Fairy Tale Controversy
Did you know that fairy tales have often been the subject of controversy? Several popular fairy tales have been scrutinized, criticized, and even banned from schools and public libraries over the years. By the 1950s, more and more parents began voicing concerns over the violence and sexual content contained in the first editions of Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel.
In 2019, it is hard for us to imagine that many of our favorite fairy tales caused so much concern that parents demanded their children not be exposed to the sadistic, murderous and lustful characters portrayed in the pre-Disney, more primitive tales. Beginning in the 1950s, Disney took many liberties with the original fairy tales, not only making them less menacing, but also adapting them for cinematic viewing. So today, most of us have never even seen the original fairy tales.
In his response to all the controversy, Bruno Bettelheim (1976) wrote a summary of his research; The Uses of Enchantment: THE MEANING AND IMPORTANCE OF FAIRY TALES. In that book, Bettelheim defends fairy tales and explains that exposure to danger and hardship in a story prepares children and equips them with coping strategies. Furthermore, exposure to danger in a story makes that danger less of a threat. In other words, fairy tales can be therapeutic.
Therapeutic Fairy Tales?
In the same vein, within the field of psychology, there is a well-known therapeutic technique called Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). There are many strategies used as part of CBT, but there are two I want to highlight here:
- Looking at a situation from a different perspective
- Repeated innocuous exposure to anything that causes fear/sorrow/anger
My Personal Fairy Tale
As a response to my professor’s recent challenge, I wrote a personal fairy tale that chronicles some of the most depressing, traumatic and tragic events from my life.
It is a bit long for one post so I am going to divide it into two parts that will follow this post. It is an example of how writing, using a different perspective and innocuous exposure helped me to feel more empowered and less troubled by my past unfortunate experiences.
Challenge and Bounty!
I like interaction and I want engagement with my fellow Steemians. I welcome your questions, challenges and comments.
Since I want to encourage your participation, I have set up a 3 STEEM bounty for each of my June 2019 fairy tales posts, including this one. You are welcome to comment on all three posts for a share of the total 9 STEEM.
The bounty will be divided according to the votes accumulated for any of the comments made. I will vote for high quality comments that I think address the topic, and represent true engagement.