I’m not sure why, but I seem to have a leaning towards fairy tales in this round of InkTober. Although I’ve only written one post where I’ve cited a couple of stories, I’ve been thinking about fairy tales quite a bit recently. In fact, the first things that jumped into my mind when I read the prompt ‘trail’ were an actual trail through a forest and, of course, “Hansel and Gretel” who dropped bread crumbs along a trail as they ventured deep into the woods so they could find their way home. Spoiler alert: Animals eat the crumbs and they get lost.
My understanding is that what was first recorded by the brothers Grimm was not at all suitable for children and when I think of the themes of some of the most well-known fairy tales I can see how that could be the case. I know that modern-day fairy tales are sanitized versions of the originals, which were re-written so that they could be told to children and I think it might be time for me to read some of the originals. I’m curious to see how the Grimm’s Fairy Tales from the early 19th century compare when put side-by-side with the Disney interpretations that are so influential in our society today.
I guess I’ve just given myself a reading assignment…
My Small Surrenders 
You should track down the children’s comics German children were raised on the 1920s? 1930s?
There was a series about 2 young boys who were always playing pranks on people. In one, they play a prank on the man who runs the local flour mill. When he catches them, he throws them into the mill’s hopper, grinds them up in the flour, and sells the bagged bloody flour.
Perhaps Hitler’s sociopathology wasn’t entirely due to childhood abuse, WW1 PTSD and the drugs his doctor was injecting him with. 😉
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That’s horrific!
I know that in original fairy tales the violence can be graphic but that comic sounds insane.
Thanks for letting me know about it, but I’m not sure I want to look up that one…
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It’s out there somewhere.
Still, the “good old USA” has one of the highest rates of violence (world champions of gun crime, no challengers!)…maybe we should be looking to the ‘fairy tales’ we’re raising OUR children by? 😦
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I’m sure there must be academic studies done that aren’t widely shared/available to the public.
I don’t know that the average person gives enough consideration to the subliminal messages we are exposed to every day in our societies.
Cartoons that children watch have a high degree of violence in their content. I’ve been shocked at times when I’ve caught glimpses of programs directed at children, but then I remember cartoons I grew up watching. Think of Wiley Coyote and the Road Runner or even Tom and Jerry. Those characters went to great lengths to defeat each other.
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I read sciencedaily.com, also some of the academic paper sites like arkiv.org (could be wrong on exact domain).
As one who also grew up watching (and learning from) Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, the Roadrunner and Tom and Jerry. I think you could almost argue that Bugs and Tweety Bird show sociopathic behavior!
From what I learned in cultural anthropology, “culture” is behavior that we learn and practice without even being aware of it. So if the culture’s way of handling conflict is to fight a duel, that’s what you do.
American culture and violence has roots that go back through the Middle Ages (Punch and Judy, anyone?), the Angles and Saxons in which violence was honored and expected, back into the old Roman culture built on a dominance-and-submission hierarchy in which most human lives had little value and brutal violence was considered perfectly appropriate – and popular entertainment.
Before Rome, the ancient Greeks – for all they celebrated intellectual and artistic achievements – still glorified the arts of war in their Olympic games.
The most highly respected were the athletes who won the event that was basically a no-rules group fight (to injury or death, winner was last man standing or the last one to die) using the full arsenal of Greek unarmed martial arts. (Sorry, i don’t remember the name of the event. It made every modern event short of actual war look like a children’s birthday party.)
Now how much of that was rooted in the other parts of the world that their ancient ancestors came from (the Caucasus, India, Africa) is beyond me! But I’m sure it was around since Rome and the ancient Greeks weren’t the first to go a-conquering for empire.
Chimps are brutal and violent. Bonobos are not. Which one are we most related to?
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Interestingly, I also studied cultural anthropology too so I’m familiar with that definition of culture.
We do learn from the behaviours we witness (positive & negative), but I’m not sure a lot of people in the world truly understand that because if they did they might behave differently in front of impressionable individuals. Whether that might be children or people new to your particular culture who may not know the subtleties of words or the dangers of certain actions.
Because the arts tend to thrive during times of peace. there have been many debates about how it was possible for the Ancient Greeks to have been so creative when they were constantly at war. This has led to the theory that all they claimed to have created they actually stole from others, which would actually falls in line with the predominant theme of violence in human culture.
BTW: the Ancient Greek martial art is called Pankration and it means “all of the might”
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