Watch the inevitable break down of my language in these things
For a long time I thought the Grimm brothers’ fairytales were the original fairytales - fairytales in their purest form from which all other fairytales derived. I was embarrassingly old when I was disabused of this notion, and, in fact, I still vaguely believed it until I took this class. It was a vague belief contradicted by a wealth of other fairytale-related information, but as humans we’re all about contradiction. So.
Regardless, Maria Tatar’s explication of Wilhelm Grimm’s prudish edits of his and his brother’s text is certainly … if not necessarily enlightening then at least interesting. I mean, Wilhelm edited out all of the references to sex, even to perfectly natural things like pregnancy. That said, he had no qualms about maintaining the gruesome levels of violence (and even appending extra violence) of traditional folktales. So, I guess the question is this: why keep the one and edit out the other?
It’s not a purely academic question either. This strange double-standard of being okay with violence but really not okay with sex is one that I’d argue is still relevant to our culture today. I mean, sure, you can argue that artists like Ke$ha and actresses like Megan Fox, with their blatant sexuality and willingness to show off their bodies, have made sex a part of accepted and main-stream discourse, but that’s really not true. Indeed, both Ke$ha and Megan Fox often receive censure for being “slutty” or “skanky” or what have you. Which isn’t to say that a lot of arenas in life aren’t oversexed, but it almost seems a kind of desperate bursting out of an incredibly repressed world, where all physical contact is viewed as intimacy and abstinence-only sex education is still considered a viable alternative to actually discourse that tells kids what to do with their bits and how to keep those bits safe. We’re very Victorian in a lot of ways, for all we act as if we’re a million times more liberated.
But anyway, here’s the thing: violence is everywhere. It’s on the news, it’s in children’s literature, it’s in the root of all evil videogames. It’s also in many of the holy texts popular in the western world. It’s written into history. We generally don’t particularly shy away from violence. I watched some extremely violent movies in high school, and even in middle school. A lot of the children’s lit I’ve read? Yeah, it’s really violent.
But sex? You don’t see that nearly as often. Love, certainly, but sex? And here’s the thing - sex is written into the holy texts as well, and it’s in videogames and literature and the news, but, at least in my experience, it always seems to cause some sort of an uproar if sex becomes any more explicit than passing mention of vague euphemisms. The way society reacts to it makes sex seem way more threatening than violence.
And. Wait. Yeah, you heard me. Sex is more threatening than violence. Sex is what’s inappropriate for children. Sex is what needs to be strictly monitored. And. Why?
No, really, how on earth did this mindset come about? It’s certainly not a new one; even if Wilhelm Grimm did not subscribe to it he edited his books according to popular opinion which would’ve contained that viewpoint. People were obviously thinking this, so why?
Well, I think part of it is that it’s much easier to make violence moralistic than sex. Most punishments are violent in nature, but finding punishments which are sexual in nature and not deeply morally suspect is a different matter.
But that hardly seems to be the entire thinking behind it. I think part of it is that women’s sexuality is seen as dangerous in some ways. It’s totally discounted in others, so you get an extra helping of cognitive dissonance, but yeah. Women’s sexuality is really seen as dangerous - it’s often used overtly as a weapon (taking the trope of the femme fatale for instance) and indeed the edits Maria Tatar discusses are all related to female sexuality, specifically pregnancy and incest. Notably, in the cases of incest, it is the father being covetous of the beautiful daughter - that is, in some way, the woman exerting power over the man. In the case of pregnancy well, you could possibly argue that Wilhelm Grimm just had a really bad case of womb envy, but - actually no, that’s pretty much all I got in that case and I don’t even buy it.
So, generalizations, overuse of anecdotal evidence, and inability to draw conclusions aside, I guess what I’m really getting at is that the strange phenomena Maria Tatar identifies in her essay “Sex and Violence: The Hard Core of Fairy Tales” is one not specific to Wilhelm Grimm, Germany, or the 19th century. Indeed, it’s relevant even now. And still really weird. And pretty confusing.
Regardless, Maria Tatar’s explication of Wilhelm Grimm’s prudish edits of his and his brother’s text is certainly … if not necessarily enlightening then at least interesting. I mean, Wilhelm edited out all of the references to sex, even to perfectly natural things like pregnancy. That said, he had no qualms about maintaining the gruesome levels of violence (and even appending extra violence) of traditional folktales. So, I guess the question is this: why keep the one and edit out the other?
It’s not a purely academic question either. This strange double-standard of being okay with violence but really not okay with sex is one that I’d argue is still relevant to our culture today. I mean, sure, you can argue that artists like Ke$ha and actresses like Megan Fox, with their blatant sexuality and willingness to show off their bodies, have made sex a part of accepted and main-stream discourse, but that’s really not true. Indeed, both Ke$ha and Megan Fox often receive censure for being “slutty” or “skanky” or what have you. Which isn’t to say that a lot of arenas in life aren’t oversexed, but it almost seems a kind of desperate bursting out of an incredibly repressed world, where all physical contact is viewed as intimacy and abstinence-only sex education is still considered a viable alternative to actually discourse that tells kids what to do with their bits and how to keep those bits safe. We’re very Victorian in a lot of ways, for all we act as if we’re a million times more liberated.
But anyway, here’s the thing: violence is everywhere. It’s on the news, it’s in children’s literature, it’s in the root of all evil videogames. It’s also in many of the holy texts popular in the western world. It’s written into history. We generally don’t particularly shy away from violence. I watched some extremely violent movies in high school, and even in middle school. A lot of the children’s lit I’ve read? Yeah, it’s really violent.
But sex? You don’t see that nearly as often. Love, certainly, but sex? And here’s the thing - sex is written into the holy texts as well, and it’s in videogames and literature and the news, but, at least in my experience, it always seems to cause some sort of an uproar if sex becomes any more explicit than passing mention of vague euphemisms. The way society reacts to it makes sex seem way more threatening than violence.
And. Wait. Yeah, you heard me. Sex is more threatening than violence. Sex is what’s inappropriate for children. Sex is what needs to be strictly monitored. And. Why?
No, really, how on earth did this mindset come about? It’s certainly not a new one; even if Wilhelm Grimm did not subscribe to it he edited his books according to popular opinion which would’ve contained that viewpoint. People were obviously thinking this, so why?
Well, I think part of it is that it’s much easier to make violence moralistic than sex. Most punishments are violent in nature, but finding punishments which are sexual in nature and not deeply morally suspect is a different matter.
But that hardly seems to be the entire thinking behind it. I think part of it is that women’s sexuality is seen as dangerous in some ways. It’s totally discounted in others, so you get an extra helping of cognitive dissonance, but yeah. Women’s sexuality is really seen as dangerous - it’s often used overtly as a weapon (taking the trope of the femme fatale for instance) and indeed the edits Maria Tatar discusses are all related to female sexuality, specifically pregnancy and incest. Notably, in the cases of incest, it is the father being covetous of the beautiful daughter - that is, in some way, the woman exerting power over the man. In the case of pregnancy well, you could possibly argue that Wilhelm Grimm just had a really bad case of womb envy, but - actually no, that’s pretty much all I got in that case and I don’t even buy it.
So, generalizations, overuse of anecdotal evidence, and inability to draw conclusions aside, I guess what I’m really getting at is that the strange phenomena Maria Tatar identifies in her essay “Sex and Violence: The Hard Core of Fairy Tales” is one not specific to Wilhelm Grimm, Germany, or the 19th century. Indeed, it’s relevant even now. And still really weird. And pretty confusing.