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It takes a practice to train a kid

2005-09-06 - 2:08 p.m.

Fairy Tales

We went to see The Brothers Grimm yesterday.

It was awesome.

I cannot understand how anyone could have given this movie a bad review.

One of the things I like the best is the approach to it, which is more akin to the original fairy tales than the disneyfied version of them.

You see, my Grandfather, God rest his soul, never believed in the disneyfication of things. He also believed that you could never be too young to read and that if you were going to read, might as well deal with the real thing.

My most priceless possession was a book on Greek Mythology that was published by the Louvre back in the 1940's. Two volumes of the most awesome recounting of the tales, in their various versions, with printings of assorted works of art.

I was exactly 7 years old and I devoured the damned thing.

Of course, this experience also influenced my approach to the Bible, which I found fascinating from a mythological point of view. Being the survivor of a Catholic school, this made for an interesting experience. By the time I was supposed to get religious education, I was thrown out of class for contradicting the teachers.

I was in first grade.

Of course, that meant that I passed the class automatically and I was sent every day to the Principal's office to do crossword puzzles while the class took Religion.

Gotta have it for literacy.

At any rate, my Grandfather also gifted me with various books on fairy tales, including Andersen (whom I found depressing), Perrault (my all time favorite), and the Grimm Brothers (I loved them).

And of course, he gave me the original versions, which I also devoured.

Disney has never made it for me since.

Take Snow White for example. According to the original story, SW was not tricked once, but three times by the Queen, who wore the same damned disguise the same three times!

The first time she sold SW a beautiful ribbon for her corset, and then she proceeded to lace her up. Of course, she laced her up so tightly that the Princess started to asphyxiate and passed out.

The Queen left her for dead but, lo and behold, the dwarves came home, cut her out of her corset, and revived her. They also cautioned her from buying anything from strange women disguised as little old ladies.

However, the Queen must have been a heckuva saleswoman. Either that or Snow White was the dumbest heroine in recorded story. The next time that the Queen shows up, Snow White purchases a poisoned comb.

Story repeats itself, Queen puts the comb into her hair, pricks her skin, and SW drops like a fly. Dwarves come back, take comb out, revive dumb princess, caution princess about her unhealthy spending habits, princess promises never to do it again.

That is, until the same little old lady shows up at her doorstep with really delicious apples.

Now, unlike Disney's version, the apple was not designed to put a spell on SW. It was a good ole run of the mill poisoned apple and the only reason it didn't kill the princess is because a piece got stuck in her throat.

And of course, this made her choke and lose conciousness.

This time the dwarves thought that the princess had really kicked the bucket. Either that or they were sick and tired to revive the little idiot.

At any rate, they did put her in a glass coffin because, darn it, she looked too good to be buried in the ground. Or maybe it is that they didn't feel like digging a hole.

Whatever the case, one has to wonder how smart the dwarves themselves were. This is an excerpt of a letter sent by a concerned reader:

"Dear Seven Dwarves:

It is with great alarm that I have learned the news that you have put Snow White's corpse in display.

I understand that the gal's a cutie but, have you considered how's she gonna look a week from now? Two weeks from now?

Even worse, have you considered how she's gonna smell?

Really people, get a grip. This grisly display of rotting flesh belongs in a different story, say "Night of the Living Dead" or something, not a little kid's tale.

I do hope that you change your mind and give the environment a chance.

(And the children, somebody think of the children!)

Regards,

Kim W.
Harrisburg, PA"

But back to our story. It gets worse.

In comes Prince Charming with his entourage, looks at the stiff lying in the glass box, and falls in love with her.

What does this tell you?

I don't know about you, but it spells necrofilia to me. Or maybe the Prince was not so Charming and was only too happy to find a girl that was in no condition to bring out the pepper spray.

At any rate, as everyone knows, the Prince does kiss Snow White. Unlike the Disney version, said kiss does not wake up sleeping princess.

He also decides to take the corpse with him.

To my knowledge, the last royal person to take the corpse of a dead significant other on a tour with her was Joanna the Mad of Spain, daughter of Charles V. I hear that it was not a pretty picture.

Maybe she was related to Prince Charming.

But I digress . . .

Anyway, what wakes up Snow White is the fact that the Prince's retainers, who were apparently no smarter than any of the other characters in this story, dropped the glass coffin. This in turn shattered the coffin and the impact dislodged the piece of poisoned apple stuck in Snow White's throat. And of course, the princess revives.

At this point you have to stop and think about the lack of oxygen to her brain while all of this happened.

Then again, if she got brain damaged, I don't think that anyone noticed. As we all know by now, she wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier in the first place.

As for the Queen, I cannot remember what exactly happened to her but I think that she started her own line of beauty products and made a fortune with that.

Last thing I heard, she was starring in her own reality series.

The Dwarves, for their part, moped for a little while after losing their beloved princess, particularly when it came to cleaning the house. However, they hired a cleaning service and they lived happily ever after, without having to deal with reviving dead princesses every Thursday and Saturday.

Snow White Married her Prince Charming and they too lived happily ever after.

However, I do hope they did not spawn.

Taking into account his sex preferences and her IQ, the resulting product would have been quite disturbing.

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