Commie extortionist fishes
So we went to Barnes and Noble the other day, and I'm sitting on the ground in the children's section with my 8-month old baby looking for a book to read to him. I take my eye off him for a minute or two and when I look back he's reached into one of the lower shelves, pulled off a Spongebob paperback, and is chewing on it. It's one of those cheapo books, with the pages only slightly thicker than newspaper, so by the time I notice we're the proud soon-to-be owners of this $3.99 treasure.
Anyway, this sparks a search for something a little less destructable for him to play with, and my wife finds a waterproof book called The Rainbow Fish. I gather it's a shorter version of a rather famous book that was translated from German, so I don't necessarily want to blame the original author for this coming rant, but... we buy this book as well (B&N loves us!), give it to him to play with, and then I actually read it in between the chewing. Oh dear.
See, the rainbow fish has these nice scales, and the little blue fish asks him for one, and the rainbow fish prefers not to share (always a big no-no in kids books)... at which point the blue fish and all the other fishes refuse to play with the rainbow fish anymore. Ouch. So then the rainbow fish asks the octupus for advice, and is told to give away his scales if he wants to be happy. Comes the blue fish back, still looking for one of the nice scales, and the rainbow fish this time obliges. In fact, he gives every other fish one scale, until he has exactly one left himself. The other fish now will play with him, and happiness ensues.
I think I'm a mostly left-wing kind of guy, but this is frankly horrifying to me. The lessons seem to be some combination of you should give away your favorite stuff or people won't like you, you should buy friends, everyone should be/look/have the same, if your friend won't give you something you want you shouldn't be their friend, people should be judged on their appearance, and you should strive to change your inherent qualities to fit in. Or something like that.
Now, I mostly laugh at the right-wing tripe about how liberals are brainwashing children through books... but this gave me pause. Commie extortionist fishes are not proper role models for my son!
Still, the book does have lovely illustrations. I guess I'll just have to tweak the story a little -- perhaps the little blue fish can trade a pearl he found for a scale?
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Comments :
To be fair,
the book is (presumably) intended to be read more along the lines of encouraging voluntary altruism. I'm telling you, though, that's just not how it felt while reading it...
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
You could also read it
as discouraging conspicuous consumption.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Yeah, but the rainbow fish
didn't go out and buy those scales to show off, it's just part of who he is. I mean was.
But that's an interesting point, I don't mean to skip lightly over it. I wonder: if fairy tales were to be rewritten today, would they change descriptions of conspicuous consumption? No more feasts lasting for days, or carriages gleaming with gold and jewels?
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
BTW
the wikipedia article talks about such criticisms of the book. The book pisses off Neal Boortz, bonus points!
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
How I'd write it
First of all, it wouldn't be a bunch of blue fish, it would be all sorts of mono-color fish, and they'd trade one of their boring mono-color scales for the pretty rainbow scales. And by the end, the rainbow fish would still look cool and different, because even though he only had one rainbow scale, he'd still have all the different colors of all the different fish. And all the mono-color fish would be cool and different, because they'd have their unique colors, plus a nifty rainbow scale.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
I like that much better
It's a more positive metaphor -- instead of everyone ending up essentially the same, they incorporate a little piece from each but preserve their essential identity. Plus nobody feels coerced or like they are begging.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
We should write a sequel
in which the Rainbow Fish meets the Randian Fish, and hilarity ensues.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Well, when you think about it
nearly none of the most common stories we tell kids promote the healthiest attitudes towards themselves and society. Sondheim and Lapin tackled this when they decided to write Into the Woods, exposing the rotten or at least problematic moral core at the heart of our fairy tales.
My favorite is Jack, of beanstalk fame. Trades his cow for beans (idiot), finds a castle in the sky with giants, then proceeds to steal their stuff (thief) and kill the giant (murderer). I guess it's okay because it's just a giant, but hardly a positive hero in any respect.
(Incidentally I felt a strong negative reaction to The Lion King. Fable of entitlement, in which aristocratic blood is valued more highly than competence, and brawn wins out over brains. Blech.)
Feminists have complained about unhealthy attitudes in children's stories for years, but they're usually laughed at because of it. Still, it's hard to think of a single commonly-told fairy tale that doesn't end with the heroine finding a husband, as if that's the only possible route to success for a woman.
None of this is to devalue the impressions you got from reading this book, but here are two things to consider: 1. Most of what passes by us, we don't subject to this kind of scrutiny even though it can have a strong impact on how we conceptualize the world. So while I totally understand your reaction to "The Rainbow Fish", I wouldn't make a blanket statement about liberal propoganda in children's lit. until we've had a broader talk about what values tend to get espoused in children's lit. and 2. It's also possible that our children aren't impacted the way we think: what we see as communist or anti-feminist propoganda loses the impact on a child, who might absorb the most benign parts of the story. But this is totally out of my area of research, so I have no idea.
Anyway, just some things to think about. Good, thought-provoking essay!
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Good points
It's my impression (possibly completely wrong) that German fairy tales in particular have "lessons" that we'd view as either misguided or conveyed in a grim (heh) fashion... for example, these
.
I agree that we generally don't examine children's stories very closely, and I wouldn't want to suck all the life out of them -- I don't advocate for sanitized PC versions, generally speaking. Still, every now and then something just jumps out at you, and this was one of those moments for me, for whatever reason.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
russian fairy tales
I read a book a while ago about how the Russians responded to the Malthusian idea of "struggle for existence" in Darwin's theory of evolution (apparently, the Russians viewed this as English individualism, and preferred to emphasize the collectivist/cooperative aspects of evolution). I think the author noted how one of the Russian biologists had actually written/collected a set of Russian fairy talkes specifically because he disliked the moral message in the German fairy tales that were popular at the time.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
Hm, not sure if I buy that story.
The only reason it sounds a little sketchy is that Russia's first major collection of fairy tales came out in the 1850s, and it's still THE primary text for people who read fairy tales to their kids. That's the Afanasiev collection, and the man who put it together was a professional folklorist who originally studied law but was more interested in recovering cultural (rather than ideological) heritage from the French (rather than the Germans).
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
who would have thought...
I would have never thought that someone here had knowledge of such obscure facts.
Cool!
Actually, what you wrote could very well be what I read...except I'm pretty sure my source said "German". But it's quite possible that my source referred to some pre-Darwin event (it did discuss the development of Russian biology before Darwin's theory was published) and perhaps the story about the folklore did not apply directly to a biologist, but was only meant to show the atmosphere of the time.
You seem to be thinking of Alexander_Afanasyev
. I noticed that the Wikipedia article says his collection was modeled after the Grimm tales (German) even though he was interested in the encroachment of the French language.
I wonder if I read something about someone involved in the Russian Geographical Society, which apparently had a hand in documenting Russian folklore...but there's no mention on Wikipedia.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
Lessons, or realities?
Many so-called "fairy tales" may be based on realities of life that seem horrific to us today, but were quite accurate for their time. Like many old tales, there is a kernal of truth in them.
Two examples, of increasing creepiness.
Hansel and Gretel: In times of famine and hardship, families did sometimes have to choose which mouths to feed. Leading (by definintion unproductive) children into the woods to get lost and starve was an effective way of reducing the household burden without the overt act of murder.
Cinderella: This one is a bit more layered, but the oldest versions are supposedly consistent on several points. The mother dies, leaving only a daughter. The father needs a new wife, for sons, of course. One who fits the shoes of his old one (shoes being a metaphor for many things). Who best fits the shoes of the deceased woman, but her daughter? "Cinderella" is thereby reduced to abject servitude, unfit for marriage and tied forever to her position. Later versions add the stepmother and prince.
I didnt make this up. I forget the name of the book that I got this from, but someone did the research and compared extant ancient versions of these folk tales. Fairy tales are no children's stories.
"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge" -- Kahlil Gibran
Wow, that is creepy.
I'm guessing there were no singing mice hovering around that particular marriage of convenience.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
For some reason ...
I don't see why you are upset. This all seems to be standard liberal fair to me.
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
seems Christian to me...
Anyway, most leftist critiques of wealth disparities are based on the premise that production is a social process.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas