Once upon a time in the late 1600’s, there lived a rich French fille that was seduced and devoured by a wolf. She had no chance of surviving or saving her soul. A hundred or so years later, a very sweet and obedient German mädchen was tricked by a wolf but was saved by a dominant male figure and survived the gruesome attack to live happily ever after. Could either of these be the same story that we heard in our childhood as we were tucked into bed with pleasant dreams?
Although the tale of Little Red Riding Hood has roots dating back to ancient Greece and Rome, the two versions that stuck throughout time were written by Charles Perrault and Brothers Grimm. The tale sends a warning to young girls about obedience and stranger-danger and it addresses the responsibility of males in society.
However, a more realistic look at the tale discloses a different truth. A lazy mother sent her immature girl alone into a strange place to take a bottle of wine to her sick elderly mother. What? No chicken soup? The little cherub is slow-witted and sets herself up for disaster. She talks to a wolf, a carnivore. The wolf follows his DNA and devours the grandma. Then, the woodsman who must have been stalking Grandma himself appears at the door just in time to save the damsels in distress. In some versions, he skins the wolf in Grandma’s house…a bloody mess that he does not clean up and in other versions, he performs a abdominal incision to release Grandma and her granddaughter and then stitches the canine up with stones in his stomach cavity while the wolf is in a deep sleep, most definitely drug induced.
Despite its gruesomeness, the tale has had a memetic quality; an obedient girl was almost seduced by a “wolf-like” being; she outsmarted the creature, and lived happily ever after. Research indicates that 58 versions from 33 cultures exist of this fairy tale. Examples of such versions are: “Grandmother Wolf” from China and “Pretty Salma” from Ghana. The plot and message have been used in other stories and books such as “Cloaked in Red”, Save Little Red Riding Hood, Honestly, Little Red Riding Hood was Rotten, “Little Red Riding Hood in the Big Bad City,” “The Politically Correct Little Red Riding Hood” and even the movie The Freeway.
The motif has also been used in marketing. For example, Max Factor advertised a lipstick named Riding Hood Red. A rent-a-car company promoted Little Red Hertz. To advertise their 2014 convention, a technology firm, Sitecore, sported “If only Little Red Riding Hood had carried her smart phone with a gps or a mobile tablet in her basket, things would have turned out differently.” Burger King has also used the image. It portrayed Grandmother and the Wolf eating Whoppers when Little Red Riding Hood enters the cottage and the caption reads “That’s another story.” Finally, Rush, a chocolate low-fat beverage depicts a luscious Red Riding Hood with a wolf tattoo on her arm “Just a little Naughty.”
What can we take from this overview of Little Red Riding Hood? Despite, or maybe because of, its overall message of victimization of women, it has been a meme for more than 300 years and has resurfaced in parallel tales, stories, books, movies and ads. Such a shame that Charles Perrault and Brothers Grimm were not aware of long over-due royalties.
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