is), the historical aspect always is, because it is a part of our past and culture. Whitewashing it isn't going to change it, and doing so also paints a false picture of what we've all come from.
Parents that want to shelter their children from even the most harmless nursery rhymes are doing their children a huge disservice. The minute they step out into the real world, they'll be in for a nasty surprise.
There's a link to it. :)
Grimm's fairy tales are awesome! I grew up on the originals. Disney bites.
All of this stuff falls under the same PC umbrella. Someone is always crying that they are offended because they look to be offended. Do you actually know a child that has been upset that Humpty Dumpty couldn't be put back together again?
I would think that it's obvious. It's all part of sanitizing everything for the precious snowflakes and it's tiring. That is a part of being overly PC, not "making something more cheerful" because nothing negative is allowed to happen in the fantasy that people seem hell bent on creating for their children and for themselves about the world around them. I see it as being no better than revising history for PC purposes. Why change it? There is no point, and as Minnesotastan pointed out, it destroys the original meaning and makes it into something stupid and unrecognizable.
There was nothing wrong with it before.
While I understand your point about kids and bowling, that frustration need not exist. I, as well as most kids I knew and grew up with were made well aware that we would probably not be good at bowling until we were "big", and that was if we practiced. Fooling a kid into thinking he or she is good at something with a ball like this isn't really teaching them anything. Half the fun at that age is just rolling a heavy ball around without being competitive. It can still be enjoyable.
My issue with this ball, and other things like it is that it sends out a false message to little kids. I can see a typical helicopter parent using this and telling their little darling that they are talented little bowlers. The day that they don't have the help of this cheating tool, they will be far more disappointed than they were when they would be if they were made to understand that bowling, or any activity, is not something people are automatically good at, and that if they enjoy it, they can practice to improve.