I think that there is a reason why young girls are drawn toward fairy tales. It’s not the castles, the magical creatures, or the overabundance of pink. It’s that women are almost always the main characters: Cinderella, Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty. These characters are so pivotal to the plot that the story itself is named after them.
The problem though, is that while the protagonist may be strong of heart, she’s weak of body. Constantly needing rescuing from evil, never able to free herself from the tower. (I mean, why didn’t Rapunzel just cut off her hair and use it as a rope?) While she may be the star of the show, she’s certainly not the hero. In the stories we were brought up with as children, heroism is reserved for the dashing young man with the sword. His strength and courage win the fight, save the girl and bring on the happily ever after. In fact, the only women with any kind of power are the apple-carrying old crones whose vendetta is provoked by a mirror telling them they aren’t the hottest one around or, in the when-you-think-about-it-it’s-kind-of-weird case of Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent, weren’t invited to the party.
But fairy tales are getting a much-needed re-write on ABC’s Once Upon A Time.
I will confess, I had my doubts about the show to start with. But then we saw how Snow White met her Prince, and instead of singing in a forest surrounded by woodland creatures she was brandishing a sword and robbing her future (so rich he won’t miss it) love. In simple terms, the delicate flower that has always been the picture of Snow White got some thorns. And she’s not the only one. Episode after episode, the ladies of make-believe get to choose their own path, save themselves and the ones they love, and (we hope) get the guy.
This isn’t to say that the men on the show don’t play a pivotal and often heartbreaking role. They do. Every Rumpelstiltskin storyline is a work of genius, and Jiminy Cricket’s back story was quietly profound, kind of like the character himself. But at the heart of every episode is a princess that kicks butt, an evil queen whose greed is so deep she could never be provoked by anything so shallow as her predecessors, and… a sheriff, who, as the storybook in the show promises us, is the hero of this story.
Perhaps even better than the concept of a sword-carrying beauty in a debutante dress is the idea that these women are not as perfect as they were once portrayed to be. They steal, they lie, they have unplanned babies and unplanned affairs. But that doesn’t make them any less heroic, it just makes them a little less make-believe and a lot more real.
defydemure 