Fractured fairytale?

Taking flight from my previous post, I mentioned the well known fairytale 'Sleeping Beauty', in particular Charles Perrault's version. So what can I say, my brief reference of this fairytale sparked a flame of interest and there I was reading about many other classic ones on Wikipedia soon after (lol), realising, though they may be classics, and heard them many times, I don't know them as well as I thought I did.

We have all heard of the term 'fractured' being put in front of the word 'fairytale', giving the description 'fractured fairytale,' to contemporary interpretations/retellings/alterations etc... A popular one is Shrek the DreamWorks animation film and subsequent sequals. So with all these new retellings, how many of us actually know the originals and there underlying morals? To be fair it's hard to pin point which are the originals since like 'fractured fairytales' there were many variants of even the earliest versions, the more well known being Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.

Modern interpretations, retelling after retelling have no doubt lead to a "chinese whispers" effect, though not to a large extent but through subtle omissions, altering details and perhaps a simplifying or dilution of meaning. Cinderella, possibly the most adored fairytale of them all, with many differring orgines, from version to version, the most popular one that of Perrault's with his inclusion of the fairy-godmother and the glass slippers, but... Who remember's how many times Cinderella attended the ball? Once? Yes, once? Well it was actually twice, she got to wear two different gowns; losing her slipper on the second night. I may in my faintest of all memories recall being told that version only once in my childhood. For all I know she attended it just the once in my memory of all sequent retellings I have heard since.

Aside from the culling of these seemingly insignificant details it's probably more insightful and possibly a bit shocking that some of these other classic fairy tales whose prime audience today are young children have had more gruesome versions and moral interpretation of more sensitive matters. The meaning of fairy tales today have been dulled down and sugar coated with simplistic morals and 'happily ever afters' to protect the innocence of our minds. First editions of Grimm's fairy tales have shockingly, a pregnant Rapunzel ignorant of her condition; in Cinderella, the stepsister's gruesomely cut off parts of their feet and are blinded by pigeons; has Rumpelstiltskin tear his body into two; the stepmother in Snow White being her jealous real mother instead. Sleeping Beauty too, having variations of being a two part story predating the Grimm's, told by Perrault whose has an even earlier variant by Giambattista Basile, whose tale Sun, Moon and Talia had Talia as she is known as, giving birth to twins after being impregnated by the prince all while being asleep! Gruesome I do say, not even going into the underlying morals of the innocent Little Red Riding Hood.

So here I am to say starting this post on a platform of delight and innocence, and ending it with gratitude to the storytellers of my childhood for their sugar coating of 'happily ever afters' all the while wanting to re-coat these 'fractured' fairy tales that are all what they are to me now.