Twisted
Twisted Fairy Tales Titillate Teens
"While wandering through the woods, Snow White came upon a beautiful little house. She loved the little house and wanted to make it hers, so when she discovered that the house was home to seven dwarfs, Snow White chopped them to pieces with an axe."
" 'I pulled a hatchet from my jacket and whacked off my brother Hansel's legs, and then I went after my mother who tried to prevent me from running away,' said Gretel. 'My mother got killed because she treated me badly and my brother didn't respect me.' "
Do these sound like the sweet and innocent fairy tales that once entertained us in our youth? No way. But these are what today's teenagers are reading -- and writing -- online, circulating twisted tales in cyberspace in a genre known as horror fairy tales.
Combining violence and sexual perversion, formerly wholesome fairy tales are being distorted into cruel, graphic and provocative thrillers. In these stories, once lovable characters are now depraved maniacs and the happy ending is a blood-soaked, horrible demise.
And if you think you won't find these tales in your house, think again. A Korean mother named Han was shocked late last year when she discovered that her daughter, a middle school student, was reading the book "Cruelty Behind Grimm's Fairy Tales (That You Never Knew)". The book, written by a Japanese author, reinterprets the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and fills them with sex and violence.
"The book had a small R-rated warning, but my daughter didn't pay attention to that," Han said. She was shocked to learn that more books of this type were in wide circulation among her daughter's classmates.
Choi Young-ju, a visiting fellow from Hanuri Reading Campaign Center, said that today's youth are desensitized to violence. "Children are so accustomed to today's extreme pop culture that they're no longer moved by 'innocent' fairy tales," she said. These new horror tales, Choi pointed out, are not only violent, but contain extreme sexual content, which young people find intriguing.
Even more frightening is that Korean kids aren't content with simply reading these sick stories -- they're writing them, too. In fact, some teenagers push each other to concoct ever more twisted tales in competitions to see whose mind is sickest.
Check out online portals like Naver and Daum and you'll find dozens of communities where members swap their own horror fairy tales. Some sites have more than 2,000 postings. The origins of the trend are much more wholesome, said Chung Sun-gyeong, a host of online novel-writing community Ingizzang. She said the new fables grew out of stories called "fan-fics", in which young writers wrote fictional tales about celebrities and pop culture characters. "But they grew tired with fan-fics, and teenagers seem to be excited with this new emerging genre," Chung said.
Experts have voiced concern about the fad, saying it should not be dismissed as simple youthful curiosity. Shin Ui-jin, a professor with the Pediatric Psychiatry Department of Younsei Medical School said, "Driven into cutthroat competition from early age, children these days have no way to release their stress other than the Internet." He warned that if children pursue distorted extremes at the age when their personalities are being formed, they are highly likely to be violent when they grow up.
Park Gwan-seong, a research fellow at Korea Youth Counselling Institute agreed that the impact of these violent fables could be serious. "Since elementary school students can't always distinguish fantasy from reality, they might believe these cruel stories are part of the real world." Park recommended legal intervention, such as restrictions on online search results for murder and violence.
Source: Chosun Ilbo (21/1/07)
The book, or books rather, in question are by Kiryu Misao. I have been looking for them for some time now (I couldn't find them on Kinokuniya shelves when I was over in Singapore last month). However, it just came to my notice that they're available at Kinokuniya KL so I might order them soon.
Actually, I don't see the fuss over it.
Kids nowadays are exposed to all forms of violence and sexuality and they don't have to be in the form of a Japanese book. Is it just me or are some Koreans just finding further fault with their neighbour across the sea? It's not the author's fault if the bookstores mistakenly placed his books in the children's section, like what happened in Taiwan.
Certainly there are many Japanese books or manga that are excessively violent and perverse in content, but let's not forget the likes of the manhwa "Priest" by Hyung Minwoo and the animated Dooly. Both products of Korea and certainly no less controversial and scary than that of their Japanese counterparts.
A social problem among the Korean youth that is should be looked into is the rising addiction of cybercafes (known as PC Bang). Gamers are exposed to more violence than bookworms.
"While wandering through the woods, Snow White came upon a beautiful little house. She loved the little house and wanted to make it hers, so when she discovered that the house was home to seven dwarfs, Snow White chopped them to pieces with an axe."
" 'I pulled a hatchet from my jacket and whacked off my brother Hansel's legs, and then I went after my mother who tried to prevent me from running away,' said Gretel. 'My mother got killed because she treated me badly and my brother didn't respect me.' "
Do these sound like the sweet and innocent fairy tales that once entertained us in our youth? No way. But these are what today's teenagers are reading -- and writing -- online, circulating twisted tales in cyberspace in a genre known as horror fairy tales.
Combining violence and sexual perversion, formerly wholesome fairy tales are being distorted into cruel, graphic and provocative thrillers. In these stories, once lovable characters are now depraved maniacs and the happy ending is a blood-soaked, horrible demise.
And if you think you won't find these tales in your house, think again. A Korean mother named Han was shocked late last year when she discovered that her daughter, a middle school student, was reading the book "Cruelty Behind Grimm's Fairy Tales (That You Never Knew)". The book, written by a Japanese author, reinterprets the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and fills them with sex and violence.
"The book had a small R-rated warning, but my daughter didn't pay attention to that," Han said. She was shocked to learn that more books of this type were in wide circulation among her daughter's classmates.
Choi Young-ju, a visiting fellow from Hanuri Reading Campaign Center, said that today's youth are desensitized to violence. "Children are so accustomed to today's extreme pop culture that they're no longer moved by 'innocent' fairy tales," she said. These new horror tales, Choi pointed out, are not only violent, but contain extreme sexual content, which young people find intriguing.
Even more frightening is that Korean kids aren't content with simply reading these sick stories -- they're writing them, too. In fact, some teenagers push each other to concoct ever more twisted tales in competitions to see whose mind is sickest.
Check out online portals like Naver and Daum and you'll find dozens of communities where members swap their own horror fairy tales. Some sites have more than 2,000 postings. The origins of the trend are much more wholesome, said Chung Sun-gyeong, a host of online novel-writing community Ingizzang. She said the new fables grew out of stories called "fan-fics", in which young writers wrote fictional tales about celebrities and pop culture characters. "But they grew tired with fan-fics, and teenagers seem to be excited with this new emerging genre," Chung said.
Experts have voiced concern about the fad, saying it should not be dismissed as simple youthful curiosity. Shin Ui-jin, a professor with the Pediatric Psychiatry Department of Younsei Medical School said, "Driven into cutthroat competition from early age, children these days have no way to release their stress other than the Internet." He warned that if children pursue distorted extremes at the age when their personalities are being formed, they are highly likely to be violent when they grow up.
Park Gwan-seong, a research fellow at Korea Youth Counselling Institute agreed that the impact of these violent fables could be serious. "Since elementary school students can't always distinguish fantasy from reality, they might believe these cruel stories are part of the real world." Park recommended legal intervention, such as restrictions on online search results for murder and violence.
Source: Chosun Ilbo (21/1/07)
The book, or books rather, in question are by Kiryu Misao. I have been looking for them for some time now (I couldn't find them on Kinokuniya shelves when I was over in Singapore last month). However, it just came to my notice that they're available at Kinokuniya KL so I might order them soon.
Actually, I don't see the fuss over it.
Kids nowadays are exposed to all forms of violence and sexuality and they don't have to be in the form of a Japanese book. Is it just me or are some Koreans just finding further fault with their neighbour across the sea? It's not the author's fault if the bookstores mistakenly placed his books in the children's section, like what happened in Taiwan.
Certainly there are many Japanese books or manga that are excessively violent and perverse in content, but let's not forget the likes of the manhwa "Priest" by Hyung Minwoo and the animated Dooly. Both products of Korea and certainly no less controversial and scary than that of their Japanese counterparts.
A social problem among the Korean youth that is should be looked into is the rising addiction of cybercafes (known as PC Bang). Gamers are exposed to more violence than bookworms.