Thursday, April 5, 2012

From The Dark Forest

I try not to simply repost things, but had to feature a couple of recent things on The Dark Forest:
First of all, I can't believe this Rachmaninoff etude existed and I'd never heard of it:

"Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf" by Rachmaninoff, one of my all-time favorite composers!i
Then, in her post on Passive and Dumb heroines, Megan addresses the fact that traditional princesses are always attacked for being, supposedly, so anti-feminist. When I first started reading about fairy tales I was offended at this assumption but eventually grew so used to it I started to see the tales that way myself. And it is important to realize some of the implied messages that come across in many versions of fairy tales, and yes a lot of the females we're familiar with do take more passive roles than their male counterparts, but Megan defends Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Snow White and points out their good qualities, even in the old, non-feminist versions. It's really a great post and so refreshing, because I get a little tired of the super feminist warrior princesses we see these days, because it seems that anything less is sexist, but that's simply not true.

4 comments:

  1. I never had a problem with the fact that most fairytale heroines are obedient and good and virtuous. I think they were good role models for teaching me to grin and bear it and make the best of things and that being ill-tempered wasn't as rewarding. What left me feeling awkward was how some random prince comes along, falls in love with their beauty and poof! Everything is perfect now! People nowadays do tend to forget that the Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty and all the rest of them were practically children. They were not written originally as full grown women of 25 years old, with knowledge of "worldly things."

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  2. Thanks, Kristin! I'm so glad you liked it!

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  3. Rosie-Thank you! So glad I'm not alone :) While it's important at times to be proactive and change things, there are some things in life you just have to deal with and realize it won't be perfect. The Victorian value of discipline sometimes gets confused with their sexism and we see females as the only ones expected to work hard when really that wasn't the case.

    And Megan-you're welcome! I look forward to reading more of your insights!

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  4. really love as they are so slender and yet
    they are so awkward in a sense...they must dream of being something
    larger, like hoops, but must settle for the inbetween judi online

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