Little Red Riding Hood Vs. Hoodwinked!
The ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is arguably one of the most universally known fairy tales. The tale was first published in the late 17th Century, written by Charles Perrault. Its popularity has inspired numerous modern retellings, such as Hoodwinked the movie. The modern retellings have been evolving with time and reflect the different meanings for each generation and culture. In each version of the tale, the archetypes in the story have changed and are challenged with time. The main archetypal characters in the story are Little Red Riding Hood, The Wolf, The Grandmother, and The Mother. The symbolism of the different archetypes in the Little Red Riding Hood fairytale by Charles Perrault and the film Hoodwinked is significantly different based on the purpose, context, and audience.
Charles Perrault’s story starts with a little country girl that is identified as ”the prettiest creature that ever was seen.” She has been tasked to take custard and butter to her grandmother, the same woman who made a red hood for her to wear. Along the way, she encounters a wolf in the woods. The story tells us that the wolf had a ”great mind to eat her up” but did not because of workers nearby. Instead, he asks her questions to figure out where she is going and offers to race the little girl to the grandmother’s house. The young girl gets distracted along the journey, causing the wolf to beat her to the grandmother’s house. By the time Red Riding Hood arrives, the wolf has already eaten the grandmother and is posing as her in granny’s bed. When she comes, the wolf (posing as the grandmother) asks her to join him in the bed. Little Red Riding Hood notices the size of her grandmother’s arms, legs, ears, eyes, and teeth and remarks about how big each is. Red Riding Hood’s last remark, ”Grandmamma, what great teeth you have got!” was her last before the wolf responds with, ” That is to eat thee up,” and gobbles Red Riding Hood whole (Pittman). On the other hand, the Hoodwinked film begins at the end of the tale. The film starts at Granny’s house as Little Red Riding Hood enters, but this time the story has a little twist. Little Red Riding Hood is seen with a black belt, the wolf is not trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, the grandmother has a dangerous side, and the woodsman has a cowboy accent. Not to mention the characters that are not in the original story, including Boingo the cute bunny, Chief Grizzly who is willing to arrest anyone, and Nicky Flipper who is trying to decipher what happened. All the while, the Goody Bandit is on the loose, trying to accomplish his master plan.
Red Riding Hood has always been about what good girls are supposed to do – don’t stray from the path, don’t talk to strangers (Pittman). While variations on this tale abound, hoodwinked goes further than most. It twists the Red Riding Hood story into an animated mystery involving stolen baked goods. It’s also a parable about ambition and escaping middle America (Pazeka 130). Red is one of those karate-chopping “feisty” girls beloved of recent fairy tale adaptations. Granny’s into extreme sports. The wolf here is no sexy beast: he’s a big dork who gets maced. And the woodsman is a surreal Austrian who wants to be an actor, just like a certain Gubernator. Mostly, they all just want to get the hell out of the woods, and if you replace “woods” with “suburbia” all becomes clear. When detectives swoop on Granny’s house, the head detective tells his deputies to “take them downtown” before someone points out that there is no downtown in the woods. Red has a musical number about how bored she is, and who can blame her when these woods are full of goody shops (quickie marts), yokel goats, and squirrels with ADD. The mystery is eventually solved. Our heroes join the agency of a suave frog detective who gets urbanity points for looking like Cary Grant, and the film closes with the promise of adventure in far-off places.
First, the setting of the original tale varies with that of the film. while the original story is about an innocent little girl who runs into a wolf in the forest while she is on her way to her grandmother’s house, the film puts a twist on the story and turns it into a criminal investigation. The film shows a bandit stealing receipts from shops with grandmother’s shop being the next target. The Little Red Riding Hood is responsible for keeping grandmother’s receipts safe from the bandit (Floyd). When Little Red Riding Hood arrives at grandmother’s house, she is surprised to find the wolf dressed as her grandmother, which inspires an investigation on the person stealing the receipts. Although both versions of the story take place in the forest, in the film, the forest is mostly filled with talking and singing animals while in Little Red Riding Hood, the forest is occupied mainly with humans (Floyd).
Secondly, the film drifted away from the archetypes in Little Red Riding Hood’s story. In Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf is an antagonist, and in the movie, the wolf is portrayed as an innocent guy and only seen as a bad guy because of the perception that a wolf is evil. Also, while the story shows the little girl as lovable, innocent, and naïve, the film portrays her as a strong and witty person that seeks adventure. The original story portrays grandmother as disorientated, but in the movie, she is seen as courageous and independent. The film seems to make women look strong and independent, contrary to the original story, which portrays them weak and little-minded (Reynolds 16). The film changes the way the characters are perceived by twisting their purpose in the retelling. In the film, the wolf, seems reasonable and smart, contrary to what he is portrayed in the tale. The film portrays Little Red as a strong, smart and independent character and not weak and ignorant. The film adds a character who plays a detective who is tasked in investigating the events of Red Riding Hood’s journey to her grandma’s house (Kozera 122). The use of a detective plays a significant role in helping the audience understand the film. This film is an indication of how a story can evolve based on context, purpose and target audience.
Thirdly, the tale and the film have different morals. Perrault’s Little Red Riding Hood teaches Children, especially attractive, well-bred young ladies, to “obey their parents when they walk through dangerous areas, and beware of seemingly friendly strangers, because wolves may lurk in every guise” (Antonelli 109). According to Antonelli, wolves are of a different kind. Some are charming, quiet, polite, sweet, and kind, who pursue young women at home and in the streets (110). Unfortunately, the unassuming kind of wolves is the most dangerous ones of all. The film advocates the importance of being truthful as a way of ensuring trust. According to Kozera, “Hoodwinked! touches on serious subjects, such as problems with communication, prejudice and evils of labelling” (128).
The Little Red Riding Hood tale and Hoodwinked film have different endings. In the tale, Red gets distracted and listens to the wolf. When she strays off the path and disobeys her mother, the wolf eats her and the grandma culminating to an unhappy ending (Reynolds 16). No one saves them or kills the wolf, but Red dies because of her bad decision and suffers the consequences. In contrast, Hoodwinked! has a happy ending. After the theft of candy recipes from goody shops by a Goody Bandit, several animals run out of business prompting the police to chase after the criminal. Meanwhile, there is a mess at Granny’s house involving Little Red Riding Hood, The Wolf, The Woodsman and Granny, which disturbs the peace in the forest. They are all arrested by the impatient Chief Grizzly. Detective Nicky Flipper is in charge of the investigation, and each accused gives his/her version of the incident. Flipper uses the information to disclose the identity of the evil Goody Bandit (Kozera 122). The end of the film shows that evil is defeated and truth prevails. The film uses the modern context and gives characters personas that relate to the target audience to ensure that the message is understood.
The film and the tale share a common ideology in telling the story of the Little Red Riding Hood. The hoodwinked film shows how a story can be used to communicate different messages through each character’s story and persona. The tale and film reveal hidden meanings within the characters and specifically towards their roles and actions. Also, certain notions are implied and portrayed, such as listening to others’ warnings and that women are seen as timid and helpless when they don’t have a man to save them. These conceptions can become twisted from what the story could mean just like in Hoodwinked! when everything we know gets turned around. The film re-contextualizes the structure of the fairytales in Charles Perrault’s editions. The film did an impressive job of portraying that there are many more different ideologies within a tale and how they evolve with time.
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Works Cited
Antonelli, Emanuele. “Little Red Riding Hood: Victimage in Folktales and Cinema—A Case Study.” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, vol. 22, 2015, pp. 107–132. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/contagion.22.1.0107. Accessed 24 Feb. 2020.
Floyd, Courtney. “Episode 10 – Remixing Little Red Riding Hood.” Archetype & Anarchy, 10 Apr. 2018, PlayerFM. player.fm/series/podcast-archetypes-anarchy/episode-10-remixing-little-red-riding-hood. Accessed 26 Feb. 2020
Kozera, Mgr Dominika. “Playing with Conventions in Hoodwinked!.” Acta Humana 6 (2015): 1.
Pittman, Cheryl. “An analysis of little red riding hood storybooks in the de Grummond children’s literature collection.” SLIS Connecting 1.2 (2012): 36
REYNOLDS, ANGELA J. “The Better to See You With: Peering into the Story of Little Red Riding Hood,1695-1939.” Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children, vol. 16, no. 1, Spring 2018, pp. 14–20. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5860/cal.16.1.14.