New Age Fairy Tales, Like Really? Jyoti Kerkar

The seventies and eighties kids, that’s my generation who grew up with Fairy Tales, like Cinderella, Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast and many more, these stories were written centuries ago by Grimm’s Brothers and Hans Andersons and many more.

Now those were the days where the woman folk toiled at home and the men went out to work. So these stories were written as basis’s how everyone lived. We too read and enjoyed, during our times too, out of ten households only 1-2 women of the house went out and worked with the corporate. Plus, the times were full of compassion, brotherhood, help, care, share, it was part of our being, each one knew everyone in the neighbourhood, going and eating without a prior notice was not looked down upon. There were no RSVP used.

Now, these adults of my generation along with the ’90s and the Y generation kids are criticizing or comparing those ancient quaint stories with the new world of technology and the woman power, is that necessary? You let those stories live, especially the seventies born writers who write against them. They write about why they do not share these books with their daughter’s as the princess is so helpless and that sends a wrong signal to the today’s kids especially girls. Why turn a simple tale into something antagonist? Huh sending a wrong signal? Like Really!!

Did you not grow up with these books? Have you not become a self-made woman who is a CEO of a huge corporate empire, are you not the Prime Minister of a country?

Fairy Tales are fantasies and let them remain that, a lovely dream, something that Grandmother’s and mothers put us to sleep. None of the recent breeds can write an individual fairy tale? The young adult(YA) books that are making rounds are stories based on these very Brother Grimm’s and Andersons tales, moulding them to the new techno, fast-paced age, a new tale about Cinderella’s stepmother, a stage given to her and her side of the story, the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood is personified as the terrorist/criminal human who young girls should be aware of.

Let me assure the readers that I have nothing about modernisation and each girl/woman should be aware of the hazards and the bizarre world. But let the old fairy tales remain as the ones that gave us immense pleasure.