What I Researched and Why?
So the final reading assignment for this class was to read Roald Dahl’s version of Little Red Riding Hood which pokes fun at the original tale and completely changes the ending. Little Red in this case, tricks the wolf with linguistic play, shoots him in the head and is next seen not wearing a red cloak, but a “lovely wolfskin coat.” So I wanted to go on-line and research and hopefully find a video, a parody of Little Red, anything that could encapsulate the semester through Little Red Riding Hood which we began with in August/September. I wanted to find something that showed childhood innocence, naughtiness, rebellion, with good images or video, and something fun.
What I found?
I found the perfect video on Youtube (what we would have done without this website, I do not know) of a song by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs from 1966. The song is very bouncy and catchy and is all about the singer being the wolf and desiring a young lady (his little red riding hood), and being her protection from other wolves on the way to grandmother’s house. The bottom line is that he is trying to make ‘little red’ trust him because wolves aka men cannot usually be trusted, to erase the notion that wolves can’t love. Also, with the song, which fits in perfectly with this class the images accompanying the song are from a wide variety of picture books and photographs that show Little Red Riding Hood “through the ages of time.” I found this video particularly interesting not only for its linguistic value but as great visual value (as we’ve been discussing in our picture book and movie lately in class). Here are the links to the video and the lyrics:
video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ql4-Asw3hCclyrics:
http://www.tsrocks.com/s/sam_the_sham_and_the_pharaohs_texts/little_red_riding_hood.html
My Interpretation
First, going back at looking at the song’s lyrics, there is much that could be said here. At the beginning of the semester, we discussed childhood innocence and naivety and falling into the traps of the big bad wolf (or men desiring a girl dressed in a red cloak symbolizing pureness). This song, yes it’s 1966 but more modern than the stories we read, is about men trying to regain the innocent girl’s trust that he is, in fact, one of the good wolves out there, “Little Red Riding Hood…I'd like to hold you if I could…But you might think I'm a big, bad wolf, so I won't.” The song comments on her budding sexuality talking her full lips and the big eyes that drive the wolves mad. Here it seems that the man is trying desperately to make the girl desire him back, to regain female trust in the male. The fact that he needs to stay in the sheep’s clothing the whole time is very interesting in gaining that trust, “What a big heart I have…The better to love you with…Little Red Riding Hood…Even bad wolves can be good.”
Looking at the visual accompaniment from the video, I found this is particularly great for this class, it shows various pictures of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in different, unique ways with some more traditional pictures and some more modern day ones. I counted eight traditional pictures of Little Red Riding Hood (:08, :20, 1:08, 1:27, 1:36, 1:56, 2:05, 2:14) that showed her as most know her, little, young, innocent, rosy-cheeked, red cloak, fair skinned and pure. There was one (:45) that showed her as more abstract and a darker Little Red. Also there were three pictures (:29, 1:00, 2:23) that showed her as an older teenage girl, fair enough to call a couple of them almost-a-woman, as oversexed, showing full lips, their legs and their bodies (particularly the last image), this being the more rebellious and naughty child. As for the wolf, they were shown as wild and uncivilized throughout, much like Tom Sawyer. Six images showed the wolf howling wildly, two images as an imposing physical beast intimidating Little Red, one image as the wolf being conniving and sneaky, and two images of men wearing wolf masks. Little Red was shown as innocent usually but naughty with the use of her sexuality, while on the other hand, the wolves (boys) were shown as wild and uncivilized brutes who tried to capture the young lady.
What This Adds to the Discussion:
I think the video, song and images, shows what we’ve talked about in previous four months in terms of childhood historically and the relation between boys and girls. This brief video shows the transition from the innocent young lady who is considered pure become naïve, entranced by the wolf, tricked by the wolf, and be shown as a sexual object which in some circles, as we have discussed is seen as naughty much like the transition Lindsay Lohan makes in Mean Girls from innocent to one of the crowd and mean. And it shows the transition from a young exploring boy becoming a wild, uncivilized wolf like Tom Sawyer and now through the song, wanting to regain the female’s trust.
8 comments:
It's just so interesting... this image of a female in red and a wolf. Courtney, I was up by Proffessor West's office and saw the poster hanging on your own office door. I stood there entranced for several minutes taking in everything that a simple image can mean. Fascinating. History, fiction, culture, family, tradition, gender... it doesn't end in little red.
I wrote my first paper on what makes Little Red Riding Hood so adaptable. It is fasciniating to see how much it can change and what it can represent. Also, it was just a coincidence that in one of my writing classes this semester, our assignment was to rewrite our own version of little red. We got to read everyone's stories, and it was really interesting to see how the base of the story could work in almost any direction. It tied in really well with this last reading assigment.
Wow, I had completely forgotten how interesting these lyrics were. I especially like that Red Riding Hood is referred to as a "little big girl," which explicitly combines her youth and innocence with maturity and sexuality, even going so far as to suggest that innocence and sexuality aren't separate but connected things. Little Red "drives wolves mad" not just because of her "big eyes," but also because of her innocence and youth.
It's amazing how Little Red Riding hood could really be connected and discussed with almost everything we did this year. It has such basic themes (innocence, maturity, savagery) and sets up very dynamic dualities that it is the quinisential starting point for many children literature arguments. after this class, i'm beginning to wonder why we never talked about it in any of my other children's lit classes.
I like modern versions of what we have previously discussed in class. It allows us to see modern interpretations of a classical tale. By watching the video and looking at the video we can see subject matter we have discussed in class for previous works, are still apparent today (relatively since it is from 1966), but it helps reinforce the themes that will always be a part of the tale. The story can be used in various ways and I think that seeing it as a video/lyrically as well provides us with a modernized source to apply the theories we have discussed throughout the class. By examining such material we can apply the older types of analyzing we have discussed at the begining of the semester with Little Red Riding Hood in a more modern way, that may be more accessible/interesting to us because it is not a tale from the 1600's.
I don't know if anyone has seen the movie "Hard Candy" or not. The movie poster is here:
http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0424136/candyonesheet.jpg
Everyone involved with the movie will swear themselves blue in the face that there was no intentional allusion to Little Red Riding Hood. Yet the movie is about a man who stalks girls on the internet, seduces them, and kills them. The little girl in the movie picture finds out, goes to his "den," and ends up doing all sorts of nasty things to him (ending in his death).
If this really wasn't intentional, then it's fascinating how the image of a little girl in red (a subconscious choice?) being seduced by a "wolf" has permeated our thoughts so thoroughly that we make choices like that without even thinking about it. "Hard Candy" is also a tale of the girl overcoming the wolf (in this case with a noose, not a gun).
I think it's amazing how many different adaptations there can be of LRRH. Orenstein mentions several in sex and the city episodes, commercials, and movie adaptations. This one small fairy tale has captivated audiences for hundreds of years and yet still is simple enough to be adaptable today. Now that's a story.
I think it is odd that every time we talk about innocent girls we are given a picture of a young, meek looking little girls and when we are shown a girl with more power we are assuming that she is more sexual and that she uses her sexuality. Sexuality in the story of little red and the different versions shows that with sexuality power can be gained and it can be taken away. We tend to be teaching young girls in a lot of books and stories that sex/sexuality is a tool to be used for manipulation.
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