Little Red Riding Hood

[Friday bonus post – from here]

 

Once upon a time, there was a sweet and helpful little girl called Little Red Riding Hood. One fine summer's morning her mother asked Little Red Riding Hood to take a basket of food to her grandmother who lived in the woods, as the grandmother was not feeling very well. Gladly, Little Red Riding Hood did what her mother had told her. She also kept to the path in the woods because she had heard, and believed, all those stories about what happens to good little girls if they step off the path.

Halfway along the path to her Granny's house Little Red Riding Hood met a wolf.

"Where are you going, little girl?" asked the wolf. Not being too surprised by the fact of meeting a talking wolf, after all she knew how fairy stories were supposed to work, Little Red Riding Hood replied: "Mind your own fuckin' business, dog-breath!" and walked on, musing on the notion that understanding the conventions of a narrative formula doesn't mean that one cannot subvert those conventions in order to frustrate expectation and the conventional form.

The wolf, being a more conventional - if not conservative - fairy tale character, decided that he could not let Little Red Riding Hood frustrate traditional folk-tale forms in such an arbitrary manner. "I'm buggered if I'm going to let some mere slip of a girl indulge in post-modern textual games with this mode of discourse," he muttered as he took the short-cut to Granny's house.

He knocked on the door of Granny's house.

"Who is it?" said a voice from inside.

"It's me, the wolf. Come on Granny open up, you've read the script."

The door opened slowly. "Pah, not much of a part for me, is it?" Granny said. "Hardly a speaking part. When I first started in this fairy-tale business I was promised all the big parts: Wicked Queen, Evil Witch, Wicked Step-Mother, the lot." She smiled at the wolf. "Couldn't we... y'know... maybe... improvise something. Perhaps bring in some kind of sub-text... perhaps hinting at society's disregard for the elderly, man (as symbolised by the wolf) and his callous disregard for womanhood once she has outgrown the societally-constructed notions of feminine beauty, the advertising and fashion world's valuation of femininity as being only one of youth and beauty, the denial of the mature woman as a complete thinki... aaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgghhhh!"

A bit tough, but still the wolf regarded it as one of the better meals in his life. However, he had always regarded the next part as a bit problematical. As an embodiment of the macho, the aggressive, the wild, the untamed and untameable he always found the idea of dressing up in the old-ladies night clothes as a bit... a bit... well... He heard a few sniggers from the undergrowth at the edge of the forest.

"Hey, you squirrels! I heard that," he growled, and grinned as he saw the grey and red blurs fleeing towards the tree-tops. "I've still got it, though," he said to himself.

Now he was wearing the nightdress it didn't feel quite as bad as he had feared. In fact.... Guiltily, but quickly, he entered the cottage, drew the curtain and slipped into the bed. It still felt slightly warm and the room smelt of old ladies, lavender and moth balls. Maybe, just maybe he would have the time, before Little red Riding Hood arrived, for a quick....

Little Red Riding Hood rapped firmly on the door. This time, she hoped, perhaps there would be a chance of introducing some variation in what was now, frankly, a tired and tedious genre. This was the modern, urban world for christsake! What was the point of these rural and, mostly, medieval tales at the end of the second millennium?

"Come in." said the voice from inside.

No, still the same old shit: Little Red Riding Hood thought as she sighed and opened the door. "Why Granny what big eyes you have," She said without enthusiasm.

"All the better to..."

"Oh, fuck it!" Little Red Riding Hood said and pulled the pump-action shotgun from her basket. "You bastard! You killed Granny!" She pulled the trigger. "Bye bye, dogbreath" She grinned at the bright bloody splatter all over the rose-patterned wallpaper. The wolf's headless corpse fell over pumping blood all over the pink sheets.

The door burst open and the wood-cutter ran in with his chopper in his hand. He stared at the girl, blushed, and ran out again. He came back in a moment latter with his trousers zipped up and an axe in his hand.

"Sorry, I thought we were doing the continental version," he said. "Shit! What happened to the wolf? I was supposed to...."

"I just thought I would strike a blow for the feminist cause," Little Red Riding Hood said. "Personally, I'm getting tired of the way how these tales always seem to end with the women, girl, princess or whatever getting rescued by some sort of stereotypical male protector figure." She casually reloaded the still smoking shotgun. "Have you got a problem with that?"

"No, not at all," the woodcutter said, nervously eyeing the shotgun. "But won't this damage the traditional image of the fairy story as a mode of reassurance to children that the world can be restored to order and safety?"

"Bugger that," Little Red Riding Hood replied. "Think of what Hollywood will pay, strong-chick flicks are big box-office these days... then there are the computer-game spin-offs...." She took the woodcutter by the arm and led him from the room. "We could do sequels; Little Red Riding Hood II, Dragon Wars, or something... the possibilities are endless...."

"Yes," the woodcutter replied as they took the path back through the woods.

"Stick with me and you could end up a rich man," Little Red Riding Hood said. "No more getting your chopper out in tacky low-budget XXX-rated videos.... I was thinking, maybe 10%?"

The wood cutter eyed the shotgun; she seemed to have a finger resting on the trigger. He swallowed. "Deal," he said.