Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Friday 8 April 2016

"And then Oedipus and Jocasta, assured by their supporters on social media that '#LoveWins', decided...."

In the great time suck that is Those Interwebs, ostensibly searching for some information about children and catechetics on the super highway, I found myself on a bypass about the irrationality and inconsistency of the current tv and movie rating system, and then went up a dead-end about the size of Cinderella's, (AKA Lilly James',) waist, pulled in to a private driveway and noticed something tantalizing about how to nip in the waist of an oversized button up shirt, had to back up to the intersection where I saw a criticism of children's literature that was not protective of the environment/blended families/the Other among us, and decided to go brew a cup, no, a mug, stadium cup of almond tea.

But while sipping, the thought came that there is a great misapprehension of the purpose of the fairy tale.

We get modern takes, and reboots and re-writes, and outright bannings of fables that fail to impart information in the manner of a user's manual.
We want Common Core nuts and bolts to help make us better worker bees instead of the grandeur and deeper truths of myth, shrunk to childsize for little hands, and pureed for mouths not yet containging any permanent teeth.
Cinderella isn't about women needing men to take care of them but about spousal and familial love being a greater goal and a rarer prize than almost any other in this life, finer than extravagant clothes and grand houses, (and certainly than inherited wealth, or servants to boss about.)

Have we done this with, (more than the occasional movie, such as the nit-wit Troy, and all stories from the Bible, on which there is open season) do we do this to creation tales, and to myth, as well?

Is there a volume of Greek and Roman Myths that functions as an apologia for Jocasta's incest and assures us that no, Time doesn't devour his children? where Narcissus has a learning experience, falls in and, rescued by followers who learn of his plight via Instagram, resolves to limit himself to only a few selfies a day? Does Atalanta not just scoop up the golden fruit but speed past Melanion just the same, magnanimously allow him to live and go off with her best gal pal to a life of lesbian bliss?

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