In many contemporary discussions of parenting, there is often a particular focus on children’s exposure to violence. Parents, teachers, and even news anchors assert that children in the 21st century are exposed to violence in unprecedented ways
Yet, throughout each story we have read thus far, the writing has been far gorier than anything I have ever seen in a children’s movie or video game. For example, Red Riding Hood eating her grandmother for a snack and drinking her blood, or The Little Mermaid feeling knives puncturing her feet at each step until they begin to bleed. Gore has held a significant place in children’s stories for hundreds of years.
I wonder if the violence in these stories impacts children differently than in contemporary examples because it is not senseless. Every instance of gore or violent actions has a clear attachment to right or wrong, so instead of promoting violence, these stories actually warn children against it. This is the difference between the violence in these stories versus the violence that children may see on video games, or in TV shows. Although, I still wonder, does violence have any place in media designed for children? Even though it is attached to a moral code, will any sort of violence that children are exposed to affect them?
I’ve also been thinking about the violence in fairy tales and the way media for children seems to have evolved. I agree with your assessment that the fairy tales we’ve read seem to have more “gore” than what modern children are exposed to. I think there’s been an interesting cultural shift, one I’ve noticed but don’t really know how to explain, in the perception of what is acceptable to show to children. I like your idea about the difference between senseless violence and the purposeful, lesson-teaching violence in fairy tales; it’s really interesting to think of it that way. With that in mind, I wonder what the “purpose” of the little mermaid’s pain was in Hans Christian Andersen’s original. Is it meant to teach curious girls a lesson that they should not aspire to learn more about the world?
I’d like to add that I think you could go more into what you mean by “senseless,” and provide examples of the “moral codes” you refer to in junction with fairy tale violence. Also, does every instance of violence in modern media like TV shows and video games occur senselessly?
Emily, with your last question I think it might be answered with this thought “you have suffered and endured and now you have been transported to the world of spirits…” (CFT 300).
Audrey, you have some interesting points, particularly in there being a reason for violence. My question is, what if that reason isn’t a good one? It’s not LRRH’s fault that she was not informed of wolves by her parents. Should she have to suffer for it? What if the moral code is flawed? So I would argue with your idea that “Every instance of gore or violent actions has a clear attachment to right or wrong, so instead of promoting violence, these stories actually warn children against it” because I think the lines between right and wrong are blurred and messy.
I really like that you connected how fairytales and the media for children were evolving to contain more violence and how that could influence children. With this in mind, I ask myself why is there so much violence being portrayed in the everyday life of a child? How has it came to be were violence is considered a social normality?
Your blog got me thinking about whether there are more appropriate ways to help children understand violence as opposed to not exposing them to it at all (because complete avoidance is unlikely, then we very well need to show them how to deal with these things mentally). Of course, I’m just raising the possibility that until a more appropriate approach is found, it is the duty of each of us adults to keep the children around us from being exposed to it.
Violence in media is definitely a topic worth discussing. The way I understand it, while there may be violence in older media, it’s usually text rather than graphic descriptions. The princes, cutting themselves to shreds upon Briar Rose’s thorns, or the Little Mermaid’s bleeding feet, as portrayed in the image you attached. In modern media, there’s often a much more ‘real’ sense to violence, portrayed in high-definition on a screen.
Still, the idea of senseless is an interesting one. To me, it’s fairy tales that have more senseless violence than much of modern child-orientated media (There’s quite a bit of senseless violence in the non-child orientated media, I won’t argue that.). The Little Mermaid’s newfound legs feeling like they were walking on sharp knives is fairly senseless to me. So is the butchering of all the princes who sought out Briar Rose–it’s not as if the story contained any moral relating to their deaths. Little Red Riding Hood’s violence is, at least, related to the moral, but by and large, the blood and violence and suffering that is commonplace in fairytales often seems to have little to do with any education or moral of the story.
This post brings up an interesting point. The violence in some versions of these tales is almost absurdly gruesome. Maybe this is why the somewhat sanitized Disney versions have become more popular this day in age. It’s possible that the people reading these tales to children did eventually take issue with how violent they are and work on creating less disturbing versions.
I thought your take on the idea of violence in fairy tales was really quite interesting! I was reading over Perrault’s The Little Mermaid for my essay and felt myself wincing at some of the details. He did not need to be that intense with it.
I wonder why that is? I feel like these tales were created with children in mind, so why include these gruesome details? Have we just normalized violence in children’s media to the point where it doesn’t even seem “that bad” anymore?
Audrey,
I like your ideas. That has been an overall theme I have been wondering about as well. I enjoyed how you highlighted that there has always been gore in children’s lives, whether it be disturbing fairytales or violent video games. However, I want to add a point within the fairytales you pulled from: there is an element of magic (or extreme fiction), whether that be a personification of a wolf, a sea witch, or fairies. While (I can’t speak for all video games), violent video games are more about war and killing people. There can still be fictional components, but I wonder about the different impacts of a version of realistic fiction from a certain point of view in video games vs. gory themes of magic told by a narrator within a piece of fiction.
Humans are innately violent. We need that stuff to be human. All animals do. Violent stories entertain us because we want to see them. It would be wrong to repress our violent urges completely. That’s how violence hides.
Maybe the violent urge is not unlike the sexual one? Not in how it fits in our brain, but how it operates socially?