It’s official: At this point in my life I am not capable of keeping up a regular weekly feature on my personal blog. Give me a weekly work deadline and I’m your gal… those Benjamins, you know?
Anyway, I’d like to set a timer and free-write, but it’s not Monday, so… let’s just call this one “Sit Down and Type Sunday.”
Sometimes I like to find something creative and cool to read before I sit down to work… just get my brain kick-started. One of my awesome new friends posted this story on Facebook, and it was such a great read. Perfect for reading while drinking coffee and thinking on a drizzly Sunday morning. A super-quick summary is that it’s an interview with author Neil Gaiman in which he discusses the history of fairy tales, as well as his personal transformations of them.
Okay, timer time. 10 minutes. Here we go.
Honestly, this doesn’t have much to do with the article… it just got me thinking.
Fairy tales. I LOVED them when I was younger. I still love them… but loving fairy tales today has turned out to be much more of a thing than I ever thought it would be. Now they’re political, controversial, sexist, old fashioned, preachy… and I don’t really disagree with that line of thought. So what do I do with my feelings for a good-old traditional (in the 90’s sense, I suppose) fairy tale?
In the interest of full disclosure, I was smitten with the tales of princesses being rescued by princes. Yep, you show me a gorgeous, dashing dude with perfect 90’s heartthrob hair riding on a white steed to rescue me from some vaguely evil story element and you will probably get a small swoon out of me.
But, BUT, I also like to think of myself as a modern-thinking, progressive, quietly feminist human being. So how do I reconcile these warm feelings toward that White Knight with the feeling that I want my kids to grow up reading fairy tales about that White Knight being a strong, independent female who ends up saving a prince from his tower? Or princess from her tower? Who knows, you know?
I know; the answer to almost any question like this is one of moderation. Appreciate the warm fuzzies you’ve got, and keep your mind open to modern versions, too. I don’t need to ban my kids from watching Sleeping Beauty or Aladdin… but I do need to find some shows that combat that traditional representation with some powerful female leads. As much as I didn’t like Frozen, I have to admit that the values it highlights are more appealing than waiting for someone to swoop in and rescue you.
There’s the timer.
That was rambly… maybe even a little generic… but, it was on my mind, and now I have a new blog post, so there we go. This is TOTALLY a discussable post, dudes, so what are your thoughts? How do you feel about all of this?