Ban Cinderella.. the why!

[Nightshade]

All righty as I was asked here is the cinderella controversy today (blame wonderlust and Bong!) :nod: :lol:

Cinderella is the oldest most wide spread fairy/folk tale around there are over 700 versions including an Ancient egyptien and ancient Chineese verision.

All the verisions have abuse as a main theme. Mostly the father is to blame whether indirrectly by marrying the evil step mother and dieing or going off or directly by ehem wanting to marry his daughter.
On this last point somtimes he suceeds as in the 'animal fur skin girl' version and somtimes he doesnt as in 'Cap o' many rushes' and the verision with Donna la Bismina (I only heard this one on a program and dont know what is called or which country).

Somtimes it is the prince who she marries himself who abuses her (beats) he kicks breaks head of hits breaks a broom on her back (in one version) when she is a servant and loves her in her 'princess' outfit.
Allrighty thats like the first fuss Cinderella is not really a kids lighthearted strory!!

The second controversy is that according to a recent study by some psychologist lady little girls who are told fairytales as children (or are exposed to alot of Disnificated (great word!) stories ( good and patience triumph over horridness and evil) particually the cinderella story will end up in abusive relationships when they grow older.

This is because girls who identify with Cinderella and belive good triumphs and all that are apparantly likly to
a) Get involved with an abusive personality to begin with as they belive ther goodness will change them
b)stay in an abusive relationship for longer because good always comes of evil and patience is a vertue and all that
c) have learned helplessness in that they wait for somone to come along and rescue them.

As I said earler this is missing my vital research but thats like the skelton if anyones intrested Ill dig out the stuff from the school network thursday!
__________________________________________________ _____________
EDIT Nobody wants to ban Cinderella I was just messing around with thread names and of the several failed post attempts this one worked!!

[Bongitybongbong]

Wow that's pretty censored up...weird stuff.

[wanderlust_ox]

That is interesting, especially the part about the abusive relationships. Those 3 points do apply to most girl in abusive relationships. If we were not exposed to the Cinderella story, do you guys think that girls would handle abusive relationships differently?

[Bongitybongbong]

I think girls would handle it much better (kick his censored on the street or smething like it)

[Nightshade]

thats the psycholigists view mind you my question is if they learnt the attitude from the stories where does the story come from??
Also if anyone else has some awful fairy tales like the ones above fairytale are one of my obsessioins so pleeeeeeeeeeese names and info would be great!

[kilted exile]

WARNING: RANT AHEAD.

This psychologist is talking out of his hat. This is the same argument people use for banning horror films/violent video games etc. I would be very interested to see his research on this and compare the number of girls who know the cinderella story and are in a abusive relationship, with those who know the story but are not in an abusive relationship. My guess is the number in the latter category would be vastly greater.

this will be added to later, I currently have to go to class :mad:

[Taliesin]

Heh.
Most fairy-tales are horror and awful in that way.


Fairy-tales weren't originally meant just for children, that is the work of later adaptations. Fairy tales were erotical, bloody, violent, dirty et cetera.
At least, children weren't their first target group.

This thing is shown well in Pratchett's "Witches abroad"

[papayahed]

I'm not buying it, I'd say 99.9% of girls have heard cinderella and other fairy tales and not all of them end up in abusive relationships. I'd have to say environment has more of an impact then stories.

[Koa]

I fail to get the point of all this.

[Nightshade]

I guess because I was mad at my computer and had too wright it out about 3 or 4 times its not very clear.
Both theories actualy have the same basis, social learning theory (and since I have an exam on this on friday I will go into more detail than nessesary as it helps me revise :p)
Okay the theory says that people learn behaviours in 3 general steps
1) a model or someone they belive to be an ideal model to immitate acts out a behaviour- In this case cinderellas and the good behaviour which she is rewarded for is her patience. Or in the violance hero Goes round beating/killing people getts a lot of attention and "the girl' st the end of the day
2) They then immitate it - sort of speaks for itself
3) The behaviour is reinforced- that is the idea that it is good is increased. In violance this is most often because the recive attention while this is as I see it the weak point of this research.

But also I think what the psycholigist is hinting at that there are certain personality types that tend to identify with cinderella (see themselves as like her and that she is a reasnobe role model for the above steps) and that her study found that somthing like 60% of abused women are this personality type.
And that the tendency towards this personality and view of life is increased by exposer to cinderella.

[Nightshade]

Its really pointless just an expression of my obsession with the origins and original fairy tales. I mentioned somthing in the Word asossiation thread and It was too long to stick it there so I gave it its own spot! :D

I think Tailsin got my point about the hooro stories that are fairytales Its just that they are soo obiviosly not riginaly ment for chldren I find them fasinating!!!

[Bongitybongbong]

So what the psychologist is using dead ammo...I mean if you're going to try to ban something just make sure that the reason hasn't already been disputed. I'm definitely siding with exile on this because the psychologist probably doesn't realize that there are many women who are familiar with the story that aren't in abusive relationships. :mad:

[Nightshade]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOkay no one wants to ban Cinderella !!!!!!!!!!
it was just a nice tabloidish overdramitisation because I was mad at having to write it more than once!!!!!!

[Bongitybongbong]

and that's what I think alot of the people were saying. Thanks for making it easier to understand Night.

[Nightshade]

My fault but on the plus side it had an effect people did post didnt they?! :brow:

[wanderlust_ox]

First of all, i'm not taking the side of the psychologist, I'm just saying that it might make some snese. What you all seem to be thinking is that whoever is exposed to the Cinderella Story end up in abusive relationships. What I think the psychologist is really meaning is that the exposure to the Cinderella Story effects the way girls act in abusive relationships. I know not all of them would end up in one. Maybe all boys don't respond to the Cinderella Story in the abusive way. I'm just wondering if we weren't exposed to it, will we have the same hope for something better after an abusive relationship like we do now?

[Nightshade]

hahha Eurika!
yup as I said my lack of the artical and research and I dint put it quite right but Wanderlust has got the general drift as I understood it! humm I think Ill go google and see if I can find the artical!

[Snukes]

Hm. One problem I see with this is that most little girls aren't as fascinated as Nightshade is by the gorey and gruesome origins of fairytales. As she pointed, out, Disney has really lightened up the whole load of them. I remember being absolutely devistated when I fell in love with Disney's Little Mermaid only to go find the Brothers Grimm (or was it Anderson? Don't even remember now) version where she dies in the end instead of choosing to kill the prince... Oh man...

My point is, little girls know Disney's Cinderella. The Wicked Stepmother is only wicked so far as she makes Cinderella do all the chores. That sucks, but it's something most kids feel like they suffer anyway. Sure doesn't stop most from being lazy. Then she married the prince and we're left to assume she lives happily ever after. No beatings going on in there. I guess she might get stuck picking up Charming's dirty socks, but really...

So what do they say about something like Snow White, where the princess is in a horrible situation but runs away?

I've noticed, over the last few months, that you can really make any sort of crazy claim you want about who is at the foundation of this or that evil in the world, and as long as you make enough people mad, you're sure to get every bit of publicity you wanted... :p

[Nightshade]

The psychologist was objecting to the Disney verision!
I think Ill get a copy of the artical tommorow :)
The memaid was Anderson yes that was really sad and possibly one of the most graphic paragraphs I ve ever read when shes got the knives in her legs and jumps off the cliff........
The objection to disney is that she accepts the emotional abuse from the steps and then somthing good happens I think..

[Snukes]

Ah well. You can argue it from 65 different angles up and down the trunk of a tree and still get nothing resolved. :p I suppose I just think that people who want to blame Disney movies for the bad things in the world must have some issues accepting responsibility...

[Bongitybongbong]

Ah well. You can argue it from 65 different angles up and down the trunk of a tree and still get nothing resolved. :p I suppose I just think that people who want to blame Disney movies for the bad things in the world must have some issues accepting responsibility...
I'm agreeing with Snukes.

[imthefoolonthehill]

we should ban anything and everything harmful to children.

especially water. they can drown you know. down with water!

[Nightshade]

Yes and food they can choke!!

[Nightshade]

Someone err soryy cant rember your name at the moment PM-d me about this and becasue of my faulty memory Id forgotten half of what Id put in here.
Right Ok Well here is the press relase by the psychologist http://www.derby.ac.uk/press-office/newslist.asp?ID=696
http://eu.transcoder.usablenet.com/tt/http://www.derby.ac.uk/press-office/newslist.asp?ID=696

[Schokokeks]

Furthermore, there seems to be a small but decisive error in the version adapted by the Brothers Grimm with regard that they probably failed miserable in French at school :D:

Everyone knows about Cinderella's shoe made of glass which helps the handsome prince to finally identify her. Sadly, if you believe the story, there was never meant to be any shoe of glass, at least not in the version the Grimms must have heard: They were probably comfortably sitting in the pub around the corner sipping their excellent German beer when they heard some French guy at the neighbouring table babbling something about a poor but beautiful young girl, a wicked step-mother and a happy end. So they attentively pricked up their ears and caught the first interesting point: "Elle portait un soulier de verre", prattled the Frenchman. "Ahh, a shoe made of glass! What a wonderful fairy-tale-like symbol!" And off they lurched to write down Cinderella's story...
What they probably never found out (or maybe they did but reckoned it less romantic...) was that the Frenchman presumably didn't mean soulier de verre, but soulier de vaire, which pronounces just the same but marks an important difference for the whole Cinderella-picture, as the word vaire describes a sort of Russian squirrel whose extremely expensive fur at that time was commonly used to put inside shoes as a protection against cold.

But, oh well, glass is much more picturesque than squirrel's fur ;)

[Nightshade]

Well I dont know , did the step mother put on the shoes and they glowed red with heat so she ended up dancing herself to death, in the original grimms watered down version?
Thats another thing I find amusing how they insisted on watering down the tales as unsuitable. and yet even then look how very grim ( yes I know an unworthy pun but couldnt resist) they are predisney and violence censoring.

[simon]

What with Disney running the fairy tale industry and making one general corporate story out of it, and one that's happy and feel good, I doubt it would influence girls to enter into abusive relationships, but rather wait for a prince dreamy-eyed until they realize there's no such thing. That's more likely to be where the danger will come from, a counter prince charming with your badass boy in retaliation of dashed childhood dreams manouver and you have the start of a downward relationship spiral. Disillusionment is more detrimental.

[Nightshade]

NO I think Lets see hummm
ok lets see if you have a girl with what one would say not the most suited of paerents (say they treat her even like the disney cinderella) but more than just chores ok?
now I belive the idea is becasue in fairtytales god person aka cinderella get rewared for being good and patient ie not rebelling/ trying to help herself. she gt prince
Hence the real girl might just stan d for it becasue good comes to hose who wait you know.

:D

[Whifflingpin]

Ultimate_reward_through_sticking_to_the_task_laid_ on_one is a common theme in fairytales. It is a good message as well as a bad one - most good things in life that are worth achieving need to be gained through some kind of perseverence, often painful. Take away this message, and you end up with a population of marshmallows (which would suit Disney, maybe.)

The thing is to have lots of tales, so that all sorts of messages (even or especially conflicting ones) can be carried.

.

[Nightshade]

ok just came across the article while looking for somthing else http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1468359,00.html

Now next time I need it Ill be able to find it!
Also links between cinderella porno and learn ed helplessness (http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~ramadan/jacqui/cinderella.html)(cinderella syndrome)


And of course the cinderella complex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_complex)

[SleepyWitch]

I took a seminar on English Fairy Tales once and we talked about a similar problem.
Even if kids only read the happy-clappy children's version of the original fairy tales, fairy tales can make girls adopt traditional gender roles.
Even though there's no bashing or rape involved in the clean version, in most fairy tales the girl's role is to be passive and patiently wait for her prince to save her. She's only there to be married and her happiness depends on the prince, not on what she herself does.
I'm not sure about those findings about abusive relationships but I tend to agree that fairy tales (especially the dinseyfied versions) can help perpetuate traditional gender roles.