Modern Fairy Tales

Fairy tales have had one of the most prominent roles in shaping twenty-first century society. This is because these tales have moved away from their oral purpose aimed at teaching a moral to audiences of all ages and towards an audience dedicated more towards children through modern technological, art and production advantages. It is true that fairy tales have been somewhat removed from their original purpose, hence the reason for much of the critique about the relevance of tales in the twenty-first century. I disagree with the critics, as what many do not realize, however, is that it is necessary for the fairy tale to be constantly under reconstruction in order to meet the needs of each era. It is known that fairy tale origins are from the …show more content…
As this paper aims to prove, fairy tales are still a relevant part of our culture, and modern western society has achieved this relevancy through adapting these tales to serve as a form of entertainment rather than their instructional, moral role, which they once played as part of the oral tradition. In order to highlight the transformations which fairy tales have gone through in order to reach their modern audiences this paper will use the thoughts of the famous psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in order to help comprehend why children can attach emotionally to modern fairy tales. To follow, some examples of Little Red Riding Hoods’ transformation into the modern world will be highlighted in order to help grasp why fairy tales transformed with assistance from the mass media age, which took hold in the Victorian period, and finally conclude by examining the forms of entertainment which modern society now associate fairy tales as being a part …show more content…
To take an example, I have looked at the take of Little Red Riding Hood and how it has changed from the Victorian period to its present day form. In the article, Rewriting “Little Red Riding Hood”: Victorian Fairy Tales and Mass-Visual Culture, Laurence Talairach-Vielmas concludes his article by noting that the Victorian heroine can “cloak their nature under riding hoods without completely surrendering to the demands of culture” (277). This phrase is both a symbolic and literary one, as the example of the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood was chosen to represent women of the Victorian period and also because women during this time literally wore riding hats to travel in a time period heavily influenced by conservativism and keeping women within the domestic sphere. As Talairach-Vielmas states, “the choice of “Little Red Riding Hood” is therefore a significant example of how fairy tales may be reinvested with meaning over the ages” (277). This period was also significant for other reasons because the Victorian age saw “the advent of mass visual culture” (Talairach-Vielmas 261), which has helped to transition fairy tales into the modern interpretation and displays we now associate with them, and children latch on