What I researched and why
As the class came to an end we were asked to re-look and rethink about Little Red Riding Hood. By ending with the same topic/story as we began the course, we are able to look at the tale in a new light with new analytical tools. I looked for a video, a new media tool, that looked at the tale in a new way, much in the way that we are able to now look at this story. By looking at a new media tool in conjunction with a new version of the classic tale, we can gain a better understanding of how the deeper meaning of the tale that we have previously discussed are brought to light in a modern way.
What you found and how you are interpreting it
I found a video on http://www.youtube.com/ that gives a clip of the recent movie (2005) "Hoodwinked!" directed by Todd and and Cory Edwards. The clip that I have are parts of the "Red's Story" portion of the movie. I chose this clip because of its modern interpretations of the classic tale. In the clip there is a part when Little Red asks the wolf if she needs to get a restraining order against him. This is taking a modern concept, a restraining order, and applying it to the classic story. This modern take helps us understand how a similar situation in modern times could possibly happen. The idea that Little Red Riding Hood is a sexualized tale is further illustrated by this clip because typically when people have sexualized crimes commited against them, a restraining order is a part of the sentencing (in most cases). This gives a modern take on the classic issue of the wolf and Little Red's sexualized relationship. This movie (although not shown in the clip provided) takes different accounts of the same story. So the wolf tells his version of what happened along with the other characters of the story. This provides incite into the minds of the characters about what happened. Where the wolf thinks Little Red is to blame for the incident and he did nothing of a harmful sort to anyone. I interpret this clip as a modern view on a classic tale that give incite into the inner thinkings of the characters so that we can critically analyze their actions and their reactions to what happened. There have been tales telling the side of the wolf as apposed to Little Red, and this movie/clip shows all side to the same story (although they are very different from one another). This movie allows us to rethink the fallacies associated with the Little Red Riding Hood tales, and helps us to better understand a more modern approach to a classical story.
Clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-G_0O5BxtM
What you think it adds to class
I think this is a good wrap up to the class. It provides a modern interpretation to a story that we read different versions of. It is a good end to this course and our class discussion because we can take our newly learned and typically newly known criticism (i.e. newer forms of criticism) to analyze a tale that we have already analyzed. This clip, as previously stated, provides us with a new media outlet for us to analyze a Little Red tale that is vastly different from the stories we have previously read. By having a new form of a story we have already critically analyzed, it allows us to rethink how we previously viewed the tale through a new outlet. By looking at this video clip we can see a modern approach to a classic tale, something that can help the class reanalyze their original ideas of the tale in a new light. By ending with a Little Red tale we can apply all the critical approaches we have learned throughout the semester and can gain a better and more modern interpretation of the classic (much like "Hoodwinked!" does).
4 comments:
It's strange that I haven't watched this movie yet. It just seems like something I would like. But this movie goes to show that old classics are still important in film making (because,god forbid should anybody be daring enough to come up with an original idea rather than reimagine old fairy tales or make sequels to Shrek). But, judging from the clip, this reimagining of Little Red shows the self assertive Red for the new millenia. This story, and other fairy tales of its kind, are timeless in a sense. Most people know the stories (or variations of them), but it's good to keep them in circulation by reinventing thm for modern viewers. I think it helps to show the evolution of storytelling. What started off as oral stories that were told from person to person have now become blockbuster movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce.
I think this "Version" of LRRH is likely to be fascinating. Of course, this seems to give back the sense of agency which is lost after all of the revisions to the original "Grandmother's Tale." Little Red is back to saving herself (and everything else in the forrest apparently) and I think this is back to sending the positive message for kids in that they don't always need an adult to rescue them.
I think it is great that people are remaking old stories. They bring the tale up to present time and enable more people to actually connect with the story. When people started writing down the oral tales they stoped evolving and changing to fit the culture and times with this update of the tale in Hoodwinked we are able to see how the tale may have manifest if it had not stopped evolving.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with Molly's assertion that oral tales stop evolving once written down. I would suggest that Little Red Riding Hood has not only not stopped evolving, but in the past 100 years gone through more drastic changes than it had in all the years that came before it. Just looking at our Orenstein text, there are dozens of different versions of the tale and in modern times a variety of uses for the tale that were never imagined before the tale was recorded. I would suggest that simply by recording a tale, we don't stop its transformation, but rather keep a snapshot of what it looked like at a particular stage in its still continuing evolution.
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