WEBVTT - Interview: Dr. Jeana Jorgensen 0:00:08.245 --> 0:00:09.165 School of Humans. 0:00:11.165 --> 0:00:15.285 This episode discusses sensitive topics. Please listen with care. 0:00:16.325 --> 0:00:21.365 So in twenty seventeen, this person who styles herself a 0:00:21.365 --> 0:00:24.645 folklorist was writing these blog posts about the Romantic era, 0:00:25.445 --> 0:00:29.085 the nationalism movement folklora Danny, which is like, okay, on 0:00:29.125 --> 0:00:32.045 the surface, that all sounds like stuff that folklorists talk about, fine, whatever, 0:00:33.045 --> 0:00:37.285 But she was writing these posts in an effort to 0:00:37.605 --> 0:00:42.605 justify racism and stuff that we would view as very 0:00:43.165 --> 0:00:45.405 right wing takes on nationalism. 0:00:45.965 --> 0:00:47.725 And then in her blog post she. 0:00:47.805 --> 0:00:52.045 Cited me, and I was like, WHOA, don't drag me 0:00:52.085 --> 0:00:52.485 into this. 0:00:56.845 --> 0:01:01.805 I'm Miranda Hawkins. Welcome to the Deep Dark Woods. I 0:01:01.885 --> 0:01:05.725 initially started this podcast because I love how dark and 0:01:05.725 --> 0:01:09.325 twisted the brothers Grim stories are, and for many of us, 0:01:09.725 --> 0:01:14.485 we consider these to be the original tales. But the 0:01:14.485 --> 0:01:17.605 more I've learned, the more I've realized there's a seed 0:01:17.885 --> 0:01:22.125 underbelly to these stories that's been harmful in the real world. 0:01:22.685 --> 0:01:25.605 The Grim Tales, for example, were co opted by the 0:01:25.725 --> 0:01:29.845 Nazi Party to support Germany's national identity and to be 0:01:30.005 --> 0:01:36.205 used as propaganda for fascism, white supremacy, racism, anti semitism, 0:01:36.485 --> 0:01:42.685 and homophobia among other things. Doctor Gina Jorgensen is a folklorist, 0:01:42.965 --> 0:01:47.845 gender studies scholar, lecturer at Butler University and author of 0:01:47.885 --> 0:01:50.685 Folklore One on one, fairy Tales one on one, and 0:01:50.725 --> 0:01:54.165 Sex Education one o one. She is here with me 0:01:54.245 --> 0:01:56.845 today to talk about the darker side of fairy tales 0:01:56.885 --> 0:02:06.765 and folklore. When it comes to the Grim Brothers collecting 0:02:06.765 --> 0:02:10.125 these tales, you know, they talk about preserving for culture. 0:02:10.645 --> 0:02:12.845 Can we kind of get into like, what is a 0:02:12.885 --> 0:02:15.685 subtext of that, because that, you know, is a little 0:02:15.965 --> 0:02:16.845 it is a little tricky. 0:02:17.325 --> 0:02:18.605 Yes, it's very tricky. 0:02:18.725 --> 0:02:22.725 So in the early eighteen hundreds when Yakub and Wilhelm 0:02:22.725 --> 0:02:26.965 Grimm were being scholars in Germany, Germany wasn't Germany yet, 0:02:26.965 --> 0:02:28.885 So it was it was Prescia, it was Hanover, It 0:02:29.005 --> 0:02:32.045 was all these little principalities and baronies and duchies and 0:02:32.045 --> 0:02:36.365 stuff like that. Moreover, Napoleon was rolling through and wrecking 0:02:36.405 --> 0:02:38.765 things and taking things over. So there was this very 0:02:39.125 --> 0:02:43.085 beleaguered sense of like, we are one people, we share 0:02:43.285 --> 0:02:46.045 a language for the most part, we share cultural heritage. 0:02:46.445 --> 0:02:48.885 We should really kick out our oppressors and become a 0:02:48.925 --> 0:02:53.685 country for reals. And this was known as romantic nationalism 0:02:53.725 --> 0:02:56.725 at the time, and the Grim Brothers were participating in 0:02:56.805 --> 0:02:59.565 this strand of it that said, if we can prove 0:02:59.925 --> 0:03:05.405 that we have a shared historical heritage, we can prove 0:03:05.565 --> 0:03:07.765 that we should be a country. And they were coming 0:03:07.765 --> 0:03:11.005 at this from two angles, first language and linguistics, and 0:03:11.165 --> 0:03:15.965 second folklore and fairy tales. So they were active as linguists, 0:03:15.965 --> 0:03:18.965 and so they were also One of their friends, Clemens Fontana, 0:03:19.085 --> 0:03:21.445 was collecting folk songs and top and he was like, hey, guys. 0:03:21.245 --> 0:03:22.445 Come do this cool thing with me. 0:03:23.125 --> 0:03:26.205 So as they were documenting folk tales and fairy tales 0:03:26.445 --> 0:03:29.605 of the German people, they thought they were really contributing 0:03:29.685 --> 0:03:33.685 to this thing that was both artistic and political at 0:03:33.725 --> 0:03:37.005 the same time. And where it gets really tricky is 0:03:37.005 --> 0:03:40.365 that they weren't doing what they said they were doing. 0:03:40.845 --> 0:03:43.165 They made it sound like they were going out among 0:03:43.205 --> 0:03:46.405 the folk peasants and the agricultural workers and the people 0:03:46.405 --> 0:03:49.845 who are closest to the heart of the land, and 0:03:49.925 --> 0:03:53.045 in reality, they were interviewing a lot of middle class 0:03:53.085 --> 0:03:56.965 people who were of French descent. So they were getting 0:03:56.965 --> 0:04:00.965 fairy tales from people who were very literate and very 0:04:01.125 --> 0:04:05.125 educated and very urban. And they had some more like 0:04:05.525 --> 0:04:09.125 role like peasant class tellers as well. So this was 0:04:09.165 --> 0:04:11.685 an issue because when they first published the first two 0:04:11.765 --> 0:04:14.525 volumes of their fairy tales, a lot of their stories 0:04:14.685 --> 0:04:18.245 actually had French origins. So we can document that there 0:04:18.285 --> 0:04:23.445 are earlier versions of say Bluebeard and Cinderella and Little 0:04:23.605 --> 0:04:27.125 redding Hood that came maybe directly, maybe not, from the 0:04:27.205 --> 0:04:31.005 French traditions of Charles Perraut, who was writing in the 0:04:31.045 --> 0:04:34.245 sixteen nineties. And this leads to the really thorny issue 0:04:34.245 --> 0:04:37.325 of who owns folklore because you know, when folklore travels, 0:04:37.365 --> 0:04:39.805 as it does word of mouth, it travels with people 0:04:39.885 --> 0:04:44.445 who are migrant workers, who are traders, who are explorers 0:04:44.485 --> 0:04:47.925 and so on. If it has the tiniest kernel of 0:04:47.965 --> 0:04:51.445 relevance to people, it'll take root and change to kind 0:04:51.445 --> 0:04:55.645 of adapt to local norms, local language, local whatever. So 0:04:56.205 --> 0:04:58.085 the fact that French fairy tales came up to Germany 0:04:58.125 --> 0:04:59.325 and people were like, oh, yeah, we like these, we're 0:04:59.325 --> 0:05:02.805 gonna keep telling them, they became German tales for sure. 0:05:03.165 --> 0:05:06.485 They weren't maybe originally German tales, but maybe they weren't 0:05:06.485 --> 0:05:09.525 originally French tales either. You know, this question of origins 0:05:09.605 --> 0:05:13.365 is really complicated because if we're talking about documenting something 0:05:13.405 --> 0:05:17.605 that starts as oral tradition, unless you have a time machine, 0:05:17.885 --> 0:05:21.285 we have no idea when the first or original version 0:05:21.445 --> 0:05:24.605 was composed or told until somebody happens to write it down, 0:05:24.645 --> 0:05:27.325 which probably happens much later in its chain of transmission. 0:05:27.925 --> 0:05:30.245 So like, I kind of I get. 0:05:30.045 --> 0:05:32.285 Where the Grims were coming from and being like this 0:05:32.405 --> 0:05:36.485 is super German. Heck yeah, but it's hard to make 0:05:36.565 --> 0:05:39.805 that claim for anybody. 0:05:39.885 --> 0:05:43.165 Yeah, and what about the people who are like this 0:05:43.205 --> 0:05:45.965 sln itself to like Nazis, right, the whole idea of 0:05:46.005 --> 0:05:47.285 preserving the culture. 0:05:48.365 --> 0:05:51.965 Yeah, So the link with Nazis came later, and it 0:05:52.085 --> 0:05:57.445 was probably not something the grim Brothers intended their version 0:05:57.725 --> 0:06:01.725 of nationalism. I mean, it was influenced by politics of 0:06:01.765 --> 0:06:07.045 the day and those weren't necessarily nice. But what happened 0:06:07.285 --> 0:06:10.205 in later years in Germany was in the preceding era 0:06:10.485 --> 0:06:13.605 to World War Two, the Vimar Republic fairy tales were 0:06:13.645 --> 0:06:16.965 being used in a lot of different ways by artists, 0:06:17.045 --> 0:06:19.805 by writers. There were a lot of people who were 0:06:19.845 --> 0:06:22.725 interested in both preserving the Grimms fairy tales on the 0:06:22.725 --> 0:06:26.965 one hand, and writing new inventive versions exploring like capitalism, 0:06:27.085 --> 0:06:29.805 socialism and other things. On the other hand, so the 0:06:29.845 --> 0:06:33.125 Vimar Republic was a pretty like vibrant time for fairy tales. 0:06:33.845 --> 0:06:36.245 And then when the Nazis took. 0:06:36.045 --> 0:06:39.925 Over, there was a sort of shift where they saw 0:06:40.125 --> 0:06:45.445 the Grims tales as sort of these authentic stories that 0:06:45.565 --> 0:06:52.085 reveal some sort of ancient Teutonic like Viking Aryan ancestor 0:06:52.765 --> 0:06:55.485 times and links. And so they started to treat the 0:06:55.485 --> 0:06:59.365 Grim's tales as almost like a sacred text, where it 0:06:59.445 --> 0:07:02.645 was discouraged to change them and play with them and 0:07:02.685 --> 0:07:05.885 retell them. And so there were still authors who were 0:07:06.125 --> 0:07:09.805 retelling fairy tales and doing interesting things, but it had 0:07:09.845 --> 0:07:13.525 to be more according to the party line. The tales 0:07:13.565 --> 0:07:17.485 that were being told and that were being reworked picture 0:07:17.525 --> 0:07:20.605 books for children and things like that, the Nazi Party 0:07:20.685 --> 0:07:23.605 wanted them to correspond to the values they were trying 0:07:23.645 --> 0:07:27.845 to promote. So there was a lot of propaganda in 0:07:27.885 --> 0:07:33.445 these tales about loyalty, purity, mothers being self sacrificing, men 0:07:33.565 --> 0:07:36.285 being brave, and things like that. So that was a 0:07:36.325 --> 0:07:40.205 theme that became really prominent in those tales. And there 0:07:40.245 --> 0:07:42.485 were some people actually in the Nazi Party who wrote 0:07:42.485 --> 0:07:44.765 fairy tales. I didn't know that that was a thank you, 0:07:44.845 --> 0:07:48.125 Jack Scipes for pointing this out moment. This guy, Hans 0:07:48.125 --> 0:07:51.645 Friedrich Blank, he was writing tales. They were all about 0:07:51.645 --> 0:07:56.245 this really positive side of marriage and fertility. In Zipes's words, 0:07:56.645 --> 0:07:59.325 he wrote tales for kids, he wrote tales for adults, 0:07:59.925 --> 0:08:03.285 and he had these magical characters like Mother Hall who 0:08:03.645 --> 0:08:07.005 would like affirm the importance of gerosexual marriage and women. 0:08:06.925 --> 0:08:08.285 Staying at home and things like that. 0:08:08.765 --> 0:08:13.285 And Blank was actually a high Nazi official of culture, 0:08:13.685 --> 0:08:15.885 so he was working for the Nazi party and writing 0:08:15.925 --> 0:08:19.525 these tales that were in line with the values they 0:08:19.525 --> 0:08:23.725 were trying to promote, because most fascist regimes are extremely 0:08:23.765 --> 0:08:27.165 heteronormative and have an emphasis on the right people having 0:08:27.165 --> 0:08:29.605 the right kind of babies, so they were trying to 0:08:29.725 --> 0:08:32.085 use fairy tales in that regard. 0:08:35.085 --> 0:08:37.525 I also didn't know that there was there were people 0:08:37.605 --> 0:08:41.245 writing new stories at that time. So, just to kind 0:08:41.245 --> 0:08:43.165 of a guess circle back on a couple things, It's 0:08:43.245 --> 0:08:48.045 not so much that the Grim Brothers were Nazis themselves 0:08:48.165 --> 0:08:51.525 or had that idea. It's that people have taken their 0:08:51.565 --> 0:08:55.765 stuff and used that as like a textbook moving forward. 0:08:56.365 --> 0:08:59.325 Yes, exactly. I would not characterize the grim brothers as 0:08:59.445 --> 0:09:03.805 Nazis or fascists. I think they were basically nerds who 0:09:03.925 --> 0:09:06.965 loved the idea of what the country could become. They 0:09:06.965 --> 0:09:10.925 were linguists, their historians, They did some legal scholarship, They 0:09:10.965 --> 0:09:15.565 did what philology, which would now have become folklore, anthropology, philosophy, 0:09:15.605 --> 0:09:18.405 and a million other little disciplines. So they wanted to 0:09:18.645 --> 0:09:22.645 do their nerdy thing and affirm that the German people 0:09:22.725 --> 0:09:25.965 deserve to have their own country. So yeah, I wouldn't 0:09:26.045 --> 0:09:29.885 characterize them as being in line with fascism like at all. 0:09:31.885 --> 0:09:35.885 That being said, the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm did 0:09:35.965 --> 0:09:38.725 publish some tales that, when you look back at them now, 0:09:39.125 --> 0:09:43.645 are extremely problematic. One example is a story of the 0:09:43.725 --> 0:09:47.325 Jew and the Thornbush. Doctor Gina Jorgensen will tell us 0:09:47.365 --> 0:09:55.965 about that one after the break. So the brothers grim 0:09:56.005 --> 0:09:59.685 tales were dedicated to preserving German culture and promoting a 0:09:59.765 --> 0:10:05.045 German national identity. Generations later, their tales were co opted 0:10:05.125 --> 0:10:10.445 by the Nazis. We've already seen plenty of gruesome stories 0:10:10.485 --> 0:10:13.925 and motifs, but some of the lesser known tails are 0:10:13.965 --> 0:10:18.285 even more problematic, like this one tale that folklore's doctor 0:10:18.325 --> 0:10:21.845 Gina Jorgensen told me about called the Jew and the 0:10:21.885 --> 0:10:22.965 thorn Bush. 0:10:23.245 --> 0:10:25.605 Yeah, so the Jew and the thorn Bush. It's one 0:10:25.605 --> 0:10:29.245 of their tails where there's this young guy and he's 0:10:29.285 --> 0:10:31.965 a servant and his master lets him go and totally 0:10:32.045 --> 0:10:34.565 underpays him, like three pennies or something like that. But 0:10:34.605 --> 0:10:37.565 this guy is very let's say, naive, and he's like, 0:10:37.565 --> 0:10:40.285 oh cool, I'm rich. So he's gone along and he 0:10:40.365 --> 0:10:44.165 meets this little old man who asks for money, and 0:10:44.205 --> 0:10:45.845 the guy's like, oh yeah, here's all my money. And 0:10:45.885 --> 0:10:48.045 the guy's like, all right, so you're very pure of parts. 0:10:48.045 --> 0:10:51.325 You can have three wishes. So the young man wishes 0:10:51.405 --> 0:10:55.205 for a gun that can hit everything that he aims at, 0:10:55.525 --> 0:10:57.845 a fiddle that will make everyone dance when he plays it, 0:10:58.165 --> 0:10:59.885 and he also wishes for. 0:10:59.765 --> 0:11:01.285 People to always do what he requests. 0:11:01.285 --> 0:11:02.765 And I feel like that's the trump card that kind 0:11:02.765 --> 0:11:05.005 of makes the other two wishes like not matter but whatever. 0:11:05.485 --> 0:11:08.605 So he keeps traveling along and he sees a Jewish 0:11:08.685 --> 0:11:11.405 guy in the road and he's admiring a bird and 0:11:11.405 --> 0:11:12.965 the Jews Guy's like, man, I wish I had that bird. 0:11:13.005 --> 0:11:15.005 So the guy shoots it, which I feel like that 0:11:15.085 --> 0:11:16.285 is also counter productive. 0:11:16.645 --> 0:11:18.085 And then the young man tells the. 0:11:18.125 --> 0:11:21.045 Jew go into the bushes and get it, and there's 0:11:21.045 --> 0:11:23.445 all these thorns, so the guy trying to like navigate 0:11:23.445 --> 0:11:25.325 the thorns, and then the young man starts playing his 0:11:25.445 --> 0:11:28.725 fiddle and the Jewish guy can't help but dance until 0:11:28.765 --> 0:11:31.165 his clothes are being shredded around him. He's being all 0:11:31.165 --> 0:11:33.045 torn up, and this young man just has a hearty 0:11:33.125 --> 0:11:36.045 laugh and he says like, Okay, I'll stop playing if 0:11:36.045 --> 0:11:38.805 you like give me all your money or something or 0:11:38.805 --> 0:11:40.965 like a lot of gold. So they do that, and 0:11:40.965 --> 0:11:44.285 the gat goes on his way. The Jewish guy goes 0:11:44.325 --> 0:11:47.045 and finds like a constable or judge or whatever and 0:11:47.165 --> 0:11:49.525 is like this man stole from me, blah blah blah. 0:11:49.565 --> 0:11:52.525 And they get the young guy and they're like, okay, yeah, 0:11:52.525 --> 0:11:55.365 this sounds realistic, so we will hang you now. And 0:11:55.405 --> 0:11:57.605 the guy says just one last request, and they have 0:11:57.685 --> 0:11:58.525 to grant his request. 0:11:58.565 --> 0:11:59.445 He has to play his fiddle. 0:11:59.485 --> 0:12:02.165 The jewsh Guy's like, no, no, anything but that, and 0:12:02.285 --> 0:12:05.005 so the guy plays his fiddle and nobody can stop dancing, 0:12:05.565 --> 0:12:07.885 and so again they kind of beg him to stop 0:12:07.925 --> 0:12:10.445 playing his fiddle so that they they're like. 0:12:10.525 --> 0:12:12.765 Screaming and they're pleading with him to stop. 0:12:13.245 --> 0:12:16.165 And so he says, give me my life, let me 0:12:16.245 --> 0:12:17.725 keep those hundred gold coins so they. 0:12:17.685 --> 0:12:18.685 Got from the Jewish guy. 0:12:19.165 --> 0:12:22.205 And also he tells the Jewish guy to confess to 0:12:22.325 --> 0:12:26.045 being a swindler and a thief essentially, and the Jewish 0:12:26.085 --> 0:12:29.005 kind of confesses that he stole all this money, and 0:12:29.045 --> 0:12:31.365 so the Jewish guy takes the young man's place on 0:12:31.485 --> 0:12:32.125 the gallows. 0:12:33.605 --> 0:12:36.045 Yeah, that's just a straight up fucked up tail. 0:12:36.285 --> 0:12:37.125 It really is. 0:12:37.205 --> 0:12:39.085 And I read this stuff and I was like, I'm Jewish, 0:12:39.125 --> 0:12:41.605 and I'm like, oh, that's not that's not good representation all. 0:12:43.485 --> 0:12:46.805 No, not at all. Just curious where do you think 0:12:46.845 --> 0:12:49.485 this tale came from? Because it just seems so different. 0:12:49.525 --> 0:12:51.245 It's not even something I had heard of before. 0:12:52.285 --> 0:12:55.165 So, this tale in the Grims that is known as 0:12:55.205 --> 0:12:58.805 the Jew and the Thornbush, it has an international tail type. 0:12:59.365 --> 0:13:01.365 It is that well known. It is tail type five 0:13:01.485 --> 0:13:05.885 ninety two titled the Dance among Thorns, And so it 0:13:05.965 --> 0:13:09.125 has all of these really common motifs in it, the 0:13:09.165 --> 0:13:12.725 granting the wishes. You get this fiddle that compels people 0:13:12.725 --> 0:13:16.725 to dance, and in different versions, it's not always a 0:13:16.765 --> 0:13:20.285 Jewish person who is forced to dance. Sometimes it's a monk, 0:13:20.485 --> 0:13:23.725 it could be somebody else. This tale type is known 0:13:23.885 --> 0:13:28.285 since the fifteenth century in Europe, and it's told. 0:13:28.205 --> 0:13:29.045 All over the place. 0:13:29.085 --> 0:13:34.405 So we have versions in Danish, in Finnish, German, obviously, 0:13:34.805 --> 0:13:40.245 we have Swiss versions, we have Romanian versions, there's Chinese versions, 0:13:40.405 --> 0:13:44.125 Syrian versions. So this is a widely known tale and 0:13:44.365 --> 0:13:48.205 it doesn't always target Jewish people as the antagonist. It 0:13:48.205 --> 0:13:50.805 can be kind of you know, insert your scapegoat here, 0:13:51.245 --> 0:13:53.005 but it is really well known. So this isn't something 0:13:53.005 --> 0:13:57.925 that the Grims necessarily invented or promoted. I can't speak 0:13:57.925 --> 0:14:00.765 to why they made the choices they made, but it 0:14:00.845 --> 0:14:04.765 was probably just documenting here's a thing, and it would 0:14:04.765 --> 0:14:08.005 have sort of fit with some of the anti Semitic 0:14:08.485 --> 0:14:11.325 sentiments of the time, because you know, nineteenth century in 0:14:11.405 --> 0:14:13.525 Germany not a great time to be a Jewish person, 0:14:13.885 --> 0:14:16.365 and so yeah, it was probably just more a reflection 0:14:16.485 --> 0:14:20.085 of the general culture than of the Grim Brothers anti 0:14:20.125 --> 0:14:23.405 Semitism specifically. But again that's it's hard to speculate because 0:14:23.525 --> 0:14:26.365 I'm not inside their brains. In most modern editions of 0:14:26.365 --> 0:14:28.925 the Grim's fairy tales, unless they are prepared by and 0:14:29.005 --> 0:14:31.765 for scholars, this tale is left out. 0:14:32.925 --> 0:14:36.565 Yeah, so it definitely sounds like this tale. While again 0:14:36.965 --> 0:14:39.005 because of that time and that's what they made the decision, 0:14:39.005 --> 0:14:40.845 we can't really talk about it, but it definitely sounds 0:14:40.885 --> 0:14:43.525 like this tale. It just kind of depends on what 0:14:43.605 --> 0:14:46.045 culture or where your were, dependent on who it was 0:14:46.445 --> 0:14:51.565 aimed at. I want to circle back around to somethings 0:14:51.565 --> 0:14:55.765 that we're talking about earlier, specifically with the underlying messages 0:14:55.925 --> 0:14:59.085 in these fairy tales. So we have like clear things 0:14:59.125 --> 0:15:01.325 like the one that we just talked about, but then 0:15:01.365 --> 0:15:04.045 we have that underlying message of like Cinderella or like 0:15:04.125 --> 0:15:08.125 you know, shaping, like the loyalty, the heterosexual marriage. Like 0:15:08.165 --> 0:15:11.765 these are like the things. But like what about other stories, 0:15:11.845 --> 0:15:14.205 like you know, Little Red writing Hood and things like that, 0:15:14.365 --> 0:15:16.525 Like what are some of the messages and these these 0:15:16.525 --> 0:15:17.565 other main stories. 0:15:18.525 --> 0:15:19.645 That's an interesting one. 0:15:19.685 --> 0:15:23.005 There are definitely some writers in Germany in say the 0:15:23.085 --> 0:15:27.645 nineteen twenties and post World War One defeat who interpreted 0:15:27.765 --> 0:15:32.245 Little Red Writing Hood as this sort of metaphor for. 0:15:32.245 --> 0:15:33.405 The Germanic people. 0:15:33.805 --> 0:15:35.885 This is again drawing on the work of Jack Sypes, 0:15:35.885 --> 0:15:39.765 who pointed out that this one guy linked the wolf 0:15:39.805 --> 0:15:42.285 to the early Roman Empire, little red cap to like 0:15:42.325 --> 0:15:45.405 the idea of germanness, the hunter to the idea of 0:15:45.445 --> 0:15:48.325 the great German protector or the feur, and this idea 0:15:48.685 --> 0:15:53.205 that literal writing hood's subjugation was linked to how the 0:15:53.245 --> 0:15:56.565 German people were being put down and subjugated. 0:15:56.085 --> 0:15:59.125 Post World War One. They didn't really say it was the. 0:15:59.125 --> 0:16:01.245 Jews, but I feel like they were maybe implying, you know, 0:16:01.485 --> 0:16:04.565 we should have a convenian scapegoat here. So it was 0:16:04.605 --> 0:16:10.725 just a sort of are racist and nationalistic interpretation, But yeah, 0:16:10.765 --> 0:16:15.125 some German writers definitely tried to link a little red 0:16:15.125 --> 0:16:18.285 writing hood to like and we too have been victimized. 0:16:19.485 --> 0:16:22.765 And then what about specifically, I guess the idea of 0:16:22.805 --> 0:16:25.045 like how women are supposed to be, like the idea 0:16:25.045 --> 0:16:28.085 of like loyalty and how we're supposed to act or 0:16:28.125 --> 0:16:30.205 how they expected like women to act and things of 0:16:30.245 --> 0:16:30.645 that sort. 0:16:31.485 --> 0:16:34.845 Yeah, so the Grimms did put that seed in there, 0:16:34.925 --> 0:16:37.885 And again there's some debate as to whether they were 0:16:38.125 --> 0:16:40.885 actively sexist or just sort of following the norms of 0:16:40.885 --> 0:16:44.325 their times without questioning We do know because we have 0:16:44.405 --> 0:16:48.045 different editions of the Grimm's Fairy Tales, including an eighteen 0:16:48.165 --> 0:16:50.925 ten manuscript that wasn't really ever published, but it was 0:16:50.965 --> 0:16:54.245 recovered later on. Because they changed their tales from the 0:16:54.285 --> 0:16:57.845 first edition in eighteen twelve and eighteen fifteen. They went 0:16:57.845 --> 0:17:02.085 through seven major revisions up through eighteen fifty seven, and 0:17:02.165 --> 0:17:05.965 so we know that they had an active hand, especially Humgrim. 0:17:06.445 --> 0:17:08.845 He was very actively editing some of the tales because 0:17:09.445 --> 0:17:13.285 their first edition was like, here's some scholarship fellow nerds, 0:17:13.285 --> 0:17:15.605 and it was full of annotations and all of this 0:17:15.645 --> 0:17:19.565 stuff that would probably not interest the general reader. And 0:17:19.645 --> 0:17:22.845 then as their books started taking off, they're like, oh oh, 0:17:22.885 --> 0:17:25.525 people are reading these, Oh oh, people are reading these 0:17:25.565 --> 0:17:29.485 to their kids. And they realized that they had some 0:17:29.645 --> 0:17:31.885 images in there that they didn't want kids to be reading. 0:17:31.885 --> 0:17:34.685 And sort of the bizarre thing is that we think 0:17:34.725 --> 0:17:37.765 of children's literature in the twenty first century in America 0:17:38.285 --> 0:17:41.685 very differently than people were thinking of children's literature in 0:17:41.725 --> 0:17:44.765 the mid eighteen hundreds in Europe. So, first off, the 0:17:44.805 --> 0:17:47.845 idea of childhood had shifted and was sort of a 0:17:47.885 --> 0:17:52.285 recent European concept. I gather that in the middle Ages, 0:17:52.645 --> 0:17:55.965 children were kind of like little minimes, like tiny adults 0:17:56.005 --> 0:17:58.045 who just died a lot, and they were dressed as 0:17:58.045 --> 0:18:00.685 adults and treated as adults, and there wasn't really this 0:18:00.805 --> 0:18:04.645 separate life stage of childhood in the way that we 0:18:04.645 --> 0:18:10.765 would think about it day. So when the Grims entered 0:18:10.765 --> 0:18:13.365 the stage, there was this idea that was tied to 0:18:13.725 --> 0:18:17.645 romanticism of the innocence of the child and how this 0:18:17.805 --> 0:18:21.365 is idealized, and how we should all aspire to such 0:18:22.285 --> 0:18:25.525 naivete and all this stuff that was also linked to nature. 0:18:26.045 --> 0:18:29.725 And so children's literature was sort of a new genre 0:18:29.805 --> 0:18:32.165 at the time, and the way it was often thought 0:18:32.205 --> 0:18:33.925 of was sex. 0:18:33.725 --> 0:18:36.565 Was not okay, and I feel like that is a. 0:18:35.965 --> 0:18:38.485 Similar current as you've seen a lot of children's literature today. 0:18:38.925 --> 0:18:43.125 But violence was okay because it was acceptable to scare 0:18:43.165 --> 0:18:45.245 the crap out of kids to make them behave. 0:18:46.005 --> 0:18:46.685 So there were. 0:18:46.645 --> 0:18:50.405 Children's books at the time like Slovenly Peter is a 0:18:50.445 --> 0:18:53.805 translation of a German title, where like if kids wouldn't 0:18:53.805 --> 0:18:56.245 stop sucking in their thumbs, someone would come along and 0:18:56.245 --> 0:18:58.245 cut them off, Or if you wouldn't stop playing by 0:18:58.245 --> 0:19:00.245 the fire, someone push you into the fire, and that 0:19:00.325 --> 0:19:01.205 was acceptable, that. 0:19:01.245 --> 0:19:03.125 Was fine, that's really intense. 0:19:03.725 --> 0:19:06.685 Yeah, So the Grims were in this sort of tradition, 0:19:07.045 --> 0:19:09.245 this new tradition of children that are s at the time, 0:19:09.765 --> 0:19:11.645 where they're like, okay, so we're going to revise some 0:19:11.685 --> 0:19:14.485 of our tales. There are references to pregnancy that they 0:19:14.485 --> 0:19:18.325 took out. There are references to sexuality that they took out, 0:19:18.645 --> 0:19:22.645 but they left in violence, and they left in scatological references, 0:19:22.725 --> 0:19:26.325 and later British translators into English would like take a lot. 0:19:26.165 --> 0:19:26.685 Of those out. 0:19:27.085 --> 0:19:29.485 Yeah, it was just sort of this like different take 0:19:29.525 --> 0:19:31.685 on it. But one of the things they did as 0:19:31.725 --> 0:19:35.005 they revise their tales with the sort of new audience 0:19:35.045 --> 0:19:40.245 of children in mind, is they really highlighted gender roles 0:19:40.285 --> 0:19:45.525 for girls and women that were more subservient, more domesticated, 0:19:45.565 --> 0:19:48.285 things like that. So if you look at early versions 0:19:48.325 --> 0:19:51.845 of snow White, when she is either chased away or 0:19:51.885 --> 0:19:54.525 runs away from the evil queen and she finds the dwarves, 0:19:54.685 --> 0:19:56.845 they're like, oh, yeah, you can chill here, And then 0:19:56.885 --> 0:19:59.885 in later versions of the same tale they're like, oh, 0:20:00.165 --> 0:20:03.085 you can stay here if you make the beds and 0:20:03.165 --> 0:20:05.725 cook for us and sweet. It's like a list of 0:20:05.765 --> 0:20:08.765 what a girl should do at home explicitly laid out 0:20:08.805 --> 0:20:12.725 in this fairy tale, which is kind of wild. So again, 0:20:12.765 --> 0:20:17.285 the grims were sort of seeding those more conservative, proper 0:20:17.365 --> 0:20:22.125 gender roles. So I can see where later people would 0:20:22.125 --> 0:20:24.725 pick up on that and be able to amplify it 0:20:24.765 --> 0:20:26.085 because it was already there. 0:20:27.605 --> 0:20:28.205 Oh wow. 0:20:28.325 --> 0:20:31.325 So yeah, so it's like teaching or brainwashing. However you'd 0:20:31.365 --> 0:20:33.725 like to say, like from a very early stage of 0:20:33.765 --> 0:20:36.365 like this is how you should be, that subservient thing, 0:20:36.485 --> 0:20:38.645 and then also to like your big thing is to 0:20:38.645 --> 0:20:43.045 get married, that's your happily ever after, which I'm definitely 0:20:43.085 --> 0:20:44.885 seeing a shift, and especially in a lot of the 0:20:44.965 --> 0:20:47.485 Cinderellas I've been watching lately, a lot of the adaptations 0:20:47.525 --> 0:20:49.805 and watching and reading and all that sort of thing. 0:20:50.845 --> 0:20:54.405 So I'm kind of also curious again still talking about 0:20:54.405 --> 0:20:57.045 like women and gender roles and everything. You know, we 0:20:57.085 --> 0:20:59.685 still read these tales. But do you think like women 0:20:59.725 --> 0:21:02.805 these days have the same takeaway today like that they 0:21:02.805 --> 0:21:05.405 did then, or do you think that that is changing. 0:21:06.605 --> 0:21:11.085 Yeah, that's a really interesting question. So we know that 0:21:12.005 --> 0:21:14.325 in the past, especially in the eighteen hundreds in Europe, 0:21:15.285 --> 0:21:19.005 tales were often told among groups of women, who were 0:21:19.045 --> 0:21:22.645 doing the domestic task that almost literally every woman had 0:21:22.685 --> 0:21:24.885 to do because we didn't have anywhere to buy clothes yet, 0:21:25.085 --> 0:21:29.685 so women would regularly spend time spinning and weaving and 0:21:29.765 --> 0:21:32.845 sewing and repairing clothing and so on. This was a 0:21:32.925 --> 0:21:37.605 major activity that women at most social economic statuses like 0:21:37.805 --> 0:21:40.765 had to do on the regular So part of how 0:21:40.805 --> 0:21:43.765 they made the work bearable is by telling stories. 0:21:44.285 --> 0:21:45.125 And we think that. 0:21:45.125 --> 0:21:50.085 There are some little like seeds of subversiveness in some 0:21:50.165 --> 0:21:53.525 of these tales, like there's a little known rumpel Stiltskin 0:21:53.725 --> 0:21:57.165 relative where you know, this girl has promised to a 0:21:57.245 --> 0:21:59.685 king if she can spin all the straw and goal 0:21:59.805 --> 0:22:02.045 or just spin all the straw in general, blah blah blah, 0:22:02.085 --> 0:22:05.325 and she obviously has no magic, and she's like, a crap, 0:22:05.485 --> 0:22:08.125 what I'm gonna do? And these three old women show up, 0:22:08.125 --> 0:22:10.485 and they are hideously ugly old women, and they say, 0:22:10.845 --> 0:22:12.765 we'll help you, but you have to invite us to 0:22:12.805 --> 0:22:15.725