Gender Swapped Fairy Tales

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The illustrations by Karrie Fransman, boldly coloured in watercolour and ink, are full of rich detail, like a beautiful gown adorned with jewels and embroidered embellishments. Karrie researched classical paintings of illustrated fairy tales, and used the references as a starting point, “I then began to draw my own gender-swapped versions, paying attention to the new power balance in each image.” Startling and refreshing, thought-provoking and unique, this book will stay with me. Its genius is that it feels like a timeless classic – beautifully illustrated, a joy to share – even as it shakes the gender stereotypes in our most beloved stories by their roots."— Jess Kidd The authors’ introduction refers to an awareness that meanings of gender can be complex. Unfortunately, their version doesn’t bring that complexity to the stories. Instead, it confirms (for those who would not be surprised at the news) that princesses are just as good at finding their way through forests as princes. People have been telling fairy tales to their children for hundreds of years. And for almost as long, people have been rewriting those fairy tales – to help their children imagine a world where they are the heroes. Karrie and Jon were reading their child these stories when they hit upon a dilemma, something previous versions of these stories were missing, and so they decided to make one vital change . . . Handsome and the Beast: An Adult Gender Swapped Fairy Tale: Volume 4 (Sexy Gender Swapped Fairy Tales)

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Otherwise, there are innumerable retellings: stories from around the world, refusals of fairy-tale endings (and beginnings and middles), and plenty of fun to be had from playing with the genre.Rather less cheerful is how Gender Swapped Fairy Tales casts unforgiving light on the darkness we have all imbibed from the originals. Hundreds of years after they were committed to paper, the world’s Snow Whites and Sleeping Beauties remain some of the first stories our children absorb, along with their “lessons” (femininity = pretty, obedient, 90 per cent trapped/asleep). Wolves are out there. They circle us with their slavering greed and predatory eyes, and their teeth are all the better to eat us with. Should fairy tales inoculate us against these? Mirror, mirror on the wall, can you help me to be content with my body? Why can’t we find a little empathy? If I’m finding a working mother more distracting than a magic hen or a talking mole, I have more work to do pulling the copper wire of princessdom from my brain. ‘I’ll be giving Gender Swapped Fairy Tales to every child I can come Christmas’ (Photo: Karrie Fransman) In an age where gender stereotypes are now often being challenged, the authors’ retelling is a welcome collection. When I read the first story, “Handsome and the Beast,” the genders of the characters feel inconsequential at first, until I come to the jobs given to the sons and daughters. The sons are now servants doing housework, and the daughters are working out in the field, which makes one aware of how gender is constructed. While the story is different from the well-known animated version with a singing teapot and dancing candelabra, the genders feel interchangeable – their changes don’t take away from the story’s message of not judging someone by their physical appearance. They haven’t rewritten the stories in this book. They haven’t reimagined endings, or reinvented characters. What they have done is switch all the genders.

The Best Gender-Flipped Retellings | Book Riot The Best Gender-Flipped Retellings | Book Riot

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I only intended to look at it . . . but I’m completely drawn in. I love it. The language is fantastic. The gender swaps I hope will undo all my unconscious bias and I’ll find my inner power! Fabulous."— Philippa Perry Fairy tales are still an extremely popular genre, there are hundreds of fairy tale retellings that exist. However, they are often influenced by the original story and turned into something new. For example, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas is a Beauty and the Beast retelling but Feyre, the main character is not described as weak and she refuses to be trapped inside the castle. This is the same for another Beauty and the Beast retelling, A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer, this story’s heroine is Harper, a girl with Cerebral Palsy and she is described as being both physically and mentally strong. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer adapts the stories of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White. The main female characters in this series are all extremely clever and are presented very positively. Fairy tale retellings are great ways of taking the original stories and turning them into something better, that is not filled with stereotypes. It is so important for there to be adequate representation in books for all ages. The majority of fairy tale retellings I have read with strong female characters are either in the Young Adult or New Adult genres, but these kinds of characters need to be accessible in literature for younger children also. Jonathan and Karrie (husband and wife) have a daughter whom they wanted “to grow up in a world where little girls can be powerful and where little boys can express their vulnerability without anger.” Karrie ponders “can we not also imagine a world where kings want kids and where old women aren’t witches?” It was a fairy tale of a year, 2020, meaning that around the world, many of us have been sealed in our towers behind increasingly forbidding forests – though in this case the (vaccination) needle is expected to prove to be the liberator rather than Sleeping Beauty’s imprisoning agent. I’ll be giving Gender Swapped Fairy Tales to every child I can come Christmas, in a thinly veiled cover for shoving it into the hands of their parents – undoubtedly, it is they who need it most.