I Question Fairytales

Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!
In this story, I consider the Fairy tales. I’m Joanne Greene.
I never quite saw myself as a princess. If I squinted enough, I might see myself in Orphan Annie – that orphanage looked like a blast. And I had a thing for Shirley Temple, with her cute little dances and conversations with grown men, though I definitely didn’t envy her curls. And then there was Dorothy. Yes, I would be Dorothy especially if I could carry Toto or, really, any dog in a wicker basket and travel around with a lion, a scarecrow and a tin man. Organizing three friendly but needy men and helping them get their shit straight. Yup, that’d be a job for me.
Fairy tales never quite connected. Take Humpty Dumpty, for instance. Why was a fragile, pale faced, underdressed, egg sitting way high up on a wall? To give the king’s men and even their horses a good laugh when they found him crumpled into a million pieces on the ground? Not funny. No inspiration.
And take Little Miss Muffet. Have you ever sat on a tuffet? As a young kid I thought it was made-up word because nothing else rhymed with Muffet, but in fact it’s a small grassy mound or clump of grass. Precisely the kind of place where you’d find an insect or an arachnid. And a picnic of curds and whey? Really? Disgusting! And this was before refrigeration, much less the little pre-packaged, hermetically sealed containers that lunch parts for kids come in today. Mainly, though, who sits outside on the ground in a forest when they’re afraid of spiders? It’s asking for trouble. Miss Muffet should have read Charlotte’s Web like I did. Then, she’d love spiders.
Now, who could relate to Cinderella? A victim with unrealistic fantasies, that’s who. Yes, I empathized with the part about missing out, again and again, as the youngest member of the family. But Cindy, get a little self-respect. Poor me, mopping the floors. My stepsisters are so mean. Why do they get all the fun? Self-pity, my friend, will get you nowhere. Dream on about your magical prince...like some man who hasn’t done a day of work in his life is going to save you from your pathetic little life. Grow a spine. Go on strike. Get back at your sisters. Do something other than whine and feel sorry for yourself. Snap out of it!
And, finally, there’s the Gingerbread Man. Who, in their right mind, would tell this story to a child? The woman bakes the gingerbread man and when she takes him out of the oven, he’s alive. And pissed. He runs for his life – faster than the woman, and the man who starts to chase him from the garden, and the pig and the cow and the horse, all of whom want to eat him and can’t catch up. So he comes to the river and, since he doesn’t know how to swim (what gingerbread man would?) he hitches a ride on the back of a fox because, right, they’re notoriously trustworthy. When the fox tells him his back is aching and he should move up to his nose, the gingerbread man does and the fox promptly eats him. The moral of the story? Eventually, something’s going to get you but if you like running, go for it.