Little Red Riding Hood is arguably one of the most influential European fairy tales in the history of western civilization. A tale with origins in the tenth-century as an oral folktale, the story has been the subject of innumerable retellings and critical interpretations. According to Alan Dundes, one of the most influential folklorists of all-time, “Of the many scholars who have sought to interpret the tale of “Little Red Riding Hood”, few, if any, have had the expertise of Jack Zipes. In his book The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood (1983), he demonstrates his unique mastery of previous versions and discussions of the tale.” (121). In many ways the book is landmark socio-political analysis, exploring the origins of the tale and the controversial retellings. In his follow-up essay A Second Gaze at Little Red Riding Hood's Trials and Tribulations, Zipes explains, “I argued that the origins of the literary fairy tale can be traced to male fantasies about women and sexuality.” (78). He continues, “In particular, I tried to show how Charles Perrault and the Grimm Brothers transformed an oral folktale about the social initiation of a young woman into a narrative about rape in which the heroine is obliged to bear the responsibility for sexual violation.” (78). While there are many differences between the original folktale and the Perrault and Grimm versions, according to Zipes the key difference is that “the narrative perspective is sympathetic to a young peasant girl (age uncertain) who learns to cope with the world around her.” (80).
Red Riding Hood was once “shrewd, brave, tough, and independent.”, Zipes explains, “…before Charles Perrault refined and polished [her] according to his own taste and the conventions of French high society in King Louis XIVs time.” (78). While his argument against the Perrault revision is compelling and hard to contest, Zipes fails to acknowledge that fairy tales should continue to evolve with a constantly changing world. By updating and revising the original story, Charles Perrault arguably kept it alive and accessible to future generations. Considering Zipes wrote this analysis in 1983 decades before the internet-age, how do his ideas on Little Red Riding Hood hold up in an online-world? The internet, and social media in particular, has had an incalculable impact on humanity. Where Red Riding Hood walked through the forest and encountered the wolf, teenagers are traveling a much more complex and multifaceted “woods” online. While Social media is having a major impact on almost everyone in the world, a closer look reveals that teenage girls specifically are being impacted the most. Zipes’ claim that Perrault’s version of the story undermined the original folktale is compelling and merited; however, when we re-examine this argument in context with our online-world that is obsessed with social media, his revisions become more relevant than ever.
The Brothers Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood is by far the most popular edition, and most assume it’s the original story; however, the story actually originated as an oral folktale which Charles Perrault revised into a version called Le Petit Chaperon Rouge. According to Jack Zipes, “This tale became prominent in the seventeenth century because of the widespread superstitious belief in werewolves and the great witch hunt.” (44). The original oral folktale in it’s essence is about a little peasant girl who goes to visit her grandmother with freshly baked bread and butter, only to run into a werewolf in he woods. The werewolf asks her where she is going and which path she is taking, leading to the werewolf arrives at the grandmother’s house before the girl. He eats the grandmother, puts her flesh in a bin and her blood in a bottle. When the girl finally arrives after getting lost in the scenery of the woods, the werewolf dressed as her grandmother gives her the flesh to eat and the blood to drink. After she eats he tells her to take off her clothes and get in bed with him. She starts to ask a series of questions, including why grandmother was so hairy, which leads to the werewolf finally revealing that he intends to eat her. She then replies that she needs to go outside to “relieve herself”, so he ties a rope around her leg and allows her to go outside. In that moment she runs away resulting in the wolf failing to catch her. On the changes Perrault made to the original, Zipes explains “Instead of really warning girls against the dangers of predators in forests, the tale warns girls against their own natural desires, which they must tame. The brave little peasant girl, who can fend for herself and shows qualities of courage and cleverness, is transformed into a delicate bourgeois type, who is helpless, naive, and culpable, if not stupid.” (44). In the words, Perrault sanitized many aspects of the original folktale he did not see fit for children, cutting out aspects of her potential sexual interest in the werewolf. Was Perrault undermining the original or did sacrificing these elements make it more accessible as a cautionary tale?
While Zipes assumes that Perrault “totally corrupted” (44) the original, a closer look reveals that focusing the story into a cautionary tale made it’s wisdom more accessible and gave it more utility than ever before. According to Zipes in his book Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, “In the folktale the little girl displays a natural, relaxed attitude toward her body and sex and meets the challenge of a would-be seducer. In Perrault’s literary fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood is chastised because she is innocently disposed toward nature in the form of the wolf and woods, and she is raped or punished because she is guilty of not controlling her natural inclinations.” (44). Is Perrault really punishing Little Red Riding Hood for her natural inclinations, or is he using her death in the story as a clear message to not talk to strangers? In the original folktale, the peasant girl luckily manages to escape danger after getting in bed with the werewolf, but the reality is that most girls might not be so lucky. What if Perrault was right in emphasizing the idea that it is safer to avoid a potential murderous-wolf in the first place? What Zipes fails to acknowledge is that Perrault’s version of the story addresses the real-world threat of not only sexual predators in the world, but predators in general. The idea that Perrault “totally corrupted” (44) this tale is questionable considering Zipes himself acknowledges Perrault’s overall sincerity, saying “…despite his ironic attitude toward folklore and his double intention of writing for children and adults with moral fervor and charm, Perrault was most sincere in his intentions to improve the minds and manners of young people.” (32). What were Perrault’s intentions behind his revision? According to French folklorist Pierre Saintyves, in his book The Tales of Perrault and Parallel Narratives, “…we could consider this charming story a fable and suppose it was invented in order to teach young girls that they should not talk to strangers. This approximates Perrault’s own interpretation:” (211). Saintyves then quotes Perrault himself as he explains the meaning behind his revision of the story: “From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, and it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition, neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging in gentle. Following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!” (211). In Perrault’s own words, Little Red Riding Hood is a fable designed to teach girls to see through the disguises wolves wear, to be able to spot the dangerous wolf before it is too late. Not only did Perrault make the tale more accessible and applicable to the customs of his day in 17th century France, he also inadvertently made the tale much more relevant in today’s social-media-obsessed-world.
While it seems like social media is having a major impact on both teenage boys and girls equally, a closer look reveals that teenage girls are being effected the most. In her book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, Nancy Sales explores why girls go on social media all the time and what they are doing there. What makes her book stand out is the fact that she actually interviewed hundreds of teenage girls for the book, and was able to get accurate insight into their lives. Social media is “having a profound effect on the way they think and act, as well as on how they make friends, the way they date, and their introduction to the world of sex.” (10). While it’s obvious that teenage boys are affected equally as much by social media, teenage girls are the focus of this essay because as Sales points out, “of all groups of Americans, teenage girls are in fact the number one users of social media.” (9). Not only are teenage girls the number one users of social media, they are also the most objectified demographic using social media. As Sales points, “When girls post their pictures on Instagram or Snapchat or Facebook, they know they will be judged for their “hotness,” and in a quantifiable way, with numbers of likes. Social media, which gave us selfies, seems to encourage an undue focus on appearance for everyone, but for girls, this focus is combined with a pervasive sexualization of girls in the wider culture, an overarching trend which is already having serious consequences.” (13). In other words, girls are indirectly dehumanized by the structural-objectification inherent in the platform itself, with major effects on girls compared to boys.
Where Little Red Riding Hood traveled the woods as a geographical location in the story, today’s teenage girls travel the woods of the internet online. According to a girl Sales interviewed, “Social media is ninety-five percent of what happens in all relationships now,” she said. “How we talk is on social media. A lot of people don’t even meet; they just have boyfriends online. Girls meet their boyfriends online.” (107). Getting into a relationship with an individual one has never met in the physical-world before is a recent phenomena unique to the social media experience. The girl she interviewed continues, “I have a friend who just recently met a guy on social media—she never met him before in her life—and they were dating, and, like, that freaks me out, because what if he were a serial killer or something?” (107). As far as the story of Little Red Riding Hood goes, what could the woods symbolize? Jack Zipes argues that the woods represent “…the realm where the girl crosses the border between civilization and wilderness and goes beyond the dividing line to face death to live.” (45). In a lot of ways the internet represents a form modern-wilderness never before seen, exposing children to potential harm on so many fronts. Sales refers to a “2008 study in CyberPsychology & Behavior which found that considerable numbers of boys and girls had seen images of paraphilic or criminal sexual activity, including child pornography and sexual violence, at least once before the age of 18.” (102). Just as the woods in the story represented going into the unknown and being exposed to the darker aspects of society, the woods of the internet are doing just that to both boys and girls alike. We can assume that Jack Zipes preferred the original folktale instead of Perrault’s version because the peasant girl was free to get in bed with the wolf; however, just because she was lucky enough to escape danger doesn’t mean every girl would be as well. While Perrault himself stressed the importance of girls not talking to strangers in the story, ironically, the woods of social media encourage girls to get into relationships with people they have never met before. If social media mirrors Little Red Riding Hood’s journey through the woods, where could the seemingly-innocent-wolf be hiding?
As teenage girls travel the woods of the internet, the biggest wolves-in-disguise are social media platforms. While Zipes does not agree with Perrault’s version emphasizing the importance of not talking to strangers, this wisdom is needed now more than ever. In all versions of Little Red Riding Hood the girl encounters a wolf in the woods, and he asks her a series of innocent questions about where she is going and what she is doing. When the girl encounters the wolf of the first time he doesn’t appear dangerous, that is until later on when he uses the information he gathered against her and her grandmother. Social media platforms themselves are not threatening the lives of it’s users like the wolf in the story; however, they are alarmingly wolf-like in the way they extract information from girls online. Just as Perrault said, “all wolves are not of the same sort” (Santyves 211) in the world, this applies to the different types of social-media-wolves online. According to Sales, “Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and online pinboards such as Pinterest were the most popular sites for girls.” (10). What all these social media sites have in common is their effortless ability to get people to publicize online what used to be intimate private details of their lives. Of all the social-media-wolves, Facebook is the biggest and baddest one. For example, even the Facebook home page layout is reminiscent of the girl’s first encounter with the wolf; when one signs in they are greeted with a “What’s on your mind?”. This layout reflects an observation Jack Zipes makes about the girl’s first encounter with the wolf: “She gazes into his eyes which are practically on the same place as hers while he leans on his cane and addresses her in a friendly way. It is as though he were standing on a corner waiting for her to come by.” (98). The girl looking into the wolf’s eyes in many ways resemble her staring at her phone as the “user-friendly” Facebook homepage “addresses her in a friendly way” (98). Social Media sites are designed to be easily accessible, with the primary goal of extracting information from the user. One could argue that there’s no harm in sharing things on social media as long as you limit the exposure of your information to only the friends in your network. While this is a great point about preventing your information from getting into the wrong hands, there is always the possibility of a wolf-hiding-in-disguise being one of your “friends”. In Nancy Sales’ book she describes an alarming trend where social media networks are being used by teens in the form of blackmail. She learned about a trend where teenage girls are being peer-pressured into sending nude photos of themselves to boys. She explains, “If you don’t send them nudes, they say you’re a prude. Once they do send them however, the way they get more of them is by blackmailing the girls. Cassy, a girl who experienced this first hand explains, “They say, oh, I have embarrassing pictures of you, if you don’t send nudes I’ll send them all out on social media.” (49). As Perrault said, “..all wolves are not of the same sort” (Santyves 211), and the social-media-blackmailer is just one example of the many social-media-wolves that teenage girls are encountering. It appears that most of the harm on social media is caused by the people who use the social media site, not the platform itself. However, just as Perrault said, it’s the seemingly-gentle-wolves that are the most dangerous creatures.
Both Zipes and Perrault could not have predicted the internet-age we live in, which is simultaneously the most complex and interesting time to be alive in human history. Perrault’s world in 17th century France and even Jack Zipes 1983 American point-of-view in America simply could not have predicted the technological revolutions we are living through right now. Where in 17th century France one had the option to walk the woods, in today’s world it seems like traveling the woods-of-social-media is not an option anymore. One cannot just disconnect from the internet considering it has interwoven itself into almost every facet of life now. If one does not have a Facebook account in today’s world, you are in many ways self-outcasted by that choice. Where the girl had the option to travel the woods or not, it seems like that window-of-choice is fading away.
After gathering information from the girl in the woods, the wolf did not strike immediately but instead waited until later. In a lot of ways humanity has just encountered the social-media-wolf. If social media platforms are wolf-like by gathering our information, we all as a society must ask ourselves: what are they planning to do with it? After all, social media is arguably still in it’s infancy; just as we users are like Little Red Riding Hood when she got lost in the woods, picking daisies after her first encounter with the wolf.
References
Dundes, Alan. Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. 1989. Print.
Saintyves, Pierre. The Tales of Perrault and Parallel Narratives. Paris: Slatkin Reprint, 2000. Print.
Sales, Nancy Jo. American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers. Toronto: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 2016. Kindle.
Zipes, Jack. The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood. New York: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1983. Print.
Zipes, Jack. A Second Gaze at Little Red Riding Hood's Trials and Tribulations. Baltimore: The Lion and the Unicorn. 1983. Print.
Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. New York: Routledge Classics. 2012. Kindle.
