The new PC fairy tales

doodlebug

New Member
The new PC fairy tales

What's your take on politically correct fairy tales? A number of them have been rewritten so as not to offend anyone or portray women as submissive to men. And some groups have tried to get them banned from schools because they are too violent and sexist. What do you think about that?
 

vicki2

New Member
I think it's silly. Of course, I'm the wrong one to ask about political correctness at all. I think the whole PC ideleology has jumped the shark so to speak in that it served a purpose and is now detrimental for the most part.
We shouldn't revise passed down knowledge for a momentary wave of making it more palatable.
 

jak80

New Member
I think that being polically correct in this sense is just not right. Fairy tales are very old stories and to try to change them is just wrong. I think that they were written for a purpose and no one should change them.
 

Melos

New Member
I'm with vicki - political correctness has gone mad. Also... these stories are someone's art, their creation! How do you mess with someone's art just to make them less offensive. Any woman that gets offended because Cinderella is scrubbing the floor rather than some man is just an idiiot.
 

palefrost

New Member
I dont know if i agree. Some of the old tales have stereotypes and cultural excepted biases that are not really something i would want to pass on to my child.

I would first read though the story to see what changes were made before i judge it. I would leave out overly violent deaths.

As long as the moral of the story is intact i dont see anything wrong with updating a version that's appropriate for this generation.

I'm not saying we should eliminate the old versions but clearly state the difference. Maybe the little ones will be interested in reading them later on.
 

jason

empty
I would rather read a less violent version to my kids (providing I have any). The original ones are a great read for adults, but for a 2 or 3 year old kid, it may be too much. I could see possibly as they get older.
 

LilOne1989

New Member
This whole politically correct thing really gets under my nerves. Leave things alone make the new ones all prim and proper but leave the old ones alone. It is just another form of censorship and I can do that for my kids myself if and when they need it. I don't need someone else coming in and telling me what is right and wrong, I got a brain that works pretty good, I think I can figure it out myself.
 

vicki2

New Member
While I understand a parent's concern for their child, I don't think it is right to arbitrarly change a story that's a hundred years old for the sake of making it more palable to today's child. So, in another 25 years someone else has a problem with today's version, changes it again, and soon there's no story left.
There are plenty of sanitized modern stories for children, I'm sure.
 

doodlebug

New Member
It's been a while since I've read one, but the stories do not read anywhere near the same. Instead of charming, they are almost comical. It's one thing to alter a story slightly, but I have a problem with the whole PC thing, too. I have yet to meet anyone who prefers the PC versions, so I can't help but wonder why bother?
 

vicki2

New Member
I find interesting the difference in reactions to this question from people who have children and those who don't. In some ways, I can understand that people want more sanitized stories for their children. But, as a childless person, I would hope that stories are passed down for what they are and not changed with the times. There are loads of new stories, right?
 

Plumley

New Member
I think it's sad when something has to be "fixed" because it might offend someone. People need to take responsibility for their feelings and feeling offended is no different from feeling angry or sad. It's fine to ask other people to help you deal with your feelings. Where we go wrong is our expectation that everyone should be responsible for something that someone else may feel.

As for making fairy tales "safe" for children, that's the parents' responsibility. We're in a bad situation when we expect someone else to look our for our kids.

Generations of people grew up with the unabridged fairy tales and I don't see any evidence that it made the world a worse place.
 

LilOne1989

New Member
With technology today kids know more things than I ever dreamed of as child, what good is changing the wording of a story going to do to protect them from something that is perceived negative by someone else. When I was little we had three TV channels and maybe four radio channels to choose from, today you got thousands of them not to mention internet and it's wealth of knowledge. I think that if you want to raise a child in a certain type of moral way it is going to take a lot more than changing the wording in a few stories.

Hey Plumley I swear I wasn't coping your answer. I just read yours when mine posted, we must have been on the same wavelength today :) .
 

Slashmire

New Member
It does show how the world is coming too; for ages those tales have been accepted and nobody complained about it. So why would now someone would find it offensive if generations did not...
 

vicki2

New Member
I certainly lay the issue of edited fairy tales at the feet of those who are still so politically correct that they forget history! If we sanitize things too much, what's left?
 

Maggielle

New Member
Political Correctness

Political correctiveness has succeeded in completely sterilizing everything that we hear everyday. The news, the radio, the stories that we read our children. In an effort to not offend we have created a world full of people that are supposed to be the same but by will of God are not. We are not allowed to mention people's differences, but they exist. What is that teaching our children? That it's okay to lie as long as it will protect someone's feelings?
 

doodlebug

New Member
It is rather ironic, isn't it? I mean, these stories were passed down for generations to teach children about growing up and life in general and now some people want to change them because they are not always so sweet. Well, isn't that the whole point? Life isn't always sweet. Most kids know that so why hide it from them?

The thing I find even more interesting is that there's such a big deal about sanitizing children's stories, yet I know a lot of kindergarten children who have seen more R rated movies in the past year than I have in my entire life!
 

Maggielle

New Member
Children of PC Tales

I will say one thing on the whole note of pc learning. My daughter came home the other day talking about a girl at school with a very ethnic name. She said something about her talking a certain way and couldn't understand why she spoke differently. So I asked her, "what color is her skin?" Thinking this would help me clarify for my daughter the child's ethnicity and thus the different speech. My daughter's reply was "I don't know."
I stopped myself from prying any further simply because I didn't want to darken the innocence. I just simply said that many children speak like their families and that America is a melting pot. Lots of people who live in lots of different countries come here because it is better than other places. She seemed satisfied with the answer.
 
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