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Charles Dulce
English 114B
Professor Lewis
2-25-14
The Recreation of a Fairy Tale
When I was a child everything felt simple and there was no need for any semantics when
it came to a story. A story that brought imagination to my mind was the only story I enjoyed as a
child. Stories like Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, and many more were all a part of
my childhood. Some of these stories were also known as fairy tales and without some fairy tales
I would have no way of interpreting the differences between one of the most famous fairy tales
of all time, known as Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood by Charles Perrault
contains a simple moral of not talking to strangers. Little Red Riding Hood was read to me as a
child, explaining how a little girl in a red hood delivered goodies to her grandmother and on the
way ran into a mischievous wolf, who later tricked the little girl by disguising as the
grandmother, but was not saved by anyone and dies. I understood and remembered this tale more
than the Brothers Grimm version. In Little Red Cap created by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, it
was a more different and gruesome tale from the fairy tales I heard as a child. While the tale I
heard was blunt and more appropriate for my age group compared to the Brothers Grimm
version. As I grew older I have learned that a simple tale like Little Red Riding Hood may be
altered and told in many ways that give a simple tale a more complex meaning, like the stages to
life. Even new recreations of this tale, like movies, such as Hoodwinked! can be an altered
perspective of a simple tale, showing a whole new ideology to a person.
Little Red is just a character in a fairy tale that stays the same, but as a reader I am always

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changing my mindset and the way I interpret things. As a child all I could think of was that this
tale made me fear wolves and going into the woods was a bad idea, but the moral of the story is
not to talk to strangers. This one interpretation stuck with me for many years and reminds me of
the Jacques Lacans three stages to life: Imaginary, Mirror, and Symbolic. Imaginary is like the
stage I was in when I first heard of this tale. I felt conscious thinking of that time back when this
tale only had one interpretation. I was not aware of the other meanings that could be brought
from this once simple tale. Next, is the Mirror Stage where Lacan explains that this is the stage
where one comes into knowledge of yourself. The stage where you realize that I am me because
I am not you. This quote helped me realize that as I grew up as a person and changed physically
and mentally, that this tale too changed in meaning and interpretations. The last stage is
Symbolic and this where superstructure and ideology come into play. These are the frames, rules,
and regulations you are unaware of. This idea of a symbolic life gives meaning to the simplest
things that relates to the idea of a fairy tale, brought out through all the many interpretations and
recreations of one fairy tale.
The Brothers Grimms Little Red Cap brings out many ideologies that one may not see
without thorough investigation. At first you may believe that the story is just a girl who got
tricked into getting eaten by a slick wolf who also ate her grandmother. Then, in comes a
woodsman who comes to save the day killing the wolf. Even with the death of a different wolf
who comes along later through the tale, it gives a happy ending to the readers and unimaginable
events that would not happen in reality. This would relate to the first stage of life being
Imaginary, where interpretation is at a minimum. Although, at first glance this tale may give off
a moral of stranger danger, looking closer at a story even gender may bring up many other
ideologies. The article Things Disney Never Told Us by Kay Stone brings attention to the

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differences between big companies like Disney versus the Grimm Brothers interpretation of
fairy tales. Stereotypes are amplified in the Disney movies compared to the Grimm Brothers
like gender. The way Disney perceives gender is different:
In brief, the popularized heroines of the Grimms and Disney are not only pas-
sive and pretty, but also unusually patient, obedient, industrious, and quiet. A
woman who failed to be any of these could not become a heroine. Even Cinder-
ella has to do no more than put on dirty rags to conceal herself completely. She
is a heroine only when properly cleaned and dressed. (44)
in a way that makes females seem helpless and males more masculine. Stone expresses in her
comparison that women are either doers or become prey. The Grimms version has females seem
cunning and intelligent and an example is when the second wolf comes to take his portion of a
meal consisting a helpless grandmother and a little girl. Instead the two devise a plan that traps
and killed the wolf. Although Disney has not made a version of Little Red Riding Hood for
their viewers the differences they express through their versions of fairy tales to people are much
similar to the differences in the recreated versions of Little Red Riding Hood.
This one recreation and fairy tale that altered my perception on this tale was the movie
Hoodwinked! This movie tells a story of Little Red Riding Hood while using the same
characters and the general idea as a vehicle to fuel a deeper meaning to this fairy tale.
Hoodwinked! revolved around goodies being stolen by an unknown bandit, but the movie also
adds many What ifs? creating multiple perceptions for the viewer. What if Granny was an
adrenaline junky through extreme sports or the Wolf was a reporter? What if there is a Goodie
Bandit that is a bunny. In all of the movies madness, this movie brings up a theme of crime.
Straying from the moral of Little Red Riding Hood and bringing in a new ideology. In the

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movie a detective by the name of Nicky Flippers says, Ah, remember Ted, pieces of the puzzle
make funny shapes, but they still fit together in the end. This means that all of the characters
have a separate story that could have sent any one of them to jail, but instead the stories helped
find a Goodie Bandit. The ideology about crime explains that all stories must be told before you
make an assumption that may prosecute a suspect. Hoodwinked! taught me to not make
assumptions so quick when you do not even have all sides of a story.
A movie and a fairy tale may be different, with many twists to it, creating something new
compared to the original version. I still enjoyed the movie even if it changed the way I looked at
the tale. The movie used many comparisons to the tale, like the characters. One character that
alters perception of the tale was Boingo, the Goodie Bandit. This new antagonist moved away
from the tales original antagonist being the wolf and was in charge of stealing goodies so he
may create his own store. The more this character came into play, the more the audience realizes
that this character is like a lesson that teaches a person something they can use in their life, like
the new ideology, Never trust a bunny. This means that a person should not trust everything
that seems good, like a bunny. A person may seem bad, but it is not until you get to know said
person that you can make a judgment. Determining whether they are bad or good symbols are
created for a person, like the Symbolic stage. The Symbolic stage sees the original version,
Little Red Riding Hood, as a frame to Hoodwinked! where the differences in antagonist is
clear. This frame is basically the structure this movie uses which are things like little girl in red
hood, Granny and the Wolf. The clear antagonist of the original tale is the Wolf, who symbolizes
trickery and cunning skills to get what he wants. Although Boingo and the Wolf from Little Red
Riding Hood share some features, while the movie puts their wolf as a protagonist to alter a
persons perception of the Wolf. Changing a once bad Wolf into somewhat of a hero, altering the

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ideology of a wolf in this fairy tale proving that you should not trust someone until you get to
know who they are.
Two versions of a single tale have changed the perspective I had on Little Red Riding
Hood, since the first ideology I remember from this tale. I do not see a bad wolf, grandmother
or little girl delivering goodies, but plot holes in a tale that can be filled with many ways to
explain the story that is unfolding. Just like the mindset I had first starting off with plain
memories from my childhood turning into more complex memories, when I look back at them.
This is where I see Grimm Brothers tale in a way to explain gender differences and
Hoodwinked! as a way to explain crime as a way of looking at a problem through many point-of-
views instead of one. All of the years I have spent knowing this tale, I realize that there is never
one interpretation for a story or anything that gives meaning in ones life. As a child I read a tale
that had one meaning and nothing else, but later on with the different versions I understand more
how a tale can have new context instead of having a denotative perspective.











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Works Cited
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhem Grimm. Litte Red Cap. SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Ed. Andrew Lang.
The Blue Fairy Book, 25 July 2013. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Hoodwinked! Dir. Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech. Perf. Anne Hathaway,
Glenn Close, and James Belushi. The Weinstein Company, 2005. DVD.
Perrault, Charles. Little Red Riding Hood. SurLaLune Fairy Tales. Ed. Andrew Lang. The
Blue Fairy Book, 25 July 2013. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Stone, Kay. Things Walt Disney Never Told Us. The Journal of American Folklore 88.347
(1975): 42-50. Web. 27 Jan. 2014.