Red Riding Hood--some thoughts

And now for something completely different: another product of my ongoing Little Red Riding Hood obsession/fetish. I never get tired of this imagery. First I made the sexy red lace cloak, and then I paired it with a very virginal, delicate white muslin dress.

Speaking of Red, I've run across some interesting interpretations of her recently. I've been playing a  "short horror game' called The Path, by indie company Tale of Tales. It's not like a typical computer game at all--it's haunting, atmospheric, and intuitive. It feels "feminine" in an archtypal way. I played through it fairly quickly, but I find myself returning to it for artistic inspiration. You can get your own copy of The Path for $10 from Tale of Tales: click here

I enjoyed the film that came out this spring--mostly for the costumes and set design, which were gorgeous. The script and general Twilight-knockoff-iness of the story didn't impress me, but I did think it was quite feminist for a pop-culture film, and I dug that.

There's also a cool intersecting-vignette horror film called Trick or Treat that has a clever riff on Red--I recommend it if you like R-rated scary movies. It also features a cool witch character--always a plus for me. Netflix has it on demand.

And of course, no discussion of Red Riding Hood is complete without mention of Freeway, the creepy/genius movie starring a very young (pre-America's Sweetheart, that's for sure) Reese Witherspoon.This movie is pulpy, sad, funny, and very screwed up--one of my favorite films (a list which also includes Aliens and Death Proof). Approach with caution.

What is it that's so compelling about Little Red Riding Hood? For me, it's partly that she's a normal girl. The other well-known fairy tales (Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel) all end with a marriage. Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Snow White are famously beautiful, and they are, or become, princesses, over weeks, months, years. Red is a charming child, but she's no one special, and her story happens in a single day. Her variable fate also sets the story apart. There's no folk version of Snow White where the Wicked Queen wins. But Red is variously devoured, rescued, or able to escape through her own cunning. In one early version, she runs away, naked, after telling the wolf she has to pee. That's never going on a Disney lunchbox.

Of course, there's the Freudian interpretation--latent sexuality, fear of men, blah blah blah. But is the story really about that? When is a wolf just a wolf?