The fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood is one of the most famous tales in cultures throughout the world. Though this site from the Electronic Text archive does not have a large portion of “text”, i still find this site specifically interesting. The fairy tale itself has many morals and meanings that have been derived over many years. One being that young girls should not wonder alone with the risk of being the prey of a “predator.” The site’s version of this tale is a bit altered. First off, there is no dialogue whatsoever. The characters do move their lips as if speaking, but the only sound to be heard is the music that is constantly played in the background. This is very interesting to me (for I studied this tale in my GRW) because the points at which the characters speak, they speak lines from the tale that are commonly known. For instance, the mother telling Red to take the basket of food to her grandmother, and the wolf asking Red where she is headed. However, i find it a good point to note that the scene where the wolf is disguised as the grandmother and the famous lines about teeth, and hair, etc. was completely skipped. And then it seems like Red got mad at the wolf, and appears to either have eaten the wolf..or even more strange: gotten pregnant! So confusing!!! And then there was a point when Red went off the path to pick flowers and fell asleep and we are given the option to let her dream or wake her up. Waking her up continues the tale along on the normal path. But letting her dream, well that is one of the most puzzling parts of this site to me. Her dreams are so weird! I do not understand them at all, and each time I viewed the site, her dreams would change. I wish I could make more of a connection to her dreams, but I honestly do not understand them at all.
All of this reminded me vagely of a portion of Birkerts’ text when he is talking about his daughter and her fascination with Beauty and the Beast. Though Little Red Riding Hood is not a Disney tale, it does however remind me of how the tale itself has been altered by the media. This site does alter the tale, but it also enforces interesting points of feminism (for instance Red wears pants). Though I question what the end of the tale means in terms of a moral or even an ending in general. Why is her stomach so large, and inside of it appearing to be an infant versin of the wolf? Also, is the man in the end with the gun supposed to be the hunter? If so, why does he want to kill Red? Is that another feminist view of how men must have the upper hand, and women remain subservient? I do not know!
i wonder what you might do with the feminist revision idea, and ways you could connect to birkerts or hayles–that is, to think about how the digital revision/remediation of the story enhances a feminist vision.
good start with this interesting text.