Gender Swapped Fairy Tales

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Jonathan and Karrie (husband and wife) have a daughter whom they wanted “to grow up in a world where little girls can be powerful and where little boys can express their vulnerability without anger.” Karrie ponders “can we not also imagine a world where kings want kids and where old women aren’t witches?”

Updating Our Literature: Gender Swapped Fairy Tales Updating Our Literature: Gender Swapped Fairy Tales

I’ll be giving Gender Swapped Fairy Tales to every child I can come Christmas, in a thinly veiled cover for shoving it into the hands of their parents – undoubtedly, it is they who need it most. The classic European fairy-tale versions – Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm – are full of terrific­ally and terrifyingly dramatic moments. In the Grimms’ version of Cinderella, her stepsisters are not pantomime ugly – they are beautiful – but they do have big feet. Karrie Fransman writes and draws visual stories and comics that have been published in The Guardian, The Times, The BBC, Time Out, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, The Young Vic, Psychologies Magazine, The Arts Council and The Goethe Institute. She published two graphic novels with Penguin Random House, The House That Groaned, and the award winning Death of the Artist. She developed an award winning comic about a teenage refugee, for The British Red Cross, created a 2 storey installation for Southbank Centre and was commissioned to make a ‘Selves Portrait’ for an exhibition with Manchester Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. You can see more of her work at karriefransman.com How many times will you endure glittery magical creatures lifting stepchildren out of poverty and ornate descriptions of royal sparkly clothes?Wolves are out there. They circle us with their slavering greed and predatory eyes, and their teeth are all the better to eat us with. Should fairy tales inoculate us against these? Mirror, mirror on the wall, can you help me to be content with my body? Why can’t we find a little empathy? People have been telling fairy tales to their children for hundreds of years. And for almost as long, people have been rewriting those fairy tales – to help their children imagine a world where they are the heroes. Karrie and Jon were reading their child these stories when they hit upon a dilemma, something previous versions of these stories were missing, and so they decided to make one vital change.. They haven’t rewritten the stories in this book. They haven’t reimagined endings, or reinvented characters. What they have done is switch all the genders. It might not sound like that much of a change, but you’ll be dazzled by the world this swap creates – and amazed by the new characters you’re about to discover.’ Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth

Gender Swapped Fairy Tales: Fransman, Karrie, Plackett Gender Swapped Fairy Tales: Fransman, Karrie, Plackett

Fairy tale retellings are great ways of taking the original stories and turning them into something better, that is not filled with stereotypes Rather less cheerful is how Gender Swapped Fairy Tales casts unforgiving light on the darkness we have all imbibed from the originals. Hundreds of years after they were committed to paper, the world’s Snow Whites and Sleeping Beauties remain some of the first stories our children absorb, along with their “lessons” (femininity = pretty, obedient, 90 per cent trapped/asleep). I only intended to look at it . . . but I’m completely drawn in. I love it. The language is fantastic. The gender swaps I hope will undo all my unconscious bias and I’ll find my inner power! Fabulous."— Philippa Perry Imagine a world where seductive male sirens lure brave heroines to their death, where Icara and her mother fly too close to the sun, and where beautiful men are forced to wed underworld queens…

The authors’ introduction refers to an awareness that meanings of gender can be complex. Unfortunately, their version doesn’t bring that complexity to the stories. Instead, it confirms (for those who would not be surprised at the news) that princesses are just as good at finding their way through forests as princes. Otherwise, there are innumerable retellings: stories from around the world, refusals of fairy-tale endings (and beginnings and middles), and plenty of fun to be had from playing with the genre.

Gender Swapped Fairy Tales by Karrie Fransman | Goodreads

In an age where gender stereotypes are now often being challenged, the authors’ retelling is a welcome collection. When I read the first story, “Handsome and the Beast,” the genders of the characters feel inconsequential at first, until I come to the jobs given to the sons and daughters. The sons are now servants doing housework, and the daughters are working out in the field, which makes one aware of how gender is constructed. While the story is different from the well-known animated version with a singing teapot and dancing candelabra, the genders feel interchangeable – their changes don’t take away from the story’s message of not judging someone by their physical appearance. Keen to see the magic in action, I read “Mr Rapunzel” to my niece Violet, six, over Zoom: “Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a woman came in, for he had never seen one before.” I was all set to hear how confused and empowered she felt – but that’s only because, for me, it is too late. To Violet, the story was no weirder than any other bedtime saga; certainly, a beard long enough to scale a tower seemed more important than whether Rapunzel was a boy or a girl. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ Startling and refreshing, thought-provoking and unique, this book will stay with me. Its genius is that it feels like a timeless classic – beautifully illustrated, a joy to share – even as it shakes the gender stereotypes in our most beloved stories by their roots."— Jess Kidd Further, the purported purpose of this parental performance is to send the child to sleep, but more often, they shake you awake. Or your made-up story about the magical bird that helps children sleep is, according to the small reviewer in front of you, the worst story ever.

Disney’s Cinderella gives us comically unattractive stepsisters, but at least their feet stay intact. Which version is better for small children? Some of what I took from hearing fairy tales as a child: the pleasure of the telling and retelling; appre­­ciating narrative tension; suspending disbelief to enjoy books and movies; valuing creativity; imaginative play; the sense of continuity as each generation reads to the next. Fairy tales are still an extremely popular genre, there are hundreds of fairy tale retellings that exist. However, they are often influenced by the original story and turned into something new. For example, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas is a Beauty and the Beast retelling but Feyre, the main character is not described as weak and she refuses to be trapped inside the castle. This is the same for another Beauty and the Beast retelling, A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer, this story’s heroine is Harper, a girl with Cerebral Palsy and she is described as being both physically and mentally strong. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer adapts the stories of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White. The main female characters in this series are all extremely clever and are presented very positively. Fairy tale retellings are great ways of taking the original stories and turning them into something better, that is not filled with stereotypes. It is so important for there to be adequate representation in books for all ages. The majority of fairy tale retellings I have read with strong female characters are either in the Young Adult or New Adult genres, but these kinds of characters need to be accessible in literature for younger children also. Imagine a world where princesses in shining armour race to rescue their sleeping princes, kings sit by the window sewing and longing for a child and kind-hearted men are rewarded for looking past the flaws of beastly princesses.