Does everyone know the story of Little Red Riding Hood? The way it goes is like this. A little girl who wears a red cape (hence the name) is taking some food to her grandmother who is sick. On her way to Grandma’s house she meets a wolf who asks her to give him her food. She refuses, but she does tell the wolf where she’s going.
He suggests that she pick flowers to take to Grandma, and while she does the wolf runs ahead to Grandma’s house and pretends to be Little Red Riding Hood. Grandma opens the door, and the wolf gobbles her up. The wolf then dresses like grandma and gets into her bed. When Red Riding Hood shows up the wolf tells her to come in.
Little Red Riding Hood does notice a few weird things about Grandma. Things like big eyes, pointed ears, a hoarse voice, and big teeth. When she mentions teeth, the wolf tries to eat her, but she screamed and ran away. A woodsman heard her calling and rescued her from the wolf. He chopped the wolf open, and Grandma jumped out safe and alive.
This story is one of Grimm Brothers fairy tales, but it has been retold many times across Europe. I don’t know if we’d want such a dark story for children today, but fairy tales were usually meant to teach children how to behave. They could get pretty dark.
If I were rewriting it I don’t think I’d change anything except toward the end. When the wolf knocked on Grandma’s door he’d get more than he bargained for. Grandma was a karate instructor in the local town so the wolf had no chance to eat her. She flipped him around until he hobbled away with his tail tucked between his legs. When Red Riding Hood got there, she and Grandma would have lunch and Grandma would tell her the story of the wolf. What genre is this? Oh, action/adventure for sure. Are we empowering women here?
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