Blog Entry 9

There were many adaptations of “Bluebeard” by Charles Perrault, each following a similar theme revolving around curiosity and disobedience. In his tale, Bluebeard gives a set of keys to his wife and tells her specifically not to go into a certain room while he is gone. This sparked curiosity in her. She went into the chamber and discovered many female bodies, then got into trouble with Bluebeard and almost got killed when she confronted him about it. This plot line carries with “Fitcher’s Bird” and “The Robber Bridegroom.” There was a test given to each wife by the husband. In “The Robber Bridegroom” and “Bluebeard,” they were told not to enter a room while in the other story, she was given an egg, not a key. Each also ends with a male figure saving the woman.

In all three stories, a male character arrives at the end to save the heroine. For “Bluebeard,” it was the brothers; for “Fitcher’s Bird,” it was the male helpers; and for “The Robber Bridegroom,” the bride’s father killed her fiancé.

Photo credits: Brittanica

Each story has unique characteristics. The egg and key being covered in blood symbolize sexual maturity and the loss of innocence in “Fitcher’s Bird” and “Bluebeard.” 

I personally didn’t enjoy and of these tales very much. They’re all centered around the idea that women should not be curious and should not question the actions of her husband. If you don’t want to get snooped on, don’t hide anything from the start. It’s really that simple.

Blog Entry 8

In the movie “Hansel and Gretel” by MGM based on the story of Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm, there are a few differences between the original fairy tale and the film depiction. Almost all of the differences found in the film can be explained the need to be modernized. A movie about the

original story would be appreciated less in the eyes of producers in Hollywood and by a modern audience. In the original fairy tale, the stepmother  convinces the father that, in order to survive, they had to get rid of the children. The father doesn’t want to do it, but he sides with her decision anyway. The father agrees to lead his children into the woods both times, but feels guilty after each attempt. They led the children into the forest twice as an attempt to get rid of them for good. However, in the movie, the mother gets mad at the kids for leaving the donkey inside of the house. After sending them to collect berries, the children got lost and

the mother figure became concerned, but she was relieved when they found their way home. The father attempts to look for the children in this version and helps save them from the witch before taking them home again. Both stories follow a similar plot line, but they are very different because of character actions and their intended audience. In both versions, the witch was an evil character, just like the stepmother in the fairy tale. However, in the movie, I would not consider the mother to be an evil character because she does not attempt to abandon the children and she feels extreme guilt when they don’t return home after she sent them to pick berries.

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Blog Entry 7

Wolf Blitzer from CNN

Wolf Blitzer is a German-American CNN reporter, journalist, and anchor. He has won many awards for journalism including “the 2004 Journalist Pillar of Justice Award from the Respect for Law Alliance, and the 2003 Daniel Pearl Award from the Chicago Press Veterans Association. His news team was among those awarded a George Foster Peabody Award for coverage of Hurricane Katrina, an Alfred I. DuPont Award for coverage of the 1999 Southeast Asian tsunami, and an Edward R. Murrow Award for CNN's coverage of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.” (Wikipedia, para. 18). Blitzer currently lives in Bethesda, Maryland. He is known for hosting political debates and asking REALLY long and detailed questions. In this political cartoon, Little Red Riding Hood entered what should have been her grandmother’s cabin and asked the popular question of “my what big ___…” 

In this cartoon, she emphasized that the ‘grandmother’ was asking big questions as the character took notes in a notebook. Typical journalist depiction. The grandmother is replaced by Wolf Blitzer and Little Red Riding Hood immediately notices the difference between him and her grandmother, but not her grandmother and a wolf. 

I think this semi-political cartoon is relevant because Blitzer is German-American and he lives in Maryland. The cartoon is also comical because the child was able to depict that it was Wolf Blitzer but she had to interrogate the wolf a handful of times before becoming suspicious of his identity in the original Grimm tale.

Cartoon Credits: “Mother Goose and Grimm” 06/07/2006 by Mike Peters.