Wrecking a world of make-believe with too much political correctness

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

When mammies won’t let their little girls watch Snow White – because nobody, not even a handsome prince, should sneak up on a sleeping lady to kiss her awake from a coma – then the world has gone truly, utterly and totally stark-raving mad.

And when said mammy is an actress who provided the voice for one of the main characters in Frozen, you have to wonder if she truly understands her craft.

Kristen Bell won’t indulge her three-year-old or five-year-old with the story of Snow White because the sleeping lady didn’t give her consent to being kissed.

Nobody in their right mind would make light of sexual consent or assault – but honestly, it’s a fairy tale; a triumph of good over evil; the consummate happy ever after.

Of course, Kristen is doubly incandescent when the revived Snow White actually goes on to marry said Prince, in what might be the first example of Stockholm Syndrome before anyone even dreamt it up.

But it’s not like this was some predatory prince combing the land looking for someone condemned to a coma with an apple stuck in her throat.

It’s no more a commentary on the reality of sexual consent that the princess who kissed the frog is a metaphor for the abuse of helpless amphibians.

And what about the disrespect shown in the first place to the seven vertically challenged men who take Snow White in to save her from the evil Queen.

Why, come to think of it, is a Queen painted as evil – because if we take this literally and to its limits, there’ll be nothing left of one of the greatest of all stories from the Brothers Grimm.

It’s not just Kristen Bell who’s taking a tough line on fairy tales either; Keira Knightley has banned her daughter from watching Cinderella or the Little Mermaid.

Cinderella, the girl tormented by her evil step-sisters and ultimately rescued by the size of her feet.

The Little Mermaid whose sin might well be to turn her back on the world of fish to trade up for a human soul and build a life for herself on dry land.

But why stop there?

Hansel and Gretel are clearly destructive forces at a time when childhood obesity is so prevalent – after all they eat a house made of sweets.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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