Fantasia

As a kid, I was a sucker for fairy tales. I had the complete set of Classics Illustrated comics (including the ''adult'' ones), all the Read-aloud paperbacks plus some beautifully illustrated hardcover collections of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson stories. Unfortunately, all were lost when our family cottage burned to the ground.

When we saw Disney's Cinderella, my sister Irene and I got those plastic ''glass slippers'' with the elastic holders -- and it's a wonder we didn't break our necks in them. Since then, I have taken my nieces to most of the other ''princess' movies, and to this day one of them still lists The Princess Bride, which is not quite in the genre, as one of her favourite movies of all time. (On my list you will find Ladyhawke, a sentimental fave highly recommended if you haven't seen it.)

Anyway, the princess thing has been big for little girls for a couple of generations now. One of the girls in Father Knows Best was called ''princess'' by her dad Jim Anderson. All sorts of princess toys and accessories have been made and marketed. And of course, every Halloween, there's a parade of little princesses up my walk looking for treats.

As of every little girl knows, princesses always have it made in the end. They kiss their prince, mount his white charger and ride off into the happily ever after horizon. 

As if that's what life is all about.

Vancouver artist Dina Goldstein decided to look beyond the fairy tale ending  with her gallery of ''Fallen Princesses,'' a collection focusing on what happens to Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty and the rest of the girls in real life land.

Here's an example:

Says Goldstein:

I explored the original brothers Grimm's stories and found that they have very dark and sometimes gruesome aspects, many of which were changed by Disney. I began to imagine Disney's perfect Princesses juxtaposed with real issues that were affecting women around me, such as illness, addiction and self-image issues.

More here.

Now, I hate to shatter a little girl's dreams, because goodness knows I had many fantasies of my own, so I wouldn't show this to your daughters.

That said, as a wicked stepmother myself, I must say I resent how these guys all portrayed women as either totally evil or as pure as Snow White.

Comments

[...pat.]

I like the modern-day short revision of the princess and the toad, who enjoys her meal of frogs' legs. I wish I could remember some of the revisionist tales from Ms. Magazine: alas, they have fled my memory.

[PaulR]

"That said, as a wicked stepmother myself, I must say I resent how these guys all portrayed women as either totally evil or as pure as Snow White." -----Antonia
---------

Sure, the current fable is that the MEN are evil, and the women are pure as the driven snow :^p

I also enjoy those photos - the juxtaposition of the banal vs the fantasy, the exploration of what "happily ever after" turns out to be when you zoom out from the wedding day.

A minor nitpick - The Grimms were not the authors of those old fables: they were collectors and publishers - of very old oral stories that were passed on through many generations, adapted to whatever spin the storyteller would give to them. As such, it is not a given that the "guys" portrayed women in that manner. In a pre-industrial agrarian society, whose familial role would it have been to invent or pass on these stories to children?

[mozo]

...pat, I never knew toads ate frog's legs.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books have all the older versions of those tales, with some frightening illustrations (one in particular terrified my father when he was a little boy; editions around 1919). They include "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood", which continues ... well it's obvious, with a very dark ending (the Prince's mother....). I'm not going through all the collection, but my impression is that men and women were equally good, or evil.

For a lighter variant, try Lord Dunsany's "The King of Elfland's Daughter".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Elfland%27s_Daughter.

Pat Pet,

Do try Clark Ashton Smith's "Mother of Toads"
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/143/mother-of-toads
(French version, too)
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/translations/french/11/mere-des-crapauds-(mother-of-toads)

And, Mozo de Beaux Yeux, cane toads eat the legs of frogs, and everything else too.

The funniest variant appeared in one of MAD magazine's spinoff paperbacks, where the princess kisses a frog, who immediately morphs into a prince, complete with white charger, who sweeps her off her feet .....

they're trotting along, and suddenly a fly buzzes past ....

out comes the prince's tongue ... SPLAT!!!

[croghan27]

I expect a family paper like the Star could not print the manner in which the Princess discovers the 'pea' under her mattresses.