On Fairy Tales

Just last night, while helping the best beloved slog through another inane assignment for her Masters program (it's in education, go figure), I came across this bit of babble.

Children receive messages from literature beginning at a very early age. We teach them social roles through seemingly innocent fairy tales. We teach girls to be passive and wait for a handsome and charming prince to sweep them off their feet so they can live happily ever after. We teach that everyone is white, able-bodied, and heterosexual...Clearly, we must begin to educate children as early as possible that oppressing people based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, class, age, or anything else is wrong.

Whooooeee, that's a handful. We can thank Jesse W. Birnstihl of St. Cloud, Minnesota, for that crapola. Perhaps if he wasn't so busying canonizing elements of the weather, he'd have taken the time to make some sense.

• Jesse is responding to an article to Education Journal about social justice. I'd rather not get into a broader discussion of that topic at the moment (I still need to read several articles for class in an hour), so I'll stick to my quote above. Serious logic jump there, Jesse. Maybe I missed something in the ellipses (which were in the original, mind you), but how exactly do the teachings listed "clearly" imply that kids will be discriminatory as a result. So, you tell girls to grow their hair long and play Rapunzel in the playhouse. Is that really one step from them burning crosses? Or is it more subtle: will they be emotionally abusive to the shorter-haired girls on the playground?
• Numbah two, I dunno what fairy tales you've been reading, Jess, but they sure weren't those fed to me. Take Hansel and Gretel, for instance. The witch was going to eat them. Oh, look at that innocent fairy tale. No, sorry Birnie, but fairy tales often made me lay awake at night.
• As regards those passive females: whose being so passive? It's a pretty active move to kiss a frog; Cinderella was working her little tuckass off; the original mermaid in The Little Mermaid dances for her prince even though it's like dancing on knives (and she loses her voice...and she loses her life); Jesse, what fairy tales are you reading?
• Oh, wait, perhaps JB is focusing on modern interpretations, those pretty Disney-fied versions. But, in all those cases, we tend to get strong female characters as well. Remember how Nala pinned Simba, even when he was older and tougher? How about Beauty saving Beastie's life? And let's not overlook the celebration of Mulan, which pretty blatantly challenges whatever passivity stereotypes existed.
• Further, what about modern fairy tales? What about the C.S. Lewises, the Lloyd Alexanders, the J.R.R. Tolkeins? Do they fit neatly into these white man stereotype boxes? I think not. If you need any persuading, take a look at the book I stayed up way too late last night reading: The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha. Among the topics dealt with: racism, slavery, class conflict, the role of women in society, social justice. Of course, this is all done organically, as it should be. These themes become part of the story because they are aspects of the human condition, not because of some idiotic writer's social agenda.

Ack, I'd love go on, but I just realized what time it is, and the demands of class are pressing. I'll leave you with a quote from an interview with Lloyd Alexander that I agree with heartily:

When asked how to develop intelligence in young people, Einstein answered: "Read fairy tales. Then read more fairy tales." I can only add: Yes, and the sooner the better. Fairy tales and fantasies nourish the imagination. And imagination supports our whole intellectual and psychological economy. Not only in literature, music, and painting spring from the seedbed of imagination; but, as well, all the sciences, mathematics, philosophies, cosmologies. Without imagination, how could we have invented the wheel or the computer? Or toothpaste? Or nuclear weapons? Or speculate "What if—?" Or have any compassionate sense what it's like to live in another person's skin?

For me, writing fantasy for young people has surely been the most creative and liberating experience of my life. As a literary form, fantasy has let me express my own deepest feelings and attitudes about the world we're all obliged to live in.

A paradox? Creating worlds that never existed as a way to gain some kind of insight into a world that is very real indeed? The paradox is easily resolved. Whatever its surface ornamentation, fantasy that strives to reach the level of durable art deals with the bedrock of human emotions, conflicts, dilemmas, relationships. That is to say: the realities of life.

Who you gonna believe? Jesse W. Birnstihl or Einstein. Exactly.