Original Fairytales: Ruining Childhood Memories!

This semester I am taking fairytale literature. It is the first time that I have really read the fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Josephy Jacobs, Le Prince De Beaumont, etc. In class we have watched movies like, Mutzmeg, a folk-tale based off Molly Whuppie, a Joseph Jacobs fairytale, or the Appalachian version of Ashenputtel (Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella). These movies are much different than disney films.
My favorite childhood movies, have been completely altered and I probably can never watch them with the same feeling again. In Ashenputtel, the step-sisters cut their heel and big toe off, then at the end birds poke their eyes out. But my favorite movie as a kid was, Snow-white and The Seven Dwarfs. And yes, the Grimm brothers version is much more gore. Snow-whites mother dies (as in most of these fairytales), then the step-mother thinks that the huntsman killed her, and brought back her heart (really a wild boar's heart), still she actually eats it thinking it was human. As the end when Snow-white gets married they have "red-hot iron shoes, in which she had to dance until she fell down dead" ready for the evil step-mother. Let me say, original fairytales are: sad, evil, full of cannabilism, tricksters, and gory (some versions even have bestiality), nothing like the happily ever after disney portrays.

The Class Text

Now don't get me wrong I actually like these versions. I like reading them, trying to figure out the differences, why they are so. different. It is just such a surprise. I am so happy that I am in this class though, considering diving deeper into these old fairy-tales. I know I have to write an essay for the class, I am leaning either cannabilism or gender inequalities, how women are portrayed.