March 24, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode of Whyte Noise, the hosts kick off Season 3 by diving into the dark origins and evolution of fairy tales, uncovering hidden themes, cautionary messages, and societal influences. They explore the Brothers Grimm, the complexities of Wilhelm Grimm’s relationship with his wife Dorchen, and the presence of queer themes in folklore. From The Frog King to the lasting impact of these stories on their own lives, this lively discussion blends humor and insight to unravel the cultural narratives that shape our understanding of fairy tales.
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Connect with Us: Michael Judson Berry | Ryan Wilder
Theme: “Happy Dance” by Mr. Smith is licensed under Attribution 4.0 International License. “Running Fanfare” by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported.
Subscribe and Watch on YouTube
Connect with Us: Michael Judson Berry | Ryan Wilder
Theme: “Happy Dance” by Mr. Smith is licensed under Attribution 4.0 International License. “Running Fanfare” by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under Attribution 3.0 Unported.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So he marries the arrogant queen with her magic mirror,
who's the biggest snitch ever. I swear the magic mirror
is gay. That magic mirror is such a bit like
and a teaster like and a tattletale like, like he
has the first version of Google behind that mirror and
like tracking, and he's just like, what can I say
to piss this bitch off?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Like I don't know why the keeps him. Oh welcome, welcome,
Welcome back to White Noise, Oh White Noise. And today
we're joined by my fabulous friend Erica, who's our wonderful
(00:41):
judge today.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Thank you for joining us, Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Erica, Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So and I apologize in advanced viconward. I managed to
get a flu earlier this week and then feel better
for about thirteen hours before I picked up a raging
head cold. Oh so I'm on every medication like I
did afron for a minute, but then I was like,
I see why people get addicted, so I stopped. So
now I'm just back to mucinex and da quell. I
(01:08):
apologize if I make less sense than normal today, and
if I sound vaguely like b Arthur.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I think it's kind of a sexy, raspy Michael, Oh
my god, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I think it gives you a great quality for podcasts.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
I feel like you've got you've jumped a few points
ahead here, So I don't maybe I do I need
to lower my tone? Do I need to adjust my tone?
Speaker 5 (01:30):
I don't know. Maybe I don't know if I'm gonna
be able to keep up?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Do we all need to adjust our tone?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Maybe? Sorry? That one got a little beetlejuice. We'd say hello.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
That reminded me of house Bunny. Do you remember that?
Like that's how she remembered names. She would stay there.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So Erica, thank you. Erica is an incredible actress. We
work together on a production of Sense and Sensibility, and
I was very lucky I got to play her love
interest and I was sort of a doofye love it,
But she was absolutely genius in the show.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
So aren't you always a doofy love interest?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I mean, for real, story of my life?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Thank you, Michael. I did pay him to say that.
Speaker 6 (02:10):
I said, the only way I was going to come
on this podcast is if he relentlessly complimented me.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, and I'm still waiting for that check. It hasn't
cleared yet.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
So and worth noting Eric is kicking off season three
for us. Welcome to the third season of White Noise.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I know, bananas, look at us, go, I know we're
so popular. Sorry popular? Okay, So, Erica, you have heard
the show before. You know the basic gest. You have
an immense amount of responsibility. And Ryan, what are we
talking about today?
Speaker 5 (02:40):
It would be fairy tales?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
No way? Really?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Wait, you just got excited. Why do you have Is
there a personal thing with fairy tales? I don't know why.
I just thought you'd be a great person for this.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Michael was like, I know, who needs to do this?
Speaker 6 (02:53):
So, oh my gosh, no kidding. No, I just love
old stories and how we're constantly recycling old stories and
making them new. So this will be fascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh, this is so much better than when we did
grocery stores. And I thought I had a great person
for it, and then I didn't. Well, I did my
friend Gracie, who I absolutely loved, but I thought she
was going to be really jazzed about this one particular
grocery store, and I was really wrong.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
So I'm so glad to hear that you're excited about
fairy tales and recycling of stories. So this is perfect.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, it was kind of funny Erica, like Michael was like, yay, Wegmans,
and then Gracie was like, you know, I don't know
how I feel about it anymore.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, I thought I had that one in the bag.
It was such I was so sad.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
What happened to her and a Wegmans.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Nothing particularly bad, but we grew up together and we
grew up with Wegmans, and so I thought she treasured
it as much as me. But then it turns out
she was like, well, the one near me is a
bit much because it's the flagship one and their prices
have gone up and they don't buy from local farmers
as much anymore. And it just coate of like she
was like, sorry.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
So Erica, you get to choose who goes first.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
We're gonna do our thing, and then you get to
pick who whens, and then you give us our next topic.
Do you already have an idea of your next topic
of the next topic?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yes, I do.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Oh that's good, I'm excited.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Okay, is there any rhyme or reason to who I pick.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
There's no rhyme or reason to anything here.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
Yeah literally, okay, great, I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say, Michael,
because you were really excited about when you first came on.
You were like, I really went down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh yeah, okay, great, Ryan, tell me when we're going, Ready,
you set go? Okay, this is actually rough. Usually Ryan
goes first and I riff off of what he says
because he always researches more than me. Okay, this is
oddly nerve wracking. Okay, great. So when I thought of
fairy tales, my first thought was obviously original fairy tales
(04:53):
that are so much darker and messed up than like
the Disney versions, like Grim's fairy Tales are even like,
which I didn't realize until I started reading that even
a lot of Grim's fairy tales are based on older
folkal or stories that they just put together, and they
are always so screwed up, like for friends who don't remember.
Some of my personal favorites are like Rapunzel in the
(05:16):
original Rapunzel version, how oh wait, let me find it?
She obviously the Prince climbs up to woo her were horrible.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
There's a lot of wooing.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Oh, there's so much awkward wooing. And in the original versions,
the princesses are always like twelve. Also they're like incredibly underage,
like we think Juliette's young, you know, tries no white
so I do love how like Rapunzel climbs up and
then obviously her stepmother or her evil keeper finds out,
cuts her hair and sends her out, and then when
(05:52):
the prince comes up, she essentially kind of rapes him
and then throws him off of the tower where he's
blinded by thorns and wanders for several years until he
finds her Punzle in the desert where she's had his
twins and she's been surviving. It's like a homeless mother
in the desert.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And then they somehow managed to kind of sort of
live happily ever after in like homelessness. In Sleeping Beauty
one of the more messed up ones. Obviously, you know,
the Disney part is accurate, you know, like the evil
witch comes and takes Sleeping Beauty, puts her in the
castle with all the thorny bits again, thorns. He has
to hack through the thorns. But when the prince finds
(06:34):
sleeping Beauty, he's so taken with her. In the original version,
he not only kisses her, he has sex with her
and impregnates her. She she carries the baby two term,
gives birth, and then.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Wakes up it's twins again.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, so, like I mean, I guess the one perk
for her is that she like slept through labor, so
she didn't have to deal with all of that, which
I mean, that's probably not the worst thing. A lot
of my friends who have had babies say pregnancy's kind
of rough, and childbirth is also pretty rough. So at
least she's slept the right But could you imagine falling
asleep and then waking up years later and being like,
I'm your husband and these are your children. Yeah, he'd
probably go to jail pretty quickly, obviously. Little Mermaid when
(07:14):
she goes, and her story is gnarly like the original version,
how it goes into detail about how painful the experience
of turning into a human was for her, where it
felt like a knife had split her tail into and
ripped it apart to form the legs, and with every
step she took, it felt like her legs were getting
stabbed with a thousand daggers. Oh my god, and the
(07:37):
Queen the evil octopus or Slat didn't just like take
her voice, she cut out her tongue, so she was
essentially just mutilated in many many ways. And then after
all that, the Prince chooses someone else who he mistakes
for her because she sounds like her when she sings,
and obviously Ariel can't sing, so he doesn't even pick her.
(08:00):
And then the sea Witch gives her the option of, like,
you can either kill him and then get your ole
life back and return to your family, or die, and
she chooses death and turns to sea foam, which obviously messed.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Up growing up.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
So I was obsessed with a Little Mermaid because she's
a little redhead and I'm a redhead, and a lot
of times in cartoons, redheads are the bad guys. So
I was like obsessed with her because she was the hero.
And I remember one time, have you ever seen the
cartoon version of.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
The original Little Mermaid?
Speaker 6 (08:33):
No, there's a beautiful cartoon of it, and my mom
saw it. So there's this beautiful cartoon they played every
now and then I think it's Russian.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And my mom saw it on TV and she was like, oh, Erica,
look there's another version of a Little Mermaid. Let's watch it.
And it's so pretty. It looks like watercolors.
Speaker 6 (08:53):
And then at the end she stabs herself to death
and becomes sea foam, and it's not the story that
I remembered, and I was very, very traumatized by that.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Oh well, that's what makes me think of like some
of these kids during like Grimm's times like that, they
were like parents were like, we're going to read this
to you. It's a cautionary tale. Because I think that's
what most of these were, cautionary tales for children, which
is probably why the princesses were always like literally children,
and they were like, if you're not careful, a thirty
year old man's going to do stuff to you. A whay,
you're asleep.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Lots of senses of morality in these things.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
The other one that I forgot about was rumpel Stiltskin,
which if you think about rumpel Stiltskin, it's also really
screwed up story where like the king locks his daughter
in a tower until she can spin straw into gold
and obviously she can't, and this weird little dude pops
out of nowhere and he's like, I'll do it for favors,
sexual favors. Well, first it starts out as like he
(09:47):
wants her necklace, he wants this, Why does he want
her jewels? If he can literally make gold, we don't
go there. And then eventually he wants her firstborn child.
But then the deals if she can guess his name,
then obviously she gets to keep the kid. She guesses
his name, he claims that Satan sneaked up and told her,
and he stamps the ground so hard that his leg
goes straight into the ground and then he rips his
(10:07):
body in half trying to get away, Like, but again,
why was this creepy old man and why did he
want your child?
Speaker 5 (10:15):
Was he not man? Or was he like a troll
or something?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
He's sort of like a little old man troll. And
again maybe this is also not a great thing the
way he's always depicted. He's like little and has a
big note like he sort of looks the way like
Jewish characters were drawn. So again I don't know if
there was also something like deeply anti semitic going on
there we're not.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Was that was that a brother's grim? Yes, m.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Interesting okay, is described as imp like so but given
that Disney is re releasing snow White, I did a
slightly deeper dive on snow White, So this one I
didn't know as much. So in the original Grim's story,
the king and queen have a baby. The king goes
off because you know, his kings were wont to do,
but he missed his wife, so he came back and
(10:59):
the day here she died of exhaustion and joy as
queens were wont to do, So it was just baby
snow White. Also, could you imagine you go on a trip,
you come and you're like, I'm back, and your spouse
just drops dead from like the joy of seeing you.
I mean, talk about such a bummer day, like a
real like roller coaster of highs and lows. But so
(11:21):
she drops dead and so from because she's just so
happy and tired. And so he marries the arrogant queen
with her magic mirror, who's the biggest snitch ever. I
swear the magic mirror is gay. That magic mirror is
such a bit like and a teaster like and a
tattletale like like he has the first version of Google
behind that mirror and like tracking, and he's just like
(11:45):
what can I say to piss this bitch off? Like
I don't know why the Queen keeps him. I swear
she was probably a nice lady until she got this,
this mirror, and it was just like, I'm just gonna
fuck with you, bitch, because every time it's like, you're
so pretty except for her. She's so much prettier than you.
You know what you should do? Kill her? Like he's horrible.
(12:05):
And then later he's like, guess what, bitch, she's not dead.
She's in the woods. Yeah, and I know exactly where
she is because I have a tracker. So in the
original version, obviously Queen's arrogant. Snow White is seven when
everything goes down, Oh my god. So the mirror is like,
see that little seven year old girl. She's a lot
hotter than you. And the Queen is like, this is unacceptable.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
I'm uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
It's so uncomfortable. She's seven, Like, who who looks at Erica?
You teach children, I teach chim so screwed up. So
the Queen gets the Huntsman, who's like handsoman, dashing and
She's just like, take this seven year old child and
murder her in the woods and bring me back her
organs so I can eat them.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Wait, she eats her organs like a vampire kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, that's what that's her thing. So she wants her
heart her liver, and I believe I think it's just
her heart and her liver. So obviously he doesn't. He
just leaves her in the woods and like carves up
an animal, brings it back. The Queen eats them. She
can't tell the difference between a seven year old child's
liver and a pig's liver. In this version two, snow
White does stumble into the Seven Dwarfs house, makes an
absolute mess, like like hits it like a bull in
a china shop, messes up the house, and then is
(13:13):
so died she falls asleep. Luckily they're pretty nice. They
show up and they're just like what, WTF. And then
they find her and they're like, oh, what, child's came in.
Let's take care of it. And so then the deal
she is to clean up, which when you think about it, fair, yeah,
because she did wreck the house.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And then the rest is kind of the same, except
for the Huntsman as a fully grown adult who sees
her when she the you know, like the poison apple bit. Yeah, sorry,
I'll just go real quick. So then obviously it takes
three tries for the evil Queen to get her. She
puts her in a corset, ties it too tight, she
tries to suffocate her. Luckily the dwarfs find it and
like cut her open. Then she gives her poison comb
that almost kills her. The dwarfs save her, and then
(13:54):
finally the apple and each time they're like, girl, don't
trust strangers, and she's like, I won't and then does
because she's seven. Yeah, And then later the Huntsman finds
her in her glass coffin kisses her. How's madly in love? Well,
they say, it's it's there's a period of time, and
we just hope and pray that she was in that
box for like ten years and that she grew over
(14:15):
the course of that time, like she'd continue to age
and grow and mature and go through puberty, and then
she was a full adult. And when she wakes up,
she says one sentence and he's like, I must marry you.
And then when they get married, they get the evil
queen and they put her in hot iron shoes and
make her dance until she dies in scalding hot like
(14:36):
red iron shoes, and that's her punishment.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
That's violent. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
They make her like they invite her to the wedding
ceremony and this like lying saying that they're going to
forgive her, and then they give her hot iron shoes,
make her put them on and they're like dance and
then she dies from like the shoes, my god, in
this excruciating painful death. Meanwhile, her mirror is probably like bitch,
I told you. And then there is a really fun
Russian version that's much closer to the Disney version, like
(15:02):
they actually let her grow, and in that version, it's
not dwarfs. It's just like seven Nights that she lives
with and the prince is actually much better, Like the
prince is in love with her from the get go,
like he meets her there betrothed, they actually are in love,
and then she disappears and he spends the whole story
trying to find her. So like the better version, if
you're ever going to read Snow White to a child,
find the Russian translation and just read that one because
(15:24):
it's actually okay.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
The one thing I'll add about Snow White that I
thought was kind of interesting is that it's actually kind
of portrayed that the snow Queen or the Queen that
the original character's name is Gerda, and apparently it had
like a.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Love, almost a homo erotic love for this girl.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
And the story is actually supposed to represent some level
of victory of heterosexuality over queer desire.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So really, snow White's just about lesbians and they don't
like lesbians. Maybe, Oh that's a real bummer.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Actually, I feel like I'm now hopping into mind, my own,
my own space here, so you should.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Probably okay, okay, okay, let me queue up the clock. Also, sorry, Ryan,
if you end up researching all the same things.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
No, Actually, so I ended up going down this different
like I have such a weird rabbit hole, but like
I think.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
It's kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So okay, great, okay, ready, your time starts now.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
So oddly enough, I on Friday night went to a
high school production of Into the Woods, which is kind
of the amalgamation of many different fairy tales together tells
the positive stories, and then post intermission shows what the
individual's got a result of getting their desires right, and
(16:45):
it's really ends up being pretty dark, which led me down.
I mean, I think it's it's well known most of
these fairy tales were dark. That's such a good show,
by the way, shout out to into the Woods.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Oh it was, and actually was.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
It was a very good production of it too. It
was at Ramsey High School. I was kind of like
shocked it was a high school production. So I ended
up researching a whole bunch of different ones. But the
Frog King is what stood out to me, and this
is where I started to search for the smoking Gun.
So the Frog King, which you may or may not know,
(17:18):
is about a princess who drops a golden ball into
a well. A frog pops up and says, I will
get your golden ball for you. If you're my friend,
let me eat from your pillow. I'm sorry, eat from
your plate.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
From her pillow. She's saving it badly for alone.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Ew And then the frog she runs away and she's like,
if you I got the golden ball, I'm out, And
he chases her back to the castle and knocks on
the door, and the king hears her out. Here's the
frog out and it's like, well, if you promise to
do this, you've got to let this happen. So she
obviously follows through and does the things, and is so
(18:00):
disgusted by him that she picks him up and throws
him at a wall, and when he hits the wall,
it breaks the curse that is on him, and the
prince a prince appears. There's, you know, the underlying morality
of the story here is that, you know, don't judge
a book by its cover. You know, if you make promises,
you should keep them. But there's at the end of
(18:22):
the story there's an added piece that doesn't figually get
told about Iron Heinrich and Iron Heinrich was the prince's
loyal servant who, when he was turned to a frog,
bound his heart with three pieces of iron to keep
it from breaking. And at the time and the moment
as they're riding back together, as Heinrich comes to pick
(18:44):
up the prince to return him to the castle, they
hear a sound as if the buggier cart or whatever
the horse drawn carriage are on is breaking, and it
turns out it's the iron bands breaking from Heinrich's heart.
And being thankful that the prince is back. So I'm like, okay,
that is a that is one of the gayest themes
I think I have ever heard. And I'm like, now
(19:05):
I must find the smoking gun on how like, what's
the background on this? So now we go take a
wonderful deep dive into the brothers Grim and the two brothers.
So I'm like, okay, which one of these dudes was gay?
And I'll leave it up to you guys to decide
what the true story is because I'll just preface this,
(19:27):
there is no clear documentation that either are.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Gay, just our assumption, which is now fact.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Well, I feel like I have a lot of interesting
facts that might lead you in a given direction. But
so okay, so let's start with German brothers. It's Jacob
and Wilhelm, who are scholars, linguists and kind of by
accident folklorese Right.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Jacob was much.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
More academic and into documentation, and Willhelm was the editorial mastermind.
Now I'm like, okay, tell me a little bit about
these brothers. So Jacob was never married, okay, and he
lived most of his life with Wilhelm and his wife Dorchin.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Right, And I'm like.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
All right, let's okay, Jacob, You're given off a little
gay to me. And I do a little bit of
research and there's like, there's no clear evidence that Jacob,
even in his letter writing or anything, might have been gay.
But it was very clear that he was a workaholic.
He was obsessed with his academics and his documentation, and
(20:33):
they actually say part of the reason he maybe never
got married is just because of his general obsession with
his love of languages, love of scholarly things. Then I
was like, okay, well, I should have asked this, like
who was behind the frog King? And it turns out
it was Wilhelm. Wilhelm was predominantly behind it. And it
turns out that Dorchin, his wife, was actually the muse
(20:58):
for many of these folklore stories and was the one
that pulled them together. So I was like, okay, Well,
I was like, bummer, the married one is the one
that's kind of behind the story. But I was like, Okay,
let's get into the relationship. Let's find out more about
these two. They were married, and let's see, they were
childhood friends, so they knew each other from the town
(21:20):
that they grew up in in Castle, Germany. They had
four children, two of which made it to adulthood. Two died,
but they didn't get married till thirty nine and she
was thirty two, and it stated that it was for
financial reasons that he wanted to be financially comfortable before
marrying her, but the letters that they exchanged between each
(21:42):
other indicated a level of emotional complexities. He had struggles
with personal insecurities, health, and his finances. So the relationship
is also said not to be passionate, but instead slow burning,
looking more like a deep friendship and I'm like okay,
I was like I see you Willhelm. And basically in
(22:07):
late nineteenth century Germany, it was extremely common for gay
men to get married, and it was for many many
different reasons. One, it was criminalized, criminalized in eighteen seventy one,
like criminalized in jail, like you lose everything, so you
wanted to be married. For social reasons, so people didn't
talk about you and infer things and potentially ruin your life. Basically,
(22:32):
it was impossible to move your career forward if you
weren't married, right because it was it was basically not
socially acceptable. There were deep family pressures for you to
be married. And then the overall the idea of bearding,
which is you had a woman with you for the
purposes of ensuring that you were you had legal and.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
Social social safety.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
So, based upon everything that I can put together, I
think there is a good chance that Wilhelm actually might
have been gay. Now they say, like, all the research
I did is pretty indicative of the fact that there
was nothing clearly recorded, But I kind of look, so
there's gay themes throughout a majority of the stories. He
(23:14):
was like the hyper creative one, that was the one
that would take these kind of brutal stories and put
cleaner spins on them to make them more engaging, more interesting,
and tell these underlying themes. But I kind of feel
like this was all upfront, and I think a little
bit of his true desires like bubbled up and given stories,
(23:36):
especially when you think about Heinrich and the releasing of
his heart when the Prince finally reappears Look for all
intents and purposes, it says his relationship with Dorschin was
a healthy one. They did have two children. But it
does kind of strike me that Wilhelm might have been queer.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well, then he'd be really proud, because I feel like
a lot lot of the villains, especially from Grim's Fairy
Tales and subsequently Disney versions, are like fabulous gay icons.
I mean, it makes sense why the most fun characters
are essentially all drag queenans like Melesis, saith Ursula, the
Caty Mirror. Like there's a lot of case stuff coming
(24:18):
on in there.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
But yeah, that was how much time do I have left?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
I feel like I just like, oh, you have a
whole minute.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Oh well, that's not bad timing. I say, what else
did I have here?
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Look at me. I've kind of like that's it. I
don't know what else to share.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
I was just gonna say there's other Like there's a
lot of like rape themes, but it was really kind
of the I was looking for. I was like, there's
got to be more kind of like gay themes and
that stuff, And that's how I ended up ended up here.
I mean, I feel like my bias has led me
down this path and I'm like, I'm gonna find it.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Well, maybe that's part of the reason with a lot
of this though, where it's like a lot of this
straight hero couples are pretty tortured, Like a lot of
these princes fall into thorns and have their eyes poked out.
A lot of the princesses are put through horrific physical pain.
Maybe he was jealous of the heterosexual couples who got
to live happily ever after, because none of them really
get happily after after. Ironically in the original versions.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
You make a really good point.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
It's almost like, while it's like pursuit of heterosexuality despite
the pain that comes with.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
It, maybe there's some Maybe he was punishing the people
around him in the by turning them into children's stories.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
It's kind of funny, like it goes back to that
theme of Into the Woods where you have this like like,
here's the story and here's how it turns out wonderful,
but the reality is is it's kind of fucked up.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
Oh yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
It's almost like the piece, it's like it's hidden, kind
of like his homosexuality.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
And sometimes straight love is hard no offense, Erica, I
know you're a straight person made to a really wonderful husband. Anyway,
that was ten minutes. But Erica, how many of those
were You're like, were you pretty familiar with all of
those going into this?
Speaker 5 (25:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Well really struck me. I went down a lot of
in old rabbit holes.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
When I was thinking about them, because for me, it's like, originally,
why were they telling.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
These stories in such a way. And we started to
talk about that, you know, it's like they're really these
life lessons, but the original stories maybe we don't really
agree with what those life lessons were back then.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
And what's fascinating is the way that they've humans have
taken those stories and and changed them to address whatever
they wanted it to address in their lifetimes.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
That's what really struck me that I was going to say.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
The one thing that I came back with is that
the so the folklore piece of it was, you know,
in terms of the brothers doing this was to actually
preserve German heritage and German unity through this language and stories.
So all of these things were spoken things by the
time that they collected them, which goes back to the
(26:58):
idea that like, you know, it's like telephone, you have
no idea what the actual origin of that storyline was,
Like it was probably some ex iteration of it by
the time they heard it, and then obviously we have
our own versions of it now that.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, like maybe Hansel and Gretel originally was like a
lovely story before it got full like Sweeney Todd slash
Hannibal Lecter, where she like lured kids in and then
ate them and then she ends up getting questioned in
another And maybe originally it was just the story about
like a sweet ol lady who lived in the wood
who was lonely, and then the Grimm's brothers got their
hands on it and they were like, Nope, this is
(27:36):
too cheery for us. We can't have the cute lady
from candy Land just living in the woods giving out
Halloween candy every day. We got to make this really
dark and picked up. All right, So, Erica, the time
has come. Who is our winner today?
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Can I ask a question?
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
No, like a tie breaking question?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yes, oh, a tie breaking question?
Speaker 5 (27:58):
No, No, you can't.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
That's the case. Let's go for it.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
I wanted to know, Michael and Ryan, how fairy tales
have affected your own lives, if they have, and if so,
how so?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Like I'm a hyper imaginative person to begin with, and
I think I constantly kind of my own narratives around
the world in my head, like constantly. It's almost like
I constantly craft and recreate fairy tales around me all
the time, Like what could this be if it were
something else, or like what if I had made this
(28:38):
decision or what if I had made this decision? And
even like I like, and it's also I think it's
a lesser personality trait, like it's something I actually wish
I was better at. But I also have deep reflections
on things that I feel like I've made mistakes with
deep in.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
The past, and how.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
I wish it had been kind of different or i'd
behave differently in a given moment of time or made
different decisions. So, you know, I don't know if that's
from growing up with fairy tales, but I would tell
you I feel like I have this underlying fairy tale
mindset in my mind that has those kind of reflections,
those kind of like what could it be or what
(29:17):
could it have been, or if I had made decisions differently,
what those paths sort of looked like. And I do
think that all kind of informs how I operate day
to day because I am because I do so deeply
reflect on this stuff like and refer back to it
in terms of future decisions that I make. So yeah,
I don't know, that was kind of a long answer
(29:38):
to it, but that's that's how I would say it
kind of personally interlaces within my mind.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I guess similar. I mean, that question just makes me
think of one of my favorite movies, You've Got Mail,
where Meg Ryan talks about the importance of children's books
and how children's books affect you and change you in
a way that no other reading does because it helps
create the foundation of you and those stories. And luckily
(30:08):
we grew up at a time where it was like
peak Disney, like you know, like you know, I remember
I had all the Disney VHS's with the original covers
with like the Little Mermaid castlewe guinas on top, you know,
like the peak Disney. I feel like I was always
drawn to stories like that, and actually as a kid,
(30:30):
I liked the original like kind of fucked up stories too.
But I thinks I've always been a dreamer and just
like a strangely like hopeful person, So fairy tales always
sort of work in my brain because that's just kind
of the way operate. It makes me think, Ryan, when
we did the episode about serendipity, and you were like,
I am and just what they say, like serendipitous person,
because like I just sort of go through with hope
(30:53):
and just sort of like this is going to work
out because it's a kid, I get. Maybe maybe there's
something there, Like as a kid, because did work out,
Like the version of the Little Mermaid I saw, she
didn't turn into Sea Fum, she got the prince, you know,
like you wonder if that like seeing those And as
a kid, I never slapped. I was a really horrible,
horrible sleeper. So my family would go to bed, and
(31:14):
even at like three years old, I knew how to
work the VHS and I would go in and I
would watch these movies until like four o'clock in the morning.
So maybe something sort of seeped into my brain where
it sort of like helped carve out the way I
go through, Like maybe that's why I go through just
sort of being like things are gonna work out because
they do. So it could be it could be. That's
(31:35):
a great question, because it could be that both of us,
Ryan and I, you and I have been deeply affected
by these stories and we didn't even fully realize it.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Well in tying it back, you're also the gay character,
which means apparently and the Brothers Grim cross Section, you're
meant to be successful.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Here, So I mean I kind of relate to the
Mirror in a lot of ways, clearly because I'm so
excited about this character. Although I'm not really a teaster.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't you're not You're
not a caddy a caddy bitch, and that Mirror was
a caddy bitch.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Maybe I just think he's funding too anyway, long winded
answers Eric, I don't know if that helped you.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
I relate to everything you're both saying.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
We definitely grew up with all of the Disney movies
and I remember going to the movie theater with my family.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
To see.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
Lots of cartoons, and I think it really when I really,
when I think about it, I think it gave me
exactly what Michael was saying. It made me perhaps more
positive because just like you said, Michael, it's like, well,
everything always works out. I know, Mulan changed my life.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
It's such a good one.
Speaker 6 (32:48):
Because she's so strong and tough, and I remember seeing
that and like just like being.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Like, I'm going to talk back to people.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
So yeah, I think there's something about that that got
me interested in stories from an early age. And now,
you know, look at my life I'm an actor. I
live in stories. I absolutely grew up. I remember, I'm
the youngest and my brothers are a lot older than me,
So I spent a lot of time in my own
little imagination re enacting, you know, the Disney versions of
(33:22):
fairy tales, and I think that really fed into me
becoming an artist and becoming a writer, because I was
constantly putting together all these little ideas.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
So I guess they smarked my imagination, all right?
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Did we also? Fun fact about Mulan which I didn't
catch until recently. If you notice, the musical aspect of
the movie stops when she becomes a warrior, when she
like really finds herself, they don't sing again, which I
thought was a really interesting move. The story becomes just
the fairy tale aspect or the musical, and like that
(33:54):
aspect of the story, they stop when she like comes
into her own. After that, that village is decimated and
the whole tone of the movie gets a little bit
darker and a little bit more realistic.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
I've you'res gonna hate me. I've never seen it.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
It's a good one. Mulana is a really good one.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Oh it's so good. You have to watch it.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
So, Erica, do you have a winner?
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I do? Okay, So you both did an excellent job. Ryan, amazing.
Speaker 6 (34:19):
I never thought about it that way about I never
really thought about the actual brothers that wrote these stories.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Fascinating. Thank you so much, Michael. I did not know
that in.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
Sleeping Beauty, you know, I never really thought about the mirror.
It was just kind of like a plot point to
get the story moving for me.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
So I never really thought about it before.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
And now I'm fascinated. What was that guy's problem? And
also I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I also I didn't know that they.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
Tortured her to death by making her dance at their
wedding with iron Shoe who. I have a lot of questions.
I thought usually fairy princesses were more apt to forgiveness
than that. I think it's strangely cruel to trick her.
(35:13):
I think for this week, Michael, I'm giving it to you.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
Oh Michael, thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
I thought it was gonna be Ryan because he took
it a step further. Also, Ryan, this is one time
I worked out well that I went first, because it's like,
here are the stories, and you're like, in here the
people that wrote them. So Erica, thank you for switching
it up a little bit. It actually managed to work out.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Well, you're welcome, happy to switch it up.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
So what's our topic for next week?
Speaker 6 (35:40):
Okay, So I was pretty nervous about this, and so
I've been collecting plants, you know, like all of us
since twenty twenty, and I thought, what would be really
interesting at least for me to listen to you next
week is photosynthesis. Ooh what is that?
Speaker 3 (36:00):
What do you mean plants eat sunlight?
Speaker 5 (36:02):
Oh my god, I so know what I'm talking about already.
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Ryan just lit up like a little Christmas tree.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
I'm so happy to hear that you're really into this,
because even maybe two minutes until I signed that and
I was like, oh god, are they going to hate this?
So I'm really excited to hear this, and I'm definitely
gonna listen next week. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Okay, Well, thank you so much, so good to see you.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
You're welcome. Thank you for having me
So he marries the arrogant queen with her magic mirror,
who's the biggest snitch ever. I swear the magic mirror
is gay. That magic mirror is such a bit like
and a teaster like and a tattletale like, like he
has the first version of Google behind that mirror and
like tracking, and he's just like, what can I say
to piss this bitch off?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Like I don't know why the keeps him. Oh welcome, welcome,
Welcome back to White Noise, Oh White Noise. And today
we're joined by my fabulous friend Erica, who's our wonderful
(00:41):
judge today.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Thank you for joining us, Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Erica, Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
So and I apologize in advanced viconward. I managed to
get a flu earlier this week and then feel better
for about thirteen hours before I picked up a raging
head cold. Oh so I'm on every medication like I
did afron for a minute, but then I was like,
I see why people get addicted, so I stopped. So
now I'm just back to mucinex and da quell. I
(01:08):
apologize if I make less sense than normal today, and
if I sound vaguely like b Arthur.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I think it's kind of a sexy, raspy Michael, Oh
my god, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I think it gives you a great quality for podcasts.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
I feel like you've got you've jumped a few points
ahead here, So I don't maybe I do I need
to lower my tone? Do I need to adjust my tone?
Speaker 5 (01:30):
I don't know. Maybe I don't know if I'm gonna
be able to keep up?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Do we all need to adjust our tone?
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Maybe? Sorry? That one got a little beetlejuice. We'd say hello.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
That reminded me of house Bunny. Do you remember that?
Like that's how she remembered names. She would stay there.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So Erica, thank you. Erica is an incredible actress. We
work together on a production of Sense and Sensibility, and
I was very lucky I got to play her love
interest and I was sort of a doofye love it,
But she was absolutely genius in the show.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
So aren't you always a doofy love interest?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I mean, for real, story of my life?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Thank you, Michael. I did pay him to say that.
Speaker 6 (02:10):
I said, the only way I was going to come
on this podcast is if he relentlessly complimented me.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, and I'm still waiting for that check. It hasn't
cleared yet.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
So and worth noting Eric is kicking off season three
for us. Welcome to the third season of White Noise.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I know, bananas, look at us, go, I know we're
so popular. Sorry popular? Okay, So, Erica, you have heard
the show before. You know the basic gest. You have
an immense amount of responsibility. And Ryan, what are we
talking about today?
Speaker 5 (02:40):
It would be fairy tales?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
No way? Really?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Wait, you just got excited. Why do you have Is
there a personal thing with fairy tales? I don't know why.
I just thought you'd be a great person for this.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Michael was like, I know, who needs to do this?
Speaker 6 (02:53):
So, oh my gosh, no kidding. No, I just love
old stories and how we're constantly recycling old stories and
making them new. So this will be fascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Oh, this is so much better than when we did
grocery stores. And I thought I had a great person
for it, and then I didn't. Well, I did my
friend Gracie, who I absolutely loved, but I thought she
was going to be really jazzed about this one particular
grocery store, and I was really wrong.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
So I'm so glad to hear that you're excited about
fairy tales and recycling of stories. So this is perfect.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah, it was kind of funny Erica, like Michael was like, yay, Wegmans,
and then Gracie was like, you know, I don't know
how I feel about it anymore.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Yeah, I thought I had that one in the bag.
It was such I was so sad.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
What happened to her and a Wegmans.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Nothing particularly bad, but we grew up together and we
grew up with Wegmans, and so I thought she treasured
it as much as me. But then it turns out
she was like, well, the one near me is a
bit much because it's the flagship one and their prices
have gone up and they don't buy from local farmers
as much anymore. And it just coate of like she
was like, sorry.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
So Erica, you get to choose who goes first.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
We're gonna do our thing, and then you get to
pick who whens, and then you give us our next topic.
Do you already have an idea of your next topic
of the next topic?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yes, I do.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Oh that's good, I'm excited.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Okay, is there any rhyme or reason to who I pick.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
There's no rhyme or reason to anything here.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
Yeah literally, okay, great, I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say, Michael,
because you were really excited about when you first came on.
You were like, I really went down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh yeah, okay, great, Ryan, tell me when we're going, Ready,
you set go? Okay, this is actually rough. Usually Ryan
goes first and I riff off of what he says
because he always researches more than me. Okay, this is
oddly nerve wracking. Okay, great. So when I thought of
fairy tales, my first thought was obviously original fairy tales
(04:53):
that are so much darker and messed up than like
the Disney versions, like Grim's fairy Tales are even like,
which I didn't realize until I started reading that even
a lot of Grim's fairy tales are based on older
folkal or stories that they just put together, and they
are always so screwed up, like for friends who don't remember.
Some of my personal favorites are like Rapunzel in the
(05:16):
original Rapunzel version, how oh wait, let me find it?
She obviously the Prince climbs up to woo her were horrible.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
There's a lot of wooing.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Oh, there's so much awkward wooing. And in the original versions,
the princesses are always like twelve. Also they're like incredibly underage,
like we think Juliette's young, you know, tries no white
so I do love how like Rapunzel climbs up and
then obviously her stepmother or her evil keeper finds out,
cuts her hair and sends her out, and then when
(05:52):
the prince comes up, she essentially kind of rapes him
and then throws him off of the tower where he's
blinded by thorns and wanders for several years until he
finds her Punzle in the desert where she's had his
twins and she's been surviving. It's like a homeless mother
in the desert.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And then they somehow managed to kind of sort of
live happily ever after in like homelessness. In Sleeping Beauty
one of the more messed up ones. Obviously, you know,
the Disney part is accurate, you know, like the evil
witch comes and takes Sleeping Beauty, puts her in the
castle with all the thorny bits again, thorns. He has
to hack through the thorns. But when the prince finds
(06:34):
sleeping Beauty, he's so taken with her. In the original version,
he not only kisses her, he has sex with her
and impregnates her. She she carries the baby two term,
gives birth, and then.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Wakes up it's twins again.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, so, like I mean, I guess the one perk
for her is that she like slept through labor, so
she didn't have to deal with all of that, which
I mean, that's probably not the worst thing. A lot
of my friends who have had babies say pregnancy's kind
of rough, and childbirth is also pretty rough. So at
least she's slept the right But could you imagine falling
asleep and then waking up years later and being like,
I'm your husband and these are your children. Yeah, he'd
probably go to jail pretty quickly, obviously. Little Mermaid when
(07:14):
she goes, and her story is gnarly like the original version,
how it goes into detail about how painful the experience
of turning into a human was for her, where it
felt like a knife had split her tail into and
ripped it apart to form the legs, and with every
step she took, it felt like her legs were getting
stabbed with a thousand daggers. Oh my god, and the
(07:37):
Queen the evil octopus or Slat didn't just like take
her voice, she cut out her tongue, so she was
essentially just mutilated in many many ways. And then after
all that, the Prince chooses someone else who he mistakes
for her because she sounds like her when she sings,
and obviously Ariel can't sing, so he doesn't even pick her.
(08:00):
And then the sea Witch gives her the option of, like,
you can either kill him and then get your ole
life back and return to your family, or die, and
she chooses death and turns to sea foam, which obviously messed.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Up growing up.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
So I was obsessed with a Little Mermaid because she's
a little redhead and I'm a redhead, and a lot
of times in cartoons, redheads are the bad guys. So
I was like obsessed with her because she was the hero.
And I remember one time, have you ever seen the
cartoon version of.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
The original Little Mermaid?
Speaker 6 (08:33):
No, there's a beautiful cartoon of it, and my mom
saw it. So there's this beautiful cartoon they played every
now and then I think it's Russian.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And my mom saw it on TV and she was like, oh, Erica,
look there's another version of a Little Mermaid. Let's watch it.
And it's so pretty. It looks like watercolors.
Speaker 6 (08:53):
And then at the end she stabs herself to death
and becomes sea foam, and it's not the story that
I remembered, and I was very, very traumatized by that.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Oh well, that's what makes me think of like some
of these kids during like Grimm's times like that, they
were like parents were like, we're going to read this
to you. It's a cautionary tale. Because I think that's
what most of these were, cautionary tales for children, which
is probably why the princesses were always like literally children,
and they were like, if you're not careful, a thirty
year old man's going to do stuff to you. A whay,
you're asleep.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Lots of senses of morality in these things.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
The other one that I forgot about was rumpel Stiltskin,
which if you think about rumpel Stiltskin, it's also really
screwed up story where like the king locks his daughter
in a tower until she can spin straw into gold
and obviously she can't, and this weird little dude pops
out of nowhere and he's like, I'll do it for favors,
sexual favors. Well, first it starts out as like he
(09:47):
wants her necklace, he wants this, Why does he want
her jewels? If he can literally make gold, we don't
go there. And then eventually he wants her firstborn child.
But then the deals if she can guess his name,
then obviously she gets to keep the kid. She guesses
his name, he claims that Satan sneaked up and told her,
and he stamps the ground so hard that his leg
goes straight into the ground and then he rips his
(10:07):
body in half trying to get away, Like, but again,
why was this creepy old man and why did he
want your child?
Speaker 5 (10:15):
Was he not man? Or was he like a troll
or something?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
He's sort of like a little old man troll. And
again maybe this is also not a great thing the
way he's always depicted. He's like little and has a
big note like he sort of looks the way like
Jewish characters were drawn. So again I don't know if
there was also something like deeply anti semitic going on
there we're not.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Was that was that a brother's grim? Yes, m.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Interesting okay, is described as imp like so but given
that Disney is re releasing snow White, I did a
slightly deeper dive on snow White, So this one I
didn't know as much. So in the original Grim's story,
the king and queen have a baby. The king goes
off because you know, his kings were wont to do,
but he missed his wife, so he came back and
(10:59):
the day here she died of exhaustion and joy as
queens were wont to do, So it was just baby
snow White. Also, could you imagine you go on a trip,
you come and you're like, I'm back, and your spouse
just drops dead from like the joy of seeing you.
I mean, talk about such a bummer day, like a
real like roller coaster of highs and lows. But so
(11:21):
she drops dead and so from because she's just so
happy and tired. And so he marries the arrogant queen
with her magic mirror, who's the biggest snitch ever. I
swear the magic mirror is gay. That magic mirror is
such a bit like and a teaster like and a
tattletale like like he has the first version of Google
behind that mirror and like tracking, and he's just like
(11:45):
what can I say to piss this bitch off? Like
I don't know why the Queen keeps him. I swear
she was probably a nice lady until she got this,
this mirror, and it was just like, I'm just gonna
fuck with you, bitch, because every time it's like, you're
so pretty except for her. She's so much prettier than you.
You know what you should do? Kill her? Like he's horrible.
(12:05):
And then later he's like, guess what, bitch, she's not dead.
She's in the woods. Yeah, and I know exactly where
she is because I have a tracker. So in the
original version, obviously Queen's arrogant. Snow White is seven when
everything goes down, Oh my god. So the mirror is like,
see that little seven year old girl. She's a lot
hotter than you. And the Queen is like, this is unacceptable.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
I'm uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
It's so uncomfortable. She's seven, Like, who who looks at Erica?
You teach children, I teach chim so screwed up. So
the Queen gets the Huntsman, who's like handsoman, dashing and
She's just like, take this seven year old child and
murder her in the woods and bring me back her
organs so I can eat them.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Wait, she eats her organs like a vampire kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, that's what that's her thing. So she wants her
heart her liver, and I believe I think it's just
her heart and her liver. So obviously he doesn't. He
just leaves her in the woods and like carves up
an animal, brings it back. The Queen eats them. She
can't tell the difference between a seven year old child's
liver and a pig's liver. In this version two, snow
White does stumble into the Seven Dwarfs house, makes an
absolute mess, like like hits it like a bull in
a china shop, messes up the house, and then is
(13:13):
so died she falls asleep. Luckily they're pretty nice. They
show up and they're just like what, WTF. And then
they find her and they're like, oh, what, child's came in.
Let's take care of it. And so then the deal
she is to clean up, which when you think about it, fair, yeah,
because she did wreck the house.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And then the rest is kind of the same, except
for the Huntsman as a fully grown adult who sees
her when she the you know, like the poison apple bit. Yeah, sorry,
I'll just go real quick. So then obviously it takes
three tries for the evil Queen to get her. She
puts her in a corset, ties it too tight, she
tries to suffocate her. Luckily the dwarfs find it and
like cut her open. Then she gives her poison comb
that almost kills her. The dwarfs save her, and then
(13:54):
finally the apple and each time they're like, girl, don't
trust strangers, and she's like, I won't and then does
because she's seven. Yeah, And then later the Huntsman finds
her in her glass coffin kisses her. How's madly in love? Well,
they say, it's it's there's a period of time, and
we just hope and pray that she was in that
box for like ten years and that she grew over
(14:15):
the course of that time, like she'd continue to age
and grow and mature and go through puberty, and then
she was a full adult. And when she wakes up,
she says one sentence and he's like, I must marry you.
And then when they get married, they get the evil
queen and they put her in hot iron shoes and
make her dance until she dies in scalding hot like
(14:36):
red iron shoes, and that's her punishment.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
That's violent. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
They make her like they invite her to the wedding
ceremony and this like lying saying that they're going to
forgive her, and then they give her hot iron shoes,
make her put them on and they're like dance and
then she dies from like the shoes, my god, in
this excruciating painful death. Meanwhile, her mirror is probably like bitch,
I told you. And then there is a really fun
Russian version that's much closer to the Disney version, like
(15:02):
they actually let her grow, and in that version, it's
not dwarfs. It's just like seven Nights that she lives
with and the prince is actually much better, Like the
prince is in love with her from the get go,
like he meets her there betrothed, they actually are in love,
and then she disappears and he spends the whole story
trying to find her. So like the better version, if
you're ever going to read Snow White to a child,
find the Russian translation and just read that one because
(15:24):
it's actually okay.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
The one thing I'll add about Snow White that I
thought was kind of interesting is that it's actually kind
of portrayed that the snow Queen or the Queen that
the original character's name is Gerda, and apparently it had
like a.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Love, almost a homo erotic love for this girl.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
And the story is actually supposed to represent some level
of victory of heterosexuality over queer desire.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So really, snow White's just about lesbians and they don't
like lesbians. Maybe, Oh that's a real bummer.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Actually, I feel like I'm now hopping into mind, my own,
my own space here, so you should.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Probably okay, okay, okay, let me queue up the clock. Also, sorry, Ryan,
if you end up researching all the same things.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
No, Actually, so I ended up going down this different
like I have such a weird rabbit hole, but like
I think.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
It's kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So okay, great, okay, ready, your time starts now.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
So oddly enough, I on Friday night went to a
high school production of Into the Woods, which is kind
of the amalgamation of many different fairy tales together tells
the positive stories, and then post intermission shows what the
individual's got a result of getting their desires right, and
(16:45):
it's really ends up being pretty dark, which led me down.
I mean, I think it's it's well known most of
these fairy tales were dark. That's such a good show,
by the way, shout out to into the Woods.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Oh it was, and actually was.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
It was a very good production of it too. It
was at Ramsey High School. I was kind of like
shocked it was a high school production. So I ended
up researching a whole bunch of different ones. But the
Frog King is what stood out to me, and this
is where I started to search for the smoking Gun.
So the Frog King, which you may or may not know,
(17:18):
is about a princess who drops a golden ball into
a well. A frog pops up and says, I will
get your golden ball for you. If you're my friend,
let me eat from your pillow. I'm sorry, eat from
your plate.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
From her pillow. She's saving it badly for alone.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Ew And then the frog she runs away and she's like,
if you I got the golden ball, I'm out, And
he chases her back to the castle and knocks on
the door, and the king hears her out. Here's the
frog out and it's like, well, if you promise to
do this, you've got to let this happen. So she
obviously follows through and does the things, and is so
(18:00):
disgusted by him that she picks him up and throws
him at a wall, and when he hits the wall,
it breaks the curse that is on him, and the
prince a prince appears. There's, you know, the underlying morality
of the story here is that, you know, don't judge
a book by its cover. You know, if you make promises,
you should keep them. But there's at the end of
(18:22):
the story there's an added piece that doesn't figually get
told about Iron Heinrich and Iron Heinrich was the prince's
loyal servant who, when he was turned to a frog,
bound his heart with three pieces of iron to keep
it from breaking. And at the time and the moment
as they're riding back together, as Heinrich comes to pick
(18:44):
up the prince to return him to the castle, they
hear a sound as if the buggier cart or whatever
the horse drawn carriage are on is breaking, and it
turns out it's the iron bands breaking from Heinrich's heart.
And being thankful that the prince is back. So I'm like, okay,
that is a that is one of the gayest themes
I think I have ever heard. And I'm like, now
(19:05):
I must find the smoking gun on how like, what's
the background on this? So now we go take a
wonderful deep dive into the brothers Grim and the two brothers.
So I'm like, okay, which one of these dudes was gay?
And I'll leave it up to you guys to decide
what the true story is because I'll just preface this,
(19:27):
there is no clear documentation that either are.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Gay, just our assumption, which is now fact.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Well, I feel like I have a lot of interesting
facts that might lead you in a given direction. But
so okay, so let's start with German brothers. It's Jacob
and Wilhelm, who are scholars, linguists and kind of by
accident folklorese Right.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Jacob was much.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
More academic and into documentation, and Willhelm was the editorial mastermind.
Now I'm like, okay, tell me a little bit about
these brothers. So Jacob was never married, okay, and he
lived most of his life with Wilhelm and his wife Dorchin.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
Right, And I'm like.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
All right, let's okay, Jacob, You're given off a little
gay to me. And I do a little bit of
research and there's like, there's no clear evidence that Jacob,
even in his letter writing or anything, might have been gay.
But it was very clear that he was a workaholic.
He was obsessed with his academics and his documentation, and
(20:33):
they actually say part of the reason he maybe never
got married is just because of his general obsession with
his love of languages, love of scholarly things. Then I
was like, okay, well, I should have asked this, like
who was behind the frog King? And it turns out
it was Wilhelm. Wilhelm was predominantly behind it. And it
turns out that Dorchin, his wife, was actually the muse
(20:58):
for many of these folklore stories and was the one
that pulled them together. So I was like, okay, Well,
I was like, bummer, the married one is the one
that's kind of behind the story. But I was like, Okay,
let's get into the relationship. Let's find out more about
these two. They were married, and let's see, they were
childhood friends, so they knew each other from the town
(21:20):
that they grew up in in Castle, Germany. They had
four children, two of which made it to adulthood. Two died,
but they didn't get married till thirty nine and she
was thirty two, and it stated that it was for
financial reasons that he wanted to be financially comfortable before
marrying her, but the letters that they exchanged between each
(21:42):
other indicated a level of emotional complexities. He had struggles
with personal insecurities, health, and his finances. So the relationship
is also said not to be passionate, but instead slow burning,
looking more like a deep friendship and I'm like okay,
I was like I see you Willhelm. And basically in
(22:07):
late nineteenth century Germany, it was extremely common for gay
men to get married, and it was for many many
different reasons. One, it was criminalized, criminalized in eighteen seventy one,
like criminalized in jail, like you lose everything, so you
wanted to be married. For social reasons, so people didn't
talk about you and infer things and potentially ruin your life. Basically,
(22:32):
it was impossible to move your career forward if you
weren't married, right because it was it was basically not
socially acceptable. There were deep family pressures for you to
be married. And then the overall the idea of bearding,
which is you had a woman with you for the
purposes of ensuring that you were you had legal and.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
Social social safety.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
So, based upon everything that I can put together, I
think there is a good chance that Wilhelm actually might
have been gay. Now they say, like, all the research
I did is pretty indicative of the fact that there
was nothing clearly recorded, But I kind of look, so
there's gay themes throughout a majority of the stories. He
(23:14):
was like the hyper creative one, that was the one
that would take these kind of brutal stories and put
cleaner spins on them to make them more engaging, more interesting,
and tell these underlying themes. But I kind of feel
like this was all upfront, and I think a little
bit of his true desires like bubbled up and given stories,
(23:36):
especially when you think about Heinrich and the releasing of
his heart when the Prince finally reappears Look for all
intents and purposes, it says his relationship with Dorschin was
a healthy one. They did have two children. But it
does kind of strike me that Wilhelm might have been queer.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well, then he'd be really proud, because I feel like
a lot lot of the villains, especially from Grim's Fairy
Tales and subsequently Disney versions, are like fabulous gay icons.
I mean, it makes sense why the most fun characters
are essentially all drag queenans like Melesis, saith Ursula, the
Caty Mirror. Like there's a lot of case stuff coming
(24:18):
on in there.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
But yeah, that was how much time do I have left?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
I feel like I just like, oh, you have a
whole minute.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Oh well, that's not bad timing. I say, what else
did I have here?
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Look at me. I've kind of like that's it. I
don't know what else to share.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
I was just gonna say there's other Like there's a
lot of like rape themes, but it was really kind
of the I was looking for. I was like, there's
got to be more kind of like gay themes and
that stuff, And that's how I ended up ended up here.
I mean, I feel like my bias has led me
down this path and I'm like, I'm gonna find it.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Well, maybe that's part of the reason with a lot
of this though, where it's like a lot of this
straight hero couples are pretty tortured, Like a lot of
these princes fall into thorns and have their eyes poked out.
A lot of the princesses are put through horrific physical pain.
Maybe he was jealous of the heterosexual couples who got
to live happily ever after, because none of them really
get happily after after. Ironically in the original versions.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
You make a really good point.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
It's almost like, while it's like pursuit of heterosexuality despite
the pain that comes with.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
It, maybe there's some Maybe he was punishing the people
around him in the by turning them into children's stories.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
It's kind of funny, like it goes back to that
theme of Into the Woods where you have this like like,
here's the story and here's how it turns out wonderful,
but the reality is is it's kind of fucked up.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
Oh yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
It's almost like the piece, it's like it's hidden, kind
of like his homosexuality.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
And sometimes straight love is hard no offense, Erica, I
know you're a straight person made to a really wonderful husband. Anyway,
that was ten minutes. But Erica, how many of those
were You're like, were you pretty familiar with all of
those going into this?
Speaker 5 (25:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Well really struck me. I went down a lot of
in old rabbit holes.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
When I was thinking about them, because for me, it's like, originally,
why were they telling.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
These stories in such a way. And we started to
talk about that, you know, it's like they're really these
life lessons, but the original stories maybe we don't really
agree with what those life lessons were back then.
Speaker 6 (26:22):
And what's fascinating is the way that they've humans have
taken those stories and and changed them to address whatever
they wanted it to address in their lifetimes.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
That's what really struck me that I was going to say.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
The one thing that I came back with is that
the so the folklore piece of it was, you know,
in terms of the brothers doing this was to actually
preserve German heritage and German unity through this language and stories.
So all of these things were spoken things by the
time that they collected them, which goes back to the
(26:58):
idea that like, you know, it's like telephone, you have
no idea what the actual origin of that storyline was,
Like it was probably some ex iteration of it by
the time they heard it, and then obviously we have
our own versions of it now that.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, like maybe Hansel and Gretel originally was like a
lovely story before it got full like Sweeney Todd slash
Hannibal Lecter, where she like lured kids in and then
ate them and then she ends up getting questioned in
another And maybe originally it was just the story about
like a sweet ol lady who lived in the wood
who was lonely, and then the Grimm's brothers got their
hands on it and they were like, Nope, this is
(27:36):
too cheery for us. We can't have the cute lady
from candy Land just living in the woods giving out
Halloween candy every day. We got to make this really
dark and picked up. All right, So, Erica, the time
has come. Who is our winner today?
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Can I ask a question?
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
No, like a tie breaking question?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yes, oh, a tie breaking question?
Speaker 5 (27:58):
No, No, you can't.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
That's the case. Let's go for it.
Speaker 6 (28:03):
I wanted to know, Michael and Ryan, how fairy tales
have affected your own lives, if they have, and if so,
how so?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Like I'm a hyper imaginative person to begin with, and
I think I constantly kind of my own narratives around
the world in my head, like constantly. It's almost like
I constantly craft and recreate fairy tales around me all
the time, Like what could this be if it were
something else, or like what if I had made this
(28:38):
decision or what if I had made this decision? And
even like I like, and it's also I think it's
a lesser personality trait, like it's something I actually wish
I was better at. But I also have deep reflections
on things that I feel like I've made mistakes with
deep in.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
The past, and how.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
I wish it had been kind of different or i'd
behave differently in a given moment of time or made
different decisions. So, you know, I don't know if that's
from growing up with fairy tales, but I would tell
you I feel like I have this underlying fairy tale
mindset in my mind that has those kind of reflections,
those kind of like what could it be or what
(29:17):
could it have been, or if I had made decisions differently,
what those paths sort of looked like. And I do
think that all kind of informs how I operate day
to day because I am because I do so deeply
reflect on this stuff like and refer back to it
in terms of future decisions that I make. So yeah,
I don't know, that was kind of a long answer
(29:38):
to it, but that's that's how I would say it
kind of personally interlaces within my mind.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I guess similar. I mean, that question just makes me
think of one of my favorite movies, You've Got Mail,
where Meg Ryan talks about the importance of children's books
and how children's books affect you and change you in
a way that no other reading does because it helps
create the foundation of you and those stories. And luckily
(30:08):
we grew up at a time where it was like
peak Disney, like you know, like you know, I remember
I had all the Disney VHS's with the original covers
with like the Little Mermaid castlewe guinas on top, you know,
like the peak Disney. I feel like I was always
drawn to stories like that, and actually as a kid,
(30:30):
I liked the original like kind of fucked up stories too.
But I thinks I've always been a dreamer and just
like a strangely like hopeful person, So fairy tales always
sort of work in my brain because that's just kind
of the way operate. It makes me think, Ryan, when
we did the episode about serendipity, and you were like,
I am and just what they say, like serendipitous person,
because like I just sort of go through with hope
(30:53):
and just sort of like this is going to work
out because it's a kid, I get. Maybe maybe there's
something there, Like as a kid, because did work out,
Like the version of the Little Mermaid I saw, she
didn't turn into Sea Fum, she got the prince, you know,
like you wonder if that like seeing those And as
a kid, I never slapped. I was a really horrible,
horrible sleeper. So my family would go to bed, and
(31:14):
even at like three years old, I knew how to
work the VHS and I would go in and I
would watch these movies until like four o'clock in the morning.
So maybe something sort of seeped into my brain where
it sort of like helped carve out the way I
go through, Like maybe that's why I go through just
sort of being like things are gonna work out because
they do. So it could be it could be. That's
(31:35):
a great question, because it could be that both of us,
Ryan and I, you and I have been deeply affected
by these stories and we didn't even fully realize it.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Well in tying it back, you're also the gay character,
which means apparently and the Brothers Grim cross Section, you're
meant to be successful.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Here, So I mean I kind of relate to the
Mirror in a lot of ways, clearly because I'm so
excited about this character. Although I'm not really a teaster.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't you're not You're
not a caddy a caddy bitch, and that Mirror was
a caddy bitch.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Maybe I just think he's funding too anyway, long winded
answers Eric, I don't know if that helped you.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
I relate to everything you're both saying.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
We definitely grew up with all of the Disney movies
and I remember going to the movie theater with my family.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
To see.
Speaker 6 (32:28):
Lots of cartoons, and I think it really when I really,
when I think about it, I think it gave me
exactly what Michael was saying. It made me perhaps more
positive because just like you said, Michael, it's like, well,
everything always works out. I know, Mulan changed my life.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
It's such a good one.
Speaker 6 (32:48):
Because she's so strong and tough, and I remember seeing
that and like just like being.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Like, I'm going to talk back to people.
Speaker 6 (32:59):
So yeah, I think there's something about that that got
me interested in stories from an early age. And now,
you know, look at my life I'm an actor. I
live in stories. I absolutely grew up. I remember, I'm
the youngest and my brothers are a lot older than me,
So I spent a lot of time in my own
little imagination re enacting, you know, the Disney versions of
(33:22):
fairy tales, and I think that really fed into me
becoming an artist and becoming a writer, because I was
constantly putting together all these little ideas.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
So I guess they smarked my imagination, all right?
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Did we also? Fun fact about Mulan which I didn't
catch until recently. If you notice, the musical aspect of
the movie stops when she becomes a warrior, when she
like really finds herself, they don't sing again, which I
thought was a really interesting move. The story becomes just
the fairy tale aspect or the musical, and like that
(33:54):
aspect of the story, they stop when she like comes
into her own. After that, that village is decimated and
the whole tone of the movie gets a little bit
darker and a little bit more realistic.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
I've you'res gonna hate me. I've never seen it.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
It's a good one. Mulana is a really good one.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Oh it's so good. You have to watch it.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
So, Erica, do you have a winner?
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I do? Okay, So you both did an excellent job. Ryan, amazing.
Speaker 6 (34:19):
I never thought about it that way about I never
really thought about the actual brothers that wrote these stories.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Fascinating. Thank you so much, Michael. I did not know
that in.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
Sleeping Beauty, you know, I never really thought about the mirror.
It was just kind of like a plot point to
get the story moving for me.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
So I never really thought about it before.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
And now I'm fascinated. What was that guy's problem? And
also I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I also I didn't know that they.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
Tortured her to death by making her dance at their
wedding with iron Shoe who. I have a lot of questions.
I thought usually fairy princesses were more apt to forgiveness
than that. I think it's strangely cruel to trick her.
(35:13):
I think for this week, Michael, I'm giving it to you.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
Oh Michael, thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
I thought it was gonna be Ryan because he took
it a step further. Also, Ryan, this is one time
I worked out well that I went first, because it's like,
here are the stories, and you're like, in here the
people that wrote them. So Erica, thank you for switching
it up a little bit. It actually managed to work out.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Well, you're welcome, happy to switch it up.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
So what's our topic for next week?
Speaker 6 (35:40):
Okay, So I was pretty nervous about this, and so
I've been collecting plants, you know, like all of us
since twenty twenty, and I thought, what would be really
interesting at least for me to listen to you next
week is photosynthesis. Ooh what is that?
Speaker 3 (36:00):
What do you mean plants eat sunlight?
Speaker 5 (36:02):
Oh my god, I so know what I'm talking about already.
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Ryan just lit up like a little Christmas tree.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
I'm so happy to hear that you're really into this,
because even maybe two minutes until I signed that and
I was like, oh god, are they going to hate this?
So I'm really excited to hear this, and I'm definitely
gonna listen next week. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Okay, Well, thank you so much, so good to see you.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
You're welcome. Thank you for having me
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