In “Hansel and Gretel” she tries to eat the children. In “Little Red Riding Hood” it’s she who gets eaten—devoured by a wolf. In “Snow White” she’s a vain, jealous queen who spends her time staring into a mirror and plotting to kill her dead husband’s daughter.
Sometimes she’s more benign, even brave. In “Cinderella” she’s a fairy godmother who helps transform a mistreated merchant’s daughter into a well-dressed young woman fit for a prince’s bride. In “The Robber Bridegroom” we meet her in a corner of the cellar, just before she helps a bride-to-be escape her betrothed’s house of death. She’s heroic, but not the heroine.
In popular fairy and folk tales, older adults are rarely, if ever, the heroes of the story. The old are usually portrayed as evil or foolish and secondary or even tertiary to the younger, central characters. This is especially true of older women in fairy and folk tales, who are often depicted as witches, ogresses, malevolent crones, hapless grandmothers, evil stepmothers, and wicked queens.
Do fairy and folk tales have an ageism problem? Or do they simply reflect cultural anxieties and prejudices about old people, aging, and death? Why are women especially the target of ageist portrayals?
In an interview with NPR in 2015, Maria Tatar, professor of folklore, children’s literature, and German Studies at Harvard, says older women villains may be a reflection of the powerful influence that mothers have on a child’s development. “Children do have a way of splitting the mother figure into . . . the evil mother—who’s always making rules and regulations, policing your behavior, getting angry at you--and then the benevolent nurturer—the one who is giving and protects you, makes sure that you survive.”
In the same interview Tatar discusses the scene in Disney’s Snow White in which the evil stepmother disguises herself as a crone to trick and kill her stepdaughter. “There’s a sequence in which she turns from a beautiful, charismatic, wicked queen into an old hag. I think that’s a scene that is probably more frightening for adults than children because it compresses the aging process into about 20 seconds.”
Are there any positive older characters in fairy tales and folklore? Is it possible we just give greater attention to the tales that reinforce society’s negative stereotypes of aging? How do contemporary variants of classic fairy and folk tales challenge or reinforce the ageism in the stories from the past? Are modern storytellers getting better at representing older adults more fairly?
This website is a resource of some common characters and archetypes of older women in fairy and folk tales: Baba Yaga, Cailleach/Hag, Fairy Godmother, Grandmother, and Old Woman. It also includes a section on Elder Tales, as well as an annotated bibliography of contemporary media related to these tales, from children’s picture books and movies to scholarly books and genre fiction. Each section is also prefaced with questions to help ignite conversations and considerations of the way older people and older women are portrayed in media.
Sometimes she’s more benign, even brave. In “Cinderella” she’s a fairy godmother who helps transform a mistreated merchant’s daughter into a well-dressed young woman fit for a prince’s bride. In “The Robber Bridegroom” we meet her in a corner of the cellar, just before she helps a bride-to-be escape her betrothed’s house of death. She’s heroic, but not the heroine.
In popular fairy and folk tales, older adults are rarely, if ever, the heroes of the story. The old are usually portrayed as evil or foolish and secondary or even tertiary to the younger, central characters. This is especially true of older women in fairy and folk tales, who are often depicted as witches, ogresses, malevolent crones, hapless grandmothers, evil stepmothers, and wicked queens.
Do fairy and folk tales have an ageism problem? Or do they simply reflect cultural anxieties and prejudices about old people, aging, and death? Why are women especially the target of ageist portrayals?
In an interview with NPR in 2015, Maria Tatar, professor of folklore, children’s literature, and German Studies at Harvard, says older women villains may be a reflection of the powerful influence that mothers have on a child’s development. “Children do have a way of splitting the mother figure into . . . the evil mother—who’s always making rules and regulations, policing your behavior, getting angry at you--and then the benevolent nurturer—the one who is giving and protects you, makes sure that you survive.”
In the same interview Tatar discusses the scene in Disney’s Snow White in which the evil stepmother disguises herself as a crone to trick and kill her stepdaughter. “There’s a sequence in which she turns from a beautiful, charismatic, wicked queen into an old hag. I think that’s a scene that is probably more frightening for adults than children because it compresses the aging process into about 20 seconds.”
Are there any positive older characters in fairy tales and folklore? Is it possible we just give greater attention to the tales that reinforce society’s negative stereotypes of aging? How do contemporary variants of classic fairy and folk tales challenge or reinforce the ageism in the stories from the past? Are modern storytellers getting better at representing older adults more fairly?
This website is a resource of some common characters and archetypes of older women in fairy and folk tales: Baba Yaga, Cailleach/Hag, Fairy Godmother, Grandmother, and Old Woman. It also includes a section on Elder Tales, as well as an annotated bibliography of contemporary media related to these tales, from children’s picture books and movies to scholarly books and genre fiction. Each section is also prefaced with questions to help ignite conversations and considerations of the way older people and older women are portrayed in media.