Written By Ananya Agarwal (Grade 8)
One of the fondest memories I have of my childhood is listening to stories while going to sleep. As kids, we all have heard the most common fairy tales such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast. All the stories used to have such appealing characters and different settings that they always used to leave us mesmerized.
Even today in the world of gadgets, children love these stories and their wonderfully portrayed characters. But thinking about it now, aren’t the stories so backward with time? Most of the stories are built on the common idea of a princess being miserable and leading a very difficult life and the story ends with her finally meeting her prince charming who then makes her life full of jubilation and she lives happily ever after. But is that really how life works? Does just finding a Prince Charming solve everything? I think these stories just put a wrong belief in the kids. According to the stories, princesses are weak and cannot find happiness on their own, hence they find princes who give them that happiness their lives lacked. And the stories also pressure the boys to always seem strong and as if they always have to be successful like the princes.
Moreover, in every story, all the princesses are always shown with picture-perfect bodies, with tall lean figures and good hair and fair skin while the villains have crooked teeth and dark skin tones. The heroines of the stories never had any imperfection in them and I think that is such a wrong thing. When kids listen to these stories, they get this framed in their minds that if they want to be good people who would be adored by people they would have to look like princesses which is not at all true.
However, appealing these stories might be to children, they tend to depict wrong information to the kids. Women are strong and can easily find happiness independently and not all people who have perfect bodies are always good people. Nowadays in schools, there are so many serious issues such as bullying and inclusivity. And the causes of these problems are because of the little things we experience while growing up. I think small things such as fairy tales impact the thinking processes of children in a great way and lead to them feeling insecure about themselves and thinking about life to be in a way it is not. It is high time we start making these small changes and abolish these stereotypical stories and make this world a more friendly place.
Featured Image Courtesy – Screen Rant