Victim, Seductress, or Executioner? The Ambiguously Feminist Recycling of Little Red Riding Hood: From Charles Perrault to Contemporary Pop Culture
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30827/impossibilia.272024.29866Keywords:
Little Red Riding Hood, Feminism, Recycling Strategies, Empowerment, Narratives, FictionAbstract
Little Red Riding Hood is arguably one of the most famous fairy tales in the world. The tale has traditionally been interpreted as a Freudian learning experience (Bettelheim, 1976), and this popular character as well as its narrative simplicity allowed the renowned scholar Umberto Eco to use it as a parable on the limits of interpretation (Eco, 1994). This article will examine the recycling process that the tale has undergone from Charles Perrault to the present day, spanning various mediums such as comics, movies, anime, or songs from the late 20th to early 21st centuries. The strategies employed to retell and recycle the tale, especially in pop culture (whether from a structural standpoint or under a new conceptual framework), will be studied, along with their implications from the perspective of feminist empowerment.
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Filmography
Casablanca (dir. Michael Curtiz), 1942.
Illang: the Wolf Brigade (dir. Kim Ji-woon), 2018.
The company of wolves (dir. Neil Jordan), 1984.
Freeway (dir. Matthew Bright), 1996.
Hard Candy (dir. David Slade), 2005.
Hoodwinked! (dir. Cory Edwards), 2005.
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (dir. Hiroyuki Okiura), 1999.
Rashomon (dir. Akira Kurosawa), 1950.
Red Hot Riding Hood, (dir. Tex Avery), 1943.
Red Riding Hood (dir. Catherine Hardwicke), 2011.
The Red Spectacles (dir. Mamuro Oshii), 1987.
The Sandman (Netflix), 2022.
StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops (dir. Mamuro Oshii), 1991.
The usual suspects (dir. Brian Singer), 1995.
Songs
“LI'L RED RIDING HOOD”, IN LI'L RED RIDING HOOD (SAM THE SHAM & THE PHARAOHS, 1966).
“Monster” in The Fame Monster (Lady Gaga, 2009).
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