A blog of beanstalks and bears...

From chicks whose dresses disappear when the clock strikes twelve to others who have fins instead of legs, yes, fairytales have taken up a large portion of our childhood and have taught many a lesson. The lesson of Red Riding Hood being not to be so idiotic to mistake your grand mamma for a wolf and the moral of Snow White being to never eat red apples... Especially those offered to from freaky old ladies...

I have recently thought about fairytales, or well, childhood stories in general. And I think that many of them are flawed.

The fairytales we love and hold dear to our hearts is what inspires this blog. My latest theory is that fairytales only consider one point of view of the story. We usually hear our fairytales from some 20-something year old chick who usually has long flowing windswept hair and is pretty hot.

But have we ever considered the fairytales from the evil persons perspective?

Take for instance, Jack and the beanstalk - PERFECT example

Okay, the main jist is that some guy apparently called 'Jack' is poor, goes and sells his cow, gets magical beans in exchange for the cow, Jack's mum is pissed, throws the beans out the window which grows this huge bean stalk which, ironically, does not grow beans. Jack climbs it because he lacks a thing entitled 'intelligence' and finds out the bean stalk leads to this castle. A giants castle. So Jack steals some of the giants wealthy possessions (some money, a harp and a goose that laid golden eggs) and the giant chases after him and basically, Jack cuts down the beanstalk as the giant climbs down. He falls and dies. The End.

I decided to summarize it because surprisingly, some haven't heard of the tale before

*le gasp*
So hold on for a second. We see Jack as a noble guy when we're younger. We see him standing up to the 'big guy' and saving the day.

Thing is, have we ever considered this from the giants point of view?

I mean, think about it! Imagine some ant guy, walking into your house and stealing YOUR geese! Wouldn't like that very much, wouldn't you?

I'm sorry but this poor giant has to get some credit here! He gets robbed and killed by ant boy and somehow, somewhere along the line, we portray him as a villain?

The Giant is sadly cast away, always to be referred to as the 'evil guy' of the story. His sad tale becomes spun into something horrible and the Giant's name is never the same ever again... When the only thing he did wrong was chase Jack because he kept stealing his geese... Even when visually depicted, the giant isn't favoured admirably (seen in the image to the left where he looks like a descendant of Gollum from Lord of the Rings) 

If that wasn't enough, Jack, upon realizing that there is a something-foot high giant climbing down the beanstalk to get Jack for breaking an entry, decides to get an axe and CUT THE FREAKING BEANSTALK!!!

Now tell me this. Jack has invaded the home of the giant, has stolen his geese, his harp and money and then, after stealing this, decides to kill the owner of the house. HOW CAN THIS MAN BE PORTRAYED AS THE GOOD GUY!!?!?!

Jack and his beans deserve to be put into a little house I like to call 'jail'

And what a tale. The tall, perhaps noble Giant is murdered by a harp-stealing, ant-sized man. The tall guy who does nothing wrong dies and the ant boy lives to tell the tale of his 'heroic' adventure. Therefore, and I know I am jumping to conclusions here, but Jack and the Beanstalk is CLEARLY prejudiced against tall people, to which, being a tall person myself, I am disgusted to admit to such a thing.

This tale doesn't only stop at Jack and the Beanstalk, ohh no.

For instance, let us open our pages to Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

We see a golden haired girl with ringlets, once again, being the good guy, or in this case, gal.


But, hold on a minute, lets consider this, once again, in the 'bad guys' mind. The three bears walk into their house, coming back home after their walk. They come home to find that incredulously, their chairs have been sat on, their PORRIDGE has been EATEN and if that's not bad enough, the bitch has the audacity to sleep inside their house!!!

In my opinion, she stepped over the line by eating the porridge but then Goldilocks decides to SLEEP IN THEIR BEDS??!?!? As if!!!

I'm sorry, if I came home from school and a little girl with blonde ringlets was in my bed, I'd be a little freaked out too. I probably wouldn't go to the extent of eating her, but I mean, when your a bear and you're in that state of mind, you can't help yourself.

So think twice before deciding to tell you little cousin or sister/brother a fairytale story. Who knows, they could end up stealing geese and sleeping with bears.

I'm off, professor Lupin out.

X

(Images by Scott Gustafson and Arthur Rackham respectively)