Politically Correct Tales

My mom recently sent me a book through the mail because she knew about this English class. The book she sent me was Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner. The introduction alone is relatable to this class and our discussions throughout it:

"When they were first written, the stories on which the following tales are based certainly served their purpose-to entrench the patriarchy, to estrange people from their own natural impulses, to demonize "evil" and to "reward" an "objective" "good." However much we might like to, we cannot blame the Brothers Grimm for their insensitivity to womyn's issues, minority cultures, and the environment. Likewise, in the self-righteous Copenhagen of Hans Christian Andersen, the inalienable rights of mermaids were hardly given a second thought. Today we have to opportunity-and the obligation-to rethink these "classic" stories so they reflect more enlightened times. To that effort I submit this humble book. While its original title, Fairy Stories For The Modern World, was abandoned for obvious reasons (kudos to my editor for pointing out my heterosexualist bias), I think the collection stands on its own. This howver, is just a start. Certain stories such as "The Duckling That Was Judged On Its Personal Merits and Not on Physical Appearance," were deleted for space reasons. I expect I have volumes left in me, and I hope this book sparks righteos imaginations of other writers, and of course, leace and indelible mark on out children, If, through omission or comission, I have inadvertenly displated any sexist, racist, culturallist, nationalist, religionalist, ageist, lookist, abliest, sizeist, speciesist, intellectualist, socioeconomicist, ethnocentrist, phallocentrist, heteropatriarchalist, or other type of bias as yet unamed, I apologize and encourage you suggestions for rectification. In the quest to develop meanigful literature that is totally free from bias and purged from the influences of its flawed cultural past, I doubtless have made some mistakes."

I think this relates to our discussions in many ways as we often spend a lot of time discussing the bias of the authors and how the cultural norms of the times change the stories. This is certainly true of the stories in this book as they reflect a culture afraid of being seen as politically incorect. We are a culture tiptoeing around each other so why should our fairy tales not reflect this idea? Just like Perrault and the Grimm Brothers inserted their beliefs and morals into the tales within context of culture so does this author remove them for the same reasons. Modernity changes the tales, what will they be like years from now?