“They [fairy tales] have been told and retold for thousands of years, finding new shapes and structures with each new generation of teller's” -Kate Forsyth. Most with gruesome beginnings, fairy tales have been around for hundreds of years, and just like Forsyth said, they are forming new shapes and structures with each new generation. The fairy tales that we see today are different from the original ones that were told many years ago. Today they aren’t as gruesome and the characters are more relatable. Adult fairy tales have replaced gore with action. For kids, we have replaced the gore with “bibbidi-bobbidi-boo” and a wish upon a star.
Fairy tales were written for children about magical characters, but the endings were not always happy (Oban's Myths, Legends, and Fables and Carthy). Hepperman suggests “They (characters) hardly ever reach the heights of happily-ever-after without first clawing their way up from hunger, abandonment, and despair” (Heppermann, 69). In old fairy tales this may be true, but in the newer fairy tales, this is not as common. Fairy tales usually have a conflict between two sides that are clearly good and evil, and the hero is often different in some way (Kelly). They are usually short in length and characters can defy the laws of nature, allowing the story to have a magical effect. Warner says, “Another alternative term for ‘fairy tale’ is ‘wonder tale,’” it comes from the German [word] Wundermärchen, and “It catches a quality of the genre more eloquently than ‘fairy tale’ or ‘folk tale’” (Warner).

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were writing in a different world when they wrote Children’s and Household Tales. These dark stories about violence, murder, incest, sex, and cannibalism would be considered taboo in today’s world. These old tales tell us of right and wrong and there are clear morals in these stories; dishonesty is punished, hard work is rewarded, and promises are honored. These gory tales give us ‘what if’ scenarios of the worst things that could possibly happen, but these scenarios take place in ‘once upon a time’, so we are reassured that these things could never happen to us (Evans). Most of these stories would not be out of place if they were R-rated movies. The Grimms’ main goal was to never entertain children. The first edition of their book was filled with footnotes and no illustrations. Later, when children became their intended audience, did they take out some of the inappropriate content (Greenspan).

In today’s world, most fairy tales didn’t start out as innocent as they are now. In Disney’s version of Snow White, which was made in 1937, “The Wicked Queen goes down into the basement where she's got a chemistry set which she's going to use to turn the apple into a poisoned apple. There are ravens down there and skulls and mysterious dusty tomes” (Evans). Now we have new movies like “Frozen,” where there is always a happy ending. In the original story, Elsa was the villain, who had light blue skin and spiky blue hair; she was an evil snow queen. Anna was a peasant who asked the evil snow queen to freeze her broken heart. Then Disney came and ‘disneyfied’ it, and came up with a completely different story where Elsa is the misunderstood older sister that only the younger sister, Anna, could save (Acuna). However, these movies are for kids.

Hollywood is making movies like “Maleficent”, “Snow White and the Huntsman”, and “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters”, to appeal to older audiences that can still appreciate fairy tales. “Snow White and the Huntsman” is based on the story Snow White. In this movie, the huntsman is ordered to take Snow White into the forest and kill her, but instead, he becomes her mentor and protector. Together they come up with a plan to vanquish the evil queen (Snow White and the Huntsman). Most still don’t follow the original stories that were written a long time ago, but they still have a gory and action-packed element to them that keeps viewers interested.

Pinocchio is a classic that came from Italy. The story is about a marionette that came to life and goes on adventures, but also learns morals. In the book, Pinocchio is hustled by a cat and fox, steals, gets thrown in jail, kills a man, and turns into a donkey. This isn’t the kind of book that you would want to read to your children. In the end, Pinocchio learns some morals and turns into a real boy. In 1940, Disney came along and ‘disneyfied’ it. In the movie, Pinocchio still starts out as a marionette, but then a fairy comes and brings him to life because the carpenter wished upon a star to have a son of his own. For Pinocchio to become a real boy he must show courage, kindness, and manners. At first, Pinocchio runs into trouble: he wants to become an actor instead of going to school, he is captured by a greedy man that uses Pinocchio in his shows, and he goes to Pleasure Island and turns into a donkey. However, he then saves his father and becomes a real boy.
Cinderella, another classic, started out of a story from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Cinderella’s mother dies and the father remarries. The new evil mother and daughters make Cinderella a maid. One day the father goes to the fair and brings Cinderella a twig. Cinderella plants the twig by her mother's grave. Cinderella wants to go to the king's celebration so the stepmother throws lentils into the ashes and says that if she can pick them up she can go to to the ball. Cinderella calls on the birds to help her and they get done quickly. When the stepmother didn’t allow her to go, Cinderella asks the tree by her mother's grave for a dress and she danced with the prince all night. She ran away and did this all three days whenever he asked for her name, so the prince set a trap that caught Cinderella's shoe. The prince went out searching, and when he came to Cinderella's house, the evil stepsisters cut off part of their feet to fit into the shoes. However, the birds told the prince what they did till he put it on Cinderella's foot and it fit. The evil stepmother and sisters went to the wedding and the mother was forced to dance all night in scorching hot shoes, and the sisters got their eyes pecked out by birds. The movie from 1950 isn’t much different from the story. Cinderella still has the animals to help her with her chores, the evil stepmother and sisters are there, and she still goes to the ball. However, Disney added a fairy godmother that gave her a dress and Cinderella ended up losing her shoe instead of it being caught it a trap. The lentils and the mother's grave were also missing. And of course, the disgusting bits about the feet and eyes were missing from this children's movie. In the end of both stories, Cinderella  lives happily ever after.

For hundreds of years, fairy tales have morphed into new stories. Adding in new things and maybe taking out some old things, each generation makes these stories unique. Just as the old fairy tales have changed, in a few hundred years these stories will be completely different from the ones we have now. And there will be a whole new generation of readers to enjoy them as we do today.