Disney’s new Black mermaid has been called ‘inauthentic’ – but fairy tales have always been repurposed across cultures. And Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid was different from Disney’s.
An engraving by Gustave Doré of the famous ball scene in Charles Perrault’s Cinderella.
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Cinderella has been taken further and further away from its origins that we forget it was originally a radical story about female desire, servitude and violence.
If you ditch the Cinderella story and intentionally craft romantic relationships to suit you – evidence from business and philosophy says you might have a good chance of deep happiness.
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There is nothing new about a shoe fetish. Fairy tales have long featured amazing, high-tech footwear: from seven-league boots to glass slippers to red shoes.
Fairy tales are extremely moral in their demarcation between good and evil, right and wrong.
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Why grown-ups still need fairy tales
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We consciously and unconsciously tell fairy tales today, despite advances in logic and science. It’s as if there is something ingrained in us that compels us to see the world through this lens.
Edmund Dulac’s 1910 illustration of Sleeping Beauty.
Wikimedia images
Fairy tales can be brutal, violent, sexual and laden with taboo. But they are are excellent narratives with which to think through a range of human experiences: from disappointment, and fear to envy and grief.