Rewriting the Fairytale Essay Example

In our modern world, fairytales are being changed and rewritten every day, and some people do not know why. I think we keep rewriting fairytales and that it is essential, we do so because they have become outdated in our integrated and complex world. 

Initially, fairytales were told orally or in books for children, and people would become attached to them because of nostalgia. More recently, because of Disney, people are even more attached to the stories. Unlike stories told orally or in a storybook, a movie cannot be preserved perfectly and will not be changed or damaged due to time. So more people can be exposed to the story and get attached to it. For example, if Disney had not made Mulan, my mom would have never heard the story because she did not grow up in a culture where she would have heard it. My mom loves this movie, and she insisted that we pay to watch the live-action version on Disney+. Disney’s animated princess movies took stories from different cultures and made them mainstream. The films have become vital to our cultures and are a common way to teach children lessons about kindness. 

As a result of people’s attachment to these stories, we do not want them to lose them to time. For example, my dad forces the whole family to sit down and watch Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas every Christmas. He loved the movie when he was a kid and forced us to watch it because he wanted us to have that experience. Also, if the fairytales disappeared, we would lose a big part of our culture. These stories have stayed with us for centuries, and even though they have been rewritten so many times, they preserve people’s thinking in a specific time and place. People feel a sense of pride when a famous fairytale's setting is in their city. For example, they have a little mermaid statue in Copenhagen to honor Hans Christen Andersen and his story because Hans Christen Andersen was from Denmark. They are immensely proud of his story. 

Unfortunately, people from cultures outside of Europe and Russia cannot relate to the characters in famous fairytales because they cannot see themselves or their cultures in them. Lots of stories from cultures around the world have been written out of history due to prejudice. Because the world is becoming more connected, people are speaking out and saying they want to see themselves in the stories they read and tell to their children. We’re rewriting our already popular stories because they can reach more people and so everyone can see themselves in a character and the character’s world. We’re also adding new morals to the stories because as we’re progressing as a world, we want to teach new lessons. For example, in Disney’s original Cinderella movie Cinderella is kind to everyone and wants to get away from her evil stepfamily who abuses her kindness. In the newest Cinderella movie by Amazon, Cinderella keeps those attributes, but she also is an ambitious dressmaker trying to start her own business in a male-dominated field. By adding more depth to the character, young girls learn to be kind to people and not give up when people tell them they can’t do something. 

In conclusion, we love our fairytales, and we don’t want them to disappear, but they’re becoming outdated, and not enough people can relate to them, so we keep rewriting them.