A Fairytale Ending <3

With all the talk about vampires and how vampire fiction is all about sex and violence, I naturally started thinking about fairytales. (I really must decide whether to write that as one word or two, and stick with it.) The thing about fairytales is... they're about sex and violence.

As mentioned previously, The Guardian has a brilliant fairytale series going at the moment, which you can get here.

A blog found therein discusses of one of the little-remembered facts of history: fairytales were never designed for children. The 'Disneyfication' of fairytales "has put into most people's minds a primary-coloured world of beautiful people facing dastardly villains and apparently insurmountable obstacles on their path to a life of happiness alongside Mr or Mrs (or, more likely, HRH) Right," writes David Barnett. But this is a modern idea of the fairytale- the real thing is much more grisly and interesting.

You can read the whole blog here.

Barnett mentions Angela Carter, among other writers, as a contemporary writer who puts the sex and violence back into fairytales. I'm currently reading her The Bloody Chamber, and, yes, loving it. I will most certainly post more on that when I've finished it!

The saga continues...

Publicity for the screen release of New Mooon is increasing, and the meta-life of Twilight is turning into as much of a saga as the actual story.

This weekend's The Australian featured a story which discusses what Twilight does to the vampire genre: "This is vampire lite. It dilutes and sanitises the vampire genre," says publisher Alison Urquhart. Journalist Emma Tom agrees, calling Twilight "the greatest vampire killer of them all."

I find it ironic that while Twilight fans are busy praising the chaste series for its depiction of a teen relationship in which sex is not essential, and while vampire lovers are criticising it for its misrepresentation of vampires, scores of readers are rushing into bookstores crying, "Give me more vampire books!"

Thus, within the space of a year the vampire genre has gone from catering to a niche market to providing for the 'mainstream', and Twilight readers have moved on to the 'real' blood-lusting, sex-driven vampire novels, anyway.