Once upon a time: Bedtime tales of violence and mayhem

Fairy tales seem to be the going thing lately, and not just in Washington. There’s a new movie out called “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters,” and it definitely doesn’t look like something for wee ones before bedtime.

Of course, that can be said for most fairy tales if you think about it. I mean,Grimm fairy tales ... that should be a clue. I wrote about this topic a long time ago, but memories fade and it seems like a good time to bring it up again with the renewed popularity in fairy tales. Or at least variations, updates and reworkings of fairy tales.

Actually, I look forward to seeing “H&G:WH” because it looks like one of my kind of movies. (I like many kinds of movies.) Sure, it looks like a medieval tale setting with appropriately antiquated automatic weapons, but, hey, it’s a fairy tale. It’s like Congress, you just have to suspend belief, logic and reasoning when you’re watching it. (Unfortunately, suspension of belief, logic and reasoning is a career requirement in Congress.)

Still, fairy tales can be pretty dark stories, even if they do offer a moral. I don’t know about you, but even as a youngster I thought fairy tales could get pretty gruesome.

In Hansel and Gretel, a wicked witch plans to eat the youngsters, and they wind up shoving her into a blazing oven. Cannibalism and immolation, two wonderful subjects for children’s bedtime stories.

Then, there’s the Three Little Pigs. While later versions, and cartoons had two of the Little Pigs fleeing to the third Little Pig’s brick house, in the early versions the Big Bad Wolf dined on ribs, ham and bacon after blowing down the straw and stick structures. Then, Wolfie slides down the chimney into a pot of boiling water at the third Little Pig’s house. Such delightful imagery for developing little minds.

Let’s not forget Jack and the Beanstalk (another fairy tale coming to a theater near you). Peasant boy duped into trading family cow for magic beans, that grow into a giant beanstalk into the sky. Jack climbs it and, in essence, burglarizes a giant’s home, steals various valuables, then when he’s caught red-handed, he flees and in the escape kills the giant. Burglary, theft, murder ... sounds like a capitol case to me, at least from the giant’s viewpoint.

If you think about it, a lot of fairy tales and bedtime stories can be downright horrific with as many violent acts and body counts as a Quentin Tarantino movie. Seriously, you’ve got ax slayings, poisonings, child abandonment, animal abuse, thievery, vandalism (Hansel and Gretel eating parts of the witch’s house), all sorts of mayhem, shape-shifting, illicit co-habitation (remember Snow White and those seven little people, to be politically correct), patricide, matricide, kidnapping, dismemberment, cannibalism — and often those are the pleasant aspects.

Might as well read Mickey Spillane to the youngsters since these stories are so noir themselves. (I think I’m dating myself.)

And then there’s the stereotyping. Witches always are evil and ugly. Wolves usually are big and bad and ferocious. Dwarves, uh, little people, tend to be mean-spirited bad guys much of the time. Giants are mean and dumb. Trolls are ... well, trolls (never really could come up with a socially redeeming value for them). Stepparents are wicked and step-siblings are bullies (talk about dysfunctional blended families).

These stories can be downright macabre, in an entertaining way, but do have some redeeming value. I’ll bet you won’t see kids breaking off pieces of a house to eat, wandering off into the deepest, darkest woods alone (or a big, dark bedroom at night) or building a house of straw no matter how green it may be for the planet.

Of course, the flip side of the coin is that fairy tales have been so sanitized they’re likely to put anyone into a diabetic coma. All element of danger is removed, characters are made politically correct (Snow Caucasian and the Seven Vertically Challenged Individuals) and they’re disgustingly upbeat and happy.

Think Mister Rogers on nitrous oxide. There’s no need for any moral in them because no one makes mistakes and everyone is happy happy happy.

Now, much as I like noir in books and movies, there should be some middle ground between fairy tales being unbearably, depressingly grim or unbearingly, obnoxiously happy.

Something between creating a lifetime of trauma and prejudice or turning youngsters into overly optimistic airheads with never-ending smiles. Unfortunately, we seem to live in a world where, more and more, those are becoming the norms on the two sides of society’s coin.

Until someone comes up with such a fairy tale, we’ll have to make do with the choice between the dark versions and the saccharine stories.

Having already been warped, I guess I’ll stick with the former since I can’t bear the latter, especially since those are the ones providing movie material.

Hmmm, I do wonder what Quentin Tarantino could do with “Rumplestilskin.”