The
illiberal left is incapable of getting its priorities in order. As
Hollywood burns with allegations of pedophilia and widespread
sexual assault, 21st century
pearl-clutchers have instead set their sights on classic fairy
tales.
The
people we see on television are rarely the heroes they portray, and
their private lives more closely resemble those of the villains. Yet
instead of taking aim at these real-world monsters, an outspoken
woman by the name of Sarah Hall made the headlines recently in her
call for libraries to
ban Sleeping
Beauty.
In
light of the #MeToo movement, in which women came forward with lurid
allegations against the men who abused them, Hall decided that she,
too, was very much affected by the unfolding drama after she read
the classic fairy tale to her six-year-old .
In
a series of tweets that have since gone viral and has become the
hottest take of recent weeks, Hall called Sleeping
Beauty a problematic lesson for
children—teaching them that it’s okay for them to kiss a woman
without her consent.
Showing
no confidence in her own son Ben’s ability to tell right from wrong,
the 40-year-old mother from Hull, U.K. left a comment in her son’s
record book, and contacted his school to demand the book be removed
from circulation.
She
said: “In today’s society, it isn’t appropriate – my son is only
six, he absorbs everything he sees, and it isn’t as if I can turn it
into a constructive conversation.”
“I
don’t think taking Sleeping
Beauty books out of circulation completely
would be right. I actually think it would be a great resource for
older children, you could have a conversation around it, you could
talk about consent, and how the Princess might feel,” she added.
“But I’m really concerned about it for younger children, would
really welcome a conversation about whether this is suitable
material.”
Given
that the story revolves around a princess doomed to sleep forever,
being kissed to wake up would be a blessing.
It
would be ill-advised to perform any sexual act on someone
in a coma, unless you want them to take revenge on you—just
like in Kill
Bill, which was incidentally produced by Harvey Weinstein,
ironically enough.
Like Kill
Bill, Sleeping
Beauty is fictional, and there’s no way
anyone in their right mind would take it as a suggestion for them to
commit sexual assault, excluding woke moralists.
Given
the virality of Hall’s complaints and the propensity for social
justice warriors to find new things to whine about, Sleeping
Beauty may only be the tip of the social
justice iceberg in a new wave of attacks on classic fairy tales.
Here
are a few fairy tales, both classic and modern, social justice
warriors should find offensive.
Goldilocks,
white privilege
The
protagonist in Goldilocks is
clearly a product of white privilege, able to walk into the home of
three otherwise wild bears and consume all of their food while
destroying their beds. If she were a black man, they would’ve shot
her on sight and gotten away with it thanks to the castle doctrine.
The bears live in Texas.
The
Little Mermaid, miscegenation and conservative
relationships
The
Little Mermaid warns against the dangers of
race-mixing. A mermaid by birth, Ariel seeks to romance the prince
(thus also promoting traditional, and un-progressive concepts of
monogamous, heterosexual relationships) outside her species and ends
up paying the ultimate price upon his rejection of her love. The
prince denies Ariel by marrying a human woman, essentially
condemning Ariel to death instead of engaging in polyamory. Cruel.
Snow
White, misogyny and ableism
Racist
tropes about the fairness of Snow White’s skin aside, the fairy tale
promotes traditional gender roles right off the bat, and depicts the
only woman with agency as an evil queen whose only quality is
jealousy. When Snow White arrives at the home of the seven dwarves,
they immediately put her to work as their maid as they go off to
work in the mines.
The
dwarves themselves are depicted as squat, unattractive men with
psychiatric problems. The dwarves offer no sexual qualities to Snow
White, who seeks a straight white Chad to sweep in and rescue her
from the humdrum of living with seven men defined by their mental
illnesses—Sleepy suffers from narcolepsy, Bashful has social anxiety
disorder, Grumpy struggles with depression, and so forth. Their
diminutive stature and mental illnesses make them poor candidates
for romance, at least in the eyes of its authors.
Cinderella,
body shaming and gender roles
While
men get to be princes and nobles, the women in Cinderella are
forced into subservient roles. The titular character performs
housework while her sisters, who would normally share her duties,
lobby for the prince’s attention. She gains the prince’s attention
for a single night, and departs, leaving only a glass slipper
behind.
More
interested in her body and not in her mind, the prince seeks out
Cinderella through the glass slipper alone, as women line up to fit
themselves into it. Cinderella’s two step-sisters mutilate their
feet, which is something the beauty industry encourages women to do
to feel beautiful.
Ian
Miles Cheong is an outspoken journalist and writer for DANGEROUS.
He has contributed to the Daily Caller, The
Sun,
and Heat Street.
Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.