My family is really into Disney Land.  Shockingly so.  It’s one of the only things we all agree on, but as sickly sweet and lovely as the whole cute-animals-and-pretty-girls-in-love-with-Princes thing is, deep down I think we all know there’s something darker going on when you scratch below the rose petal surface.  And we would be were right.  Fairy Tales and children’s stories are darker than that band The Horrors.  And they are very dark – one of them is even called ‘Rotter’.  Can you imagine?!

(P.S. <3 you ‘The Horrors’)

WORDS: ELIZABETH SANKEY

ILLUSTRATIONS: TED PEARCE

Little Red Riding Hood

I always knew this one was fucked up.  Didn’t I always say that?  Didn’t I tell you? A little girl wearing red – that must symbolise something surely – wandering around a FOREST on her OWN?  This is no normal Plain Jane, this is no innocent nymph dancing around a field of daisies in a lacy dress – that little strumpet knew what she was doing.  In the much sexier, earlier versions of the story Little Rouge Hood conducts a sexy strip tease for the wolf in order to “distract him”. Ex-squeeze me?  Baking soda?  I don’t really see how a strip tease could be distracting, unless maybe the grandma was stripping alongside her and the aim was to draw attention away from her crabby and wrinkled…face.  Anyway.  The story ended with the wolf apparently killing the grandma then offering her bloody guts to the scarlet cloaked stripper, before tearing her limbs to string (fellow)’s.

Snow White

When I was at School I spent 8 months trying to get everyone to call me Snow White.  I dyed my hair black and wore factor 60-sunscreen everyday.  I didn’t work.  I just looked like a lardy goth.  Shame, because there was something about the innocence of the dwarf lover that really appealed to me.   Little did I know that in the original, non-cryogenically frozen (Disney) version, there’s an evil slice of dodgy paedophilia happening.   The white one is cited as being 7 years old at the beginning of the story, so unless she aged ten flipping years when she was magically unconscious, her wake up kiss from the Prince is a bit Gary Glitter.  Unless of course the story was set in Bugsy Malone Land, which would be a much better idea for a theme park than Walt’s.  Also, the wicked Step Mother is forced to wear red-hot iron shoes, and then dance herself to death.  Hmm.  Now, I don’t want to step on any (burning) toes here, but that’s quite an odd form of torture.  In the Boardroom of Creative Redemption I imagine there were a few nervous glances around the table when that was brought up.

“Hang on Clive…Sorry, can I just clarify – you want her to dance herself to death?”

“Oh for fucks sake Norman, can’t you ever just go with me on an idea?  Just trust me for once in your frigging life”

“Hey, hang on, give me a break…”

“No, no.  We go with your stupid ‘Ooh make them fall asleep for a hundred years’ thing. Which you ALWAYS SUGGEST’”

“FINE. Fine.  We’ll do it. But what music is she going to dance to?  That fire in the bloody disco one?”

“Prick”.

Rumpelstiltskin

In 1996 they made a horror film based on this fable.  I am not surprised in the lightest.  Creepy little cackle man manages to trick a poor spinner girl into giving him her first born, then the only way she can get the sprog back is by guessing his name.  THANK GOD for the kind woodsman (do you think it’s the same one in every story – “yeah I’m the top cameo woodsman, nah, don’t think I’ll ever be leading man, but the money’s good”), who hears gnome-face bragging and saves Miss. Spin City from maternal pain.  Apparently there is some detail missing from the later versions though, as in the original Rumpy gets so upset he stamps his foot into the earth and then, through trying to get himself free, tears himself in half.  We’ve all been there.  What’s worse – before that he becomes so enraged he launches himself at the baby momma and, due to his height, gets squished in somewhere my mother always told me to ‘keep sacred’.  You can imagine the muffled smirks that popped up all over the court as the guards popped him out.    Also, in a weird Boardroom of Creative Redemption, “I don’t think this one is dark enough Clive” decision, the kid is supposed to die anyway.  Nice.

Sleeping Beauty

Right.  I’ve never done this before, but I think it’s time.  If you and I meet, quote this article and I will sing you the entire soundtrack to Disney’s Sleeping Beauty from start to finish.  I might even add in descriptions of the action, like they have in t’cinema for people who are hearing impaired.  I would call this a “gift” but actually it’s more like “a pain in the arse”, as you will swiftly realise I am completely mental and will have to make your excuses pretty quickly, while I twirl away into a corner, “then the two fairies fight over whether they want her dress to be pink or blue, it’s SO hilarious.  Yet strangely moving, and an excellent representation of our cultures obsession with physical appearances”.  Anyway, I looked this tale up and found descriptions of ‘coma sex’, which, obviously, upset me greatly.  Basically, she doesn’t prick her finger on a spinning wheel; she gets a bit of wool stuck in it.  And that sends her to sleep (Clive I’m going to need to see the memo on this one – a bit of wool fluff knocking a girl out?  Doubtful.  Thanks, Norman, BOCD Headquarters), then the Prince finds her, and thinks she’s so goddamned hot that he can’t be bothered to wake her up before making of the love.  So he just goes for it.  Then she gets pregnant with twins (still asleep), has them (while snoring), and is only woken up when one of the sickly conceived babes sucks her finger, dislodging the rhoypnol twine.  IF ONLY Kilroy Silk had been around in the medieval times to dissect that post coital mess.

Cinderella

This is the lamest of the fairytales.  Cinders is so whiny, “I have to clean all the time, my sister’s are so evil”.  Get over it butt-munch, you love playing the victim.  Have therapy and get over it.  Yeah – Analyze THAT.  In the Freudian vein, there’s a lot of subtext in this story that gets pushed out of the way by changing the slipper to glass, when it was originally fur.  Yep.  Makes it all a bit different to have a Prince scouring the country for the girl with “the perfect fur slipper”.  Suddenly everything has gone a bit Nuts/Zoo/Erotic Housewives, and you imagine him turning away girls with bolshie accusations including the words ‘wizard’ and ‘sleeve’, and stroking his dirty-vested beer belly as he drools over Terry Richardson-esque photos of prospective nubile offerings, taken by Buttons.  I loved Buttons, but imagine him as a twitchy hipster photographer type, poring over the images with Fat Prince, a cigarette burning on his lips as he nervously messes up his hair, “this one was nice, great face, ethereal yet matriarchical qualities”.  Anyway.  The evil sisters ended up sawing off their toes to squish them into the furry slipper (ew), and then birds came and pecked out their eyes.  Not much Freudian about that, but I think therapy might be much more successfully if that was the outcome more often.  Cinders is still a whiny Trollope though.