These are my thoughts about why children are doomed to be completely messed up by this world. Anyone who has spent half a moment contemplating the message behind stories that are the bread and butter of childhood know that we are inflicting mental trauma upon our children and acting as willing participants.
Now before you start shouting ‘what did Bambi ever do wrong’, let me insist you simply listen and learn. I’ll get to the bastard deer later (yes, having your mother roasted in a fire and possessing no knowledge of your father’s whereabouts makes you a bastard. So again, listen).
Instead I shall begin with the story of Hansel and Gretel. Let us lay out the facts. Hansel and Gretel’s parents were poor. So that their step-mother decides to abandon them in the woods so she can afford to eat. And does their father put up a fight? No. Not really. So we are sending our children the message that getting a good lay now and then trumps keeping your kids alive if the two values come into conflict. Poor Hansel and Gretel, if only this were the only abuse that they had suffered. But clearly these two are some f’ed up little freaks. Let’s simply examine how this story ends. Gretel pushes the witch into a burning stove and then the two children proceed to merrily celebrate her death and then rob her. Let’s paint the scene. The smell of roasting human flesh and human hair is permeating the air. Yet, Hansel and Gretel are unaffected by the aroma and proceed to dance around like fools. I don’t know about you, but if I pushed an old woman into a stove the first thing I’d do is get everybody outside cause you know the bitch is going to smell. So, we have to ask what kind of crazy stuff was going on in their home as children that human flesh is like a glade air-freshener to these two? Plus, Gretel is completely un-phased by the fact that she just committed murder, even if in self-defense. She never says, ‘oh god Hansel, what have I done’ or ‘how dreadful’. No we are left with the image of a little girl with the fire blazing in her glazed-over eyes with a devilish grin shouting ‘burn, burn, burn!!!’
And what kind of conflict resolution skills are we teaching our kids? Did Gretel try to negotiate with the witch, did she try to understand what the source of the witches actions was. No, she preemptively stuck the witch without warning based on her assumption that the witch might want to eat her too. Many would claim that this is an un-American value to teach our children. I mean, it’s not like the witch had made it definitively clear that she planned to eat her. It was Hansel’s war. She should either have minded her business or she should have formed a forest council that could make empty threats against the witch so that the witch could mock the council’s resolutions with blatant disregard. And when Gretel demanded that they take action to save her brother, they could call her a war-monger and claim she just wanted to get cheap candy through imperialistic dominion over the witch’s home.
Finally, when the kids get home, we are led to believe that the father was miserable over leaving his children in the woods? And his kids forgive him! Oh no, if my dad left me in the woods to starve, he might just have to die. Maybe they didn’t have a stove for the cold-hearted Gretel to push him in. Of course, it ends with them reveling in money they stole from the burnt carcass formerly known as the witch. And based on the fact that they had all this money, the story concludes that they live happily ever after. Let’s sum this up for little Johnny, your parents may leave you to die in the woods, but if you murder an old woman and steal her wealth and return home, everyone lives happily ever after. There are probably pornos with more ethically sound story-lines.
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