Modern Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales have been around for centuries. Mother Goose, Grimm, Aesop’s fables, many of these are the very first stories children learn. But there seems to be a constant need to update and tweak the stories to fit in within the contemporary world. Not just setting these stories in the modern world but also trying to target a modern audience. Not just children, who are the classic target of fairy tales, but adults. Fairy tales are being redesigned to target an audience that has long since outgrown them.

As I am writing this there will be two major films released within a month that were both based on classic tales. Hansel and Gretel is the first and Jack and the Beanstalk is the second. Both of these stories were quaint children’s tale when I first heard them, but now they are being amped up with gratuitous violence and (at least in the case of H&G) nudity. Neither of these films are meant for children, despite their source material. In fact Hansel & Gretel has some violent death scenes that could rival a Tarantino film. Deformed women burst like water balloons full of blood.

Jack The Giant Slayer features a full out war between humans and giants. Not the simple tale of the giant being killed when Jack cuts down the beanstalk, instead there is actual warfare. The giants are not some goofy depiction of a large oaf but deformed and violent monsters. A love story is thrown into the mix for good measure despite the lack of any such subtext in the original version of the tale most are exposed to. There is also more than just one giant and a threat to the entire kingdom rather than just a crazy adventure undertaken by the title hero Jack. None of these things seem like subject matter one would want to expose a child to.

These films are by no means the only occurrences of modern fairy tales in our current pop culture client. There are two popular shows on television whose premises revolve around fairy tale characters existing in the modern world. The shows I refer to are NBC’s Grimm and ABC’s Once Upon A Time. Grimm revolves around a Portland Cop who learns he is descended from a long line of monster hunters, presumably the very characters that inspired the titular brothers’ stories. Once Upon A Time revolves around a group of fairy tale characters who have been banished from their homes to small town in Maine.

Both of these shows contain a content inspired by children’s stories.  Now perhaps the show Grimm can be forgiven its inappropriate content since in reality the Grimms’ fairy tales were not the sanitized stories usually told to our children. However, Once Upon A Time, since it is broadcast on ABC, usually references the Disney versions of the tales it is based on. With the exception of Rumplestiltskin, nearly every fairy tale character on Once Upon A Time has been featured in an animated Disney film. This works in the show’s favor when the writers decide to take a twist with the stories most of us know.

Of course do not mistake this criticism as any indication that I am against the reinventing of fairy tales. One of my favorite comic books is Fables, which is about a group of fairy tale characters who escaped a terrible war in their magical kingdom and are now living in modern day New York (I know it sounds similar to Once Upon A Time but the two are actually quite different). I also enjoy its spin off series Fairest, which deals with most of the female characters in Fables.

Also coming out soon is a movie that gives a fresh take on the Wizard of Oz (entitled Oz: The Great and Powerful). While the Wizard of Oz is not technically a Fairy Tale, it has gained the same beloved place in the hearts of children that those tales enjoy. Certainly its characters are as recognizable as Jack, Little Red Riding Hood or any other citizen of these Fairy Tales. And again like Jack The Giant Slayer and Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters, the target audience is not children but teenagers and adults. Certainly the actors and actresses cast are not very recognizable to children. The star is James Franco who is more associated with stoner comedies.

Much like I mentioned in my Nostalgia entry (see here), companies are always looking for a way to cash in on our familiarity. If they can show a fresh take on a classic story they are hoping that some part of us deep down will want to go see the film. And so much of our tastes and thought processes are formed in our youth. But how "grown up" is Hollywood willing to make these childhood memories? When do Fairy Tales cease to be entertainment for children and solely become entertainment for adults? It seems like we are headed in that direction more and more.

The Prime Directive: Why Even Bother?

In the world of Star Trek, the governing body of the United Federation of Planets has one rule above all. This rule is known as the Prime Directive. The Prime Directive in its simplest interpretation states that Starfleet will not interfere with the internal matters of any alien species government, nor will they interfere with non-warp capable species (that is to say, any species that has not developed a level of technology equal to the existing Federation worlds). Every single Starfleet Officer has sworn an oath to uphold this rule. And yet, throughout the four Star Trek series (Enterprise not included since it takes place before the founding of the Federation), the various crews of the many shows are constantly breaking this rule.

In contemporary human society you could equate the Prime Directive to the First Amendment. When the Founding Fathers drafted the constitution they felt that the right of Free Speech was the most important value to put down on paper. Likewise we must assume that the framers of the Prime Directive (one of whom we must assume was Captain Archer based on the ending of Enterprise) felt that non-interference with other cultures must be the most important value for the newly formed Federation.

But if this rule, this commandment of the future if you will, is so important then why are all these Starfleet officers always breaking it? Sometimes the Prime Directive is broken by accident and perhaps those incidents could be forgiven but there are many instances in the 23^rd and 24^th Century where the Prime Directive is broken maliciously and deliberately.

"Can't we talk about this?"

In reality though, the Prime Directive is a rule that seems to cause more problems than it solves. Many episodes of the Next Generation depicted one or more crew members being threatened with death because Captain Picard was forced to abide by the rules of a much more primitive society. Why should a culture that has abolished the death penalty respect the use of corporal punishment by another society? Both Tasha Yar (in “Code of Honor”) and Wesley Crusher (in “Justice”) were threatened with death by a primitive culture who still embraced the idea of capital punishment for minor crimes. For all Picard’s pontifications about the Prime Directive both these instances caused him to have to break that rule.

As bad as Picard’s instances of defying the prime directive were, the crew of the Starship Voyager violated it even more. Being stranded in the Delta Quadrant (some 60,000 light years away from Earth) the crew is bound by no overseeing Starfleet to keep them from breaking the rules. While there are Warp capable species in the Delta Quadrant most societies encountered by the crew appear to be rather primitive. So arguably just the very act of them encountering these societies could be considered a violation of the Prime Directive.

It seems like an unfair rule for the Federation to live by. The Klingons don’t have a Prime Directive. The Romulans don’t have a Prime Directive. The Ferengi DEFINETELY don’t have a Prime Directive as can be seen in both the Voyager Episode “False Profits” and the Deep Space Nine Episode “Little Green Men” where both instances show them willing to completely exploit the innocence and naiveté of more primitive cultures. Only the Federation has these rules. Now as the history of our own culture shows, humans have no problem screwing with the members of more primitive cultures. So it seems unusual that in the 23^rd Century we would suddenly be so concerned with our behavior. 

Cashing In On Nostalgia

Children are a cash industry. Along with the food that only they eat, diapers that are disposed of after one use, clothes that they will quickly outgrow, there is also the huge multitude of entertainment aimed solely at children. Now to be perfectly honest, most children’s television when I was growing up was nothing but a series of glorified toy commercials. The program would show some new shiny character and vehicle and then advertise that I could purchase a small plastic version of aforementioned character or vehicle that I could play with in my very own home. As my mother could probably corroborate, this form of advertising worked very well, based on the number of Transformers, G.I. Joes, Thundercats, Masters of the Universe, Voltron, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles she purchased for me after a barrage of nagging.

Comic-Con: Collector's Mecca

While physically it may look like I have outgrown any such obsession with such trinkets, the child who loved those little sculpted bits of plastic is still alive inside me. And like a werewolf on a full moon, that child uncontrollably bursts forth and demands that I provide it with the things it loved in youth. Modern entertainment companies are well aware of this affliction and seek to exploit it to the fullest. Over the past several years I have seen an influx of childhood memories be rereleased and/or reimagined. Initially I could think that perhaps they are trying to show a new generation the greatness that I, and my friends, grew up on. But the truth is, I am the target audience. They want MY money.

How do I know they want my money and not the money of the younger generation? Because while they are simultaneously releasing a new version of the thing I loved from my youth, they (yes, the mysterious and evil THEY) are also putting out releases of the classic toy. So if these genius marketers do not rope me in with their new release, they will certainly get me with the classic toy. Toys that sadly I have long since gotten rid of. In actuality it was my mom who got rid of them. I would never throw out such beloved pieces of my heart. My apartment still holds many an action figure, cartoon DVD and trade paperback comic. And what I do not currently possess is on a list of something I hope to one day possess.

Nostalgia is the driving force behind fandom collecting. There is this longing desire to recapture a youth that many feel has long since slipped from their grasp. While some people seek to make themselves physically appear younger, for many it is all about the saying “You are only as young as you feel.” Collectors take that saying to heart. Possessing a treasured toy or rare comic gives a feeling of the lost youth. The very essence of collector culture is almost a perpetual midlife crisis. There are few collectors who do not have stories about the items in their collections that is someway connected to their childhood. Be it a beloved film, cartoon character or comic, there are usually items connected to their past.

As one can see in Hollywood, the reboot rules supreme in the studio system. Rather than seeking out new material (like one of the many scripts I have written) the studio executives seem to want to just give audiences what they know and feel comfortable with. And why not? Everyone wants to be comfortable. While there is bravery and pride in experiencing something new, people are often scared of what they have never experienced before. People want what they already know they will like. It’s why fast food restaurants are so popular.

No One Wants To Be Eaten

It’s safe to say that every human is at some point in their life scared of death. We are mortal beings and we value that mortality. But it seems like the one thing that scares us more than dying is being consumed. Human beings are top of the proverbial food chain and we seem to dread things that could knock us from that spot.

Exhibit A would be the fascination humans have with monsters. All of the monsters in popular culture consume humans for food. Vampires drink our blood, zombies eat our brains (and other bits of flesh depending on the film) and Werewolves tend to just tear off whatever they can. Mummies have never been shown eating anyone but no one finds them scary anyway. Things that can consume us are what truly frighten us.

The most popular monsters in the media right now are zombies. The entire concept of the zombie revolves around just a mindless eating machine. People one by one becoming infected and losing their humanity. There have been movies about contagious diseases but none of them have captured the imagination of the zombie film. There are real life individuals who are prepping just in case an actual zombie apocalypse occurs. The zombie genre has been reinvented and revised several times since that first Night of the Living Dead film, but the consumption of humans still remains a strong part of the genre.

Serial killers should be terrifying enough on their own. But when you add a flesh-eating aspect they become something even worse. Jack the Ripper, the most notorious serial killer of all time, only killed five people. But the fact that a letter from him claims he ate half of one of the victim’s livers increases the horrific nature of his crime. Same with Hannibal Lecter. In the books and films, Hannibal kills maybe a dozen people or so. That’s not what makes him scary. The knowledge that he cooked and fed his victims to his dinner guests is what makes him so fascinating.

It’s not just our fellow humans we fear cutting us up and serving us for dinner. The monsters of nature also fascinate us, especially the myriad of ways they have for devouring us. Take for example one of the most popular films of all time. The film that coined the term “Blockbuster” due to its tremendous success. I am of course reffering to Steven Spielberg’s brilliant film, Jaws. This film about a man eating shark inspired three sequels, numerous imitators and ignited a cultural fascination with sharks. So fascinated are humans with these killers of the deep that there is an annual week of television programming devoted to them. Now while it is true that the number of shark species that attack humans and the number of shark attacks that occur per year are extremely low, the focus of the fascination with sharks will always be on their killing ability.

 

The fear of being eaten is not completely irrational. The entirety of nature revolves around the concept of the food chain. As humans we feel that we are at the top of said chain. But long ago in our evolutionary history we were not. Our mammalian ancestors were often picked off by larger and more vicious predators. It is only after significant advancement in our problem solving abilities that we were able to surpass the other animals and become the dominant species on earth. But that primitive fear of predators still remains deep in our subconscious mind. A part of realizes we are still just food.