- which eventually gave rise to trendy, toxic feminist “deconstruction” by women with real and obvious psychological problems.
The only two examples I can think of where this really worked, apart from T Stoppard's Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which might be called the first exploration of the idea, are G Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and Tangled, which Wikipedia says “reportedly” had its name changed from the original Rapunzel “to market the film as gender-neutral.” Having thus appeased the commissars, it went on to tell a completely heteronormative story - and indeed the authors of both were men, which may explain a bit. In both cases, Tangled particularly, we're simply given more of the story, what could have been told but wasn't, rather than the plusgoodthinkful Ever After-style “a real princess rescues herself” neurotic propaganda.
I like it when this is done well.
In the case of the fox fairy story, it could be retold from the fairy's viewpoint, or from the doorstop's - though that might read more like “Flowers for Algernon,” as in a world without radio or TV, where she was probably illiterate as well (and nothing to read anyway), she might have been barely able to speak, let alone function socially. The real-world examples of this “decent proper upbringing” must have been unimaginable horror stories, beyond the worst Christian aberrations of East and West - for the wife's only purpose is to bear children, yet she herself would have no idea what was going on, why she was getting intimately assaulted by this horrible monster or what was now happening to her body…
It would have been a very rare young man indeed (particularly in China) who would have had the understanding and taken the time to attempt damage control, to teach her something of the world, instead of blasting her into madness or suicide.
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Date: 2015-02-06 08:29 am (UTC)- which eventually gave rise to trendy, toxic feminist “deconstruction” by women with real and obvious psychological problems.
The only two examples I can think of where this really worked, apart from T Stoppard's Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which might be called the first exploration of the idea, are G Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and Tangled, which Wikipedia says “reportedly” had its name changed from the original Rapunzel “to market the film as gender-neutral.” Having thus appeased the commissars, it went on to tell a completely heteronormative story - and indeed the authors of both were men, which may explain a bit. In both cases, Tangled particularly, we're simply given more of the story, what could have been told but wasn't, rather than the plusgoodthinkful Ever After-style “a real princess rescues herself” neurotic propaganda.
I like it when this is done well.
In the case of the fox fairy story, it could be retold from the fairy's viewpoint, or from the doorstop's - though that might read more like “Flowers for Algernon,” as in a world without radio or TV, where she was probably illiterate as well (and nothing to read anyway), she might have been barely able to speak, let alone function socially. The real-world examples of this “decent proper upbringing” must have been unimaginable horror stories, beyond the worst Christian aberrations of East and West - for the wife's only purpose is to bear children, yet she herself would have no idea what was going on, why she was getting intimately assaulted by this horrible monster or what was now happening to her body…
It would have been a very rare young man indeed (particularly in China) who would have had the understanding and taken the time to attempt damage control, to teach her something of the world, instead of blasting her into madness or suicide.