On Fairy tales and Love

I know, I know, I should be studying, but now that spring has decided to come, its reminded me of a couple of things, like love, and fairies. You know, cultures used to believe that fairies brought the seasons. Throughout the course of history, there have been several hundred, maybe even thousand versions of fairy tales.  You have the ones as common as Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, you have the ones with morals, such as Grimm's fairy tales, and simply the culture's stories themselves - The Golden Fish (Chinese), The Blue Bottle (Irish), etc. In all reality, some of these tales were viciously gruesome - Cinderella, for example...well, I won't get into it. Some fairy tales weren't even about love, they were about the relationship between families, often siblings - the Seven Swans is one of my particular favorites.

It was thanks to Walt Disney that fairy tales began to become so love-oriented. And of course, some of them can be taken as simply that way. "Follow your heart" has become the typical 'fairy tale nonsense', and most blame it on Disney. Well, guess what. It's Disney's fault. BUT that does not mean that it is always a bad thing. Yeah, when you repeat it over and over it gets dull. But if its always so bad, allow me to pose a question - why do Disney movies STILL fly off the shelves?

I'll answer that for you, since I'm assuming don't want to (it was rhetorical anyway). There are actually two answers - the first one is that the movies aren't all about love. A I said before, fairy tales are often more about other things - Peter Pan, for example. Childhood. And might I remind you all, Winnie the Pooh is also a Disney movie. You could make the argument that it is based off of books - well, so are the others. Ok, I will give it to you - Cinderella is a strict love story. But you can hardly make the argument that Beauty and the Beast is like that - its about the growing relationship and falling in love that happens between two people, not a oh-Im-so-in-love-with-you-because-I-just-met-you. As Mrs. Potts famously sings "Bittersweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were wrong." Beauty and the Beast is a true love story.

But as I said before, there are two answers. And here is the second one. The world can be harsh and cynical, and pretty high up on the list of what they are harsh on is love. The thing about modern people in respect to fairy tales is this - they want them, so they act like they don't. No matter how hard they convince themselves that happy endings are for nerd and dreamers, they know that that very ending is what they hope for. No matter how much they say 'fairies are for children', its because they wish they could believe in them still. No matter how much they pretend that doom and death is the answer to life, they want to think that it is love. They say love stories and fairy tales aren't 'realistic'. Unfortunately for them, love IS realistic. And it happens everyday. And they want it to be realistic. They want to be the characters in Disney. They  pretend to think its cool to be suave and epic, and 'not care what other people think of them'. Well everyone cares what other people think of them. Everyone loves at some point in their life. Everyone wants a happy ending to their story. Quoting National Treasure a couple of times: "'People don't talk that way.' 'I know. But they think that way.'" And then again: "'People don't believe that stuff anymore.' 'They want to believe it.'" Ok, enough NT. But its true. And so is love. And, to a much lesser extent, so are fairies  Truly, that's what a fairy tale is - when the world of love and the world of childhood collides. When you are little, you read them because they are what you believe. When you are a teen/adult, you read them because they are what you WANT to believe. And when you are old, you read them to look back. In the end, everyone will reap what they sow. As for me, I'm going about the way of love carefully, and planting seeds of caution, but openness - "Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge thee, do not arouse or awaken love until it is so ready." (Song of Solomon 2:7). I'm going to use the words of Snow White - some day my prince will come. I'm going to keep dreaming. Spring is a good time to do that.

So here's to hoping all of you dreams come true. 

"And they all lived happily ever after."

-Rhian