Fairy Tale Morality

Greetings once more. In this post I'm going to be writing about something that is very important to me (what am I saying? This is a blog everything I write is important to me...) and that something is the idea of Fairytale Morality. Now I made up that title but I would be frankly amazed if someone else hasn't already pondered this subject so I am not going to claim that this is an entirely original idea that no one else has considered. I would have to be a lunatic to think that I was that special and insightful to think of this first. But anyway lets get down to explaining what exactly I am blathering about.

Hansel and Gretel push the witch into her own oven and she horrifically burns to death. Hooray for Hansel and Gretel! The evil Queen is crushed under a gigantic rock by the dwarves and is squashed to death. Hooray for the dwarves and Snow White! The woodsman cuts the wolfs stomach open and out jump Red Riding Hood and her lovely old granny and the wolf bleeds painfully to death. Hooray for the good guys!
All of these stories are usually described as being fairy tales. Fictional folk stories passed down the generations, told to children before bed time, used to impart knowledge and teach children about what is moral and right and what is evil and wrong.

But do these stories really give off the right message?

Now when I say Snow White or Sleeping Beauty or Beauty and the Beast you are probably thinking of the Disney film version of these stories if you are from the same generation as I am. Disney became the company it is today off the backs of the Brothers Grimm but the original stories they collected have hardly anything in common with the animated films. The original stories were quite frankly horrific. You might think the evil Queen being crushed by a rock was bad but in the original story Snow White becomes the queen of the neighboring kingdom and invites the evil Queen to a fancy ball. The evil Queen doesn't know that Snow White is the new queen until she arrives at which point

"a pair of glowing-hot iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and placed before the Queen. She is forced to step into the burning shoes and to dance until she drops dead"

Now am I the only one that thinks that's pretty messed up. I mean seriously twisted. Red-hot shoes... dance until she drops dead... I would personally prefer the rock...

All of the Grimm's fairy stories have been pacified for modern audiences with many of them having much more gruesome ends because it was thought that these horrible punishments and executions would be damaging to the little children listening to them. The thing is is that I think these stories are still damaging but perhaps in a slightly more subtle way.

This is where the idea of Fairy Tale Morality comes in. I have already explained my views on morality in other posts (moral nihilism, no such thing as good and evil, man-made constructions and rules etc.) so I won't go into all that again but I will say that although I don't believe moral laws actually carry any weight on a universal scale, in human society they carry A LOT of weight and have far reaching consequences.

Fairy stories (particularly the Disney versions) have a very basic structure, a structure that is used by almost every story, plot and tale that has ever existed. It is at it's most basic:

Good guy. Bad Guy.
Bad Guy does Bad Thing or plans on doing Bad Thing.
Good Guy has to stop Bad Guy/ save someone from Bad Guy/ save the day from Bad Guy/ all of the above.
Good Guy hits some problem.
Good Guy recovers from/ solves problem and feels even more determined to stop Bad Guy.
Good Guy beats Bad Guy.
Everything turns out great. Bad Guy dies or goes to jail or something (who cares they are the BAD GUY!)

Think of the last film you watched. Chances are buried under all those plot devices and dialogue this story is at it's heart whether it's Snow White, The Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, The Matrix or Big Momma's House 2. This idea of how a story should progress is everywhere and it is the basis of Fairy Tale Morality.

What films like this teach us is that there is a Good Guy and there is a Bad Guy. The Bad Guy is Bad and the Good Guy is Good. Now this idea works fine in a film or a book or a story but in real life...

There is no Good Guys and Bad Guys. This might seem like a simple enough idea but when I first realized this it was a revelation. I can remember as a kid watching the news and trying to work out who were the Good Guys and who were the Bad Guys and who I should be supporting and really neither were wholly good or bad. These stories and this idea of Good Guys and Bad Guys I believe has had massive repercussions in modern society. Everyone is always trying to see who is in the right and who is in the wrong but this is a false dichotomy. Morality is a grey area, it is far from black and white. It is this type of Fairy Tale Morality that leads to people being branded in the press as "monsters" and "evil" no matter what the circumstances of their upbringing, the people and influences around them or what made them think the actions they were taking were the right ones. Humans are much more complicated than one word, one character type.

Lets take an example.
Genghis Khan. Founder and ruler of the Mongol Empire from 1206 to 1227. Known for bloody military campaigns and the wholesale murder of civilians in Mongol occupied territories. During the Mongol occupation of modern day Iran, it is estimated that between 10 and 15 million people were killed. Some historians have estimated that Iran's population only fully recovered from the Mongol invasion in the mid-20th century. Wow pretty evil guy huh?

Genghis Khan. Founder and ruler of the Mongol Empire from 1206 to 1227. Known for uniting the Mongolian tribes and creating the first written Mongolian laws which laid the foundations for the modern country of Mongolia. He also increased the communication of ideas, cultures and technology between the West, Middle East and Asia, promoted equality under the law and religious tolerance throughout his Empire.

See what I mean?
Just because someone has done something bad doesn't mean they are incapable of doing good and it works the other way.

Martin Luther King Jr. is thought of as the father of civil rights. He might not of been the first to argue for equal treatment for all but it was he that truly brought the inequalities of segregation into the light and is a source of inspiration for people around the world. He also had numerous extramarital affairs.

No-one on this planet is good or bad. We are all a blend of actions, some justifiable, some are seen as wrong by society. If we continue to believe that in every situation there is a Good Guy and a Bad Guy someone will always be thought of as less, as a monster, as a degenerate, as a low-life and all that wonderful human potential for advancement, for betterment, for improvement will be lost as they are thrown in the corner with all the other Bad Guys.

Fairy Tale Morality has no place in modern society. We have to look at people as more than the sum of one action. We must look on people as a fluid, changeable person. If someone does something that appears wrong to society they must be taken in and shown why it is wrong not made to dance in red hot iron shoes until they die.