Reddit reviews East

>Do you think fairy tales can still affect today social issues?

Oh, absolutely. They already are. Fairy tales and fairy tale retellings have immense cultural relevance and cultural staying power in modern society, and honestly to both my delight and horror the US media has been in somewhat of a fairy tale adaptation revitalization period; it seems like every time I turn around there's another book or television show or movie based on a fairy tale coming out (which means lovingly faithful adaptations, epic historical dramas, updated and period piece retellings, dark reimaginings, and just plain fun adaptations....and on the flipside, nonsense like this and this).

Many of the stories are universal in their themes and are just as applicable to modern-day life as they were hundreds of years ago. Why do you think we keep retelling them? They still hold an incredible amount of appeal to people despite their age.

I think that the way we tell and retell fairy tales in today's society speak to the social issues that we still find relevant to examine and revisit. Beauty and the Beast retellings have had a minor bump in the past decade in a way that completely flips the original points and purposes of the BATB narrative on its head (in that the 'Beast' figure is often a man who is very physically attractive but is a jerk or someone with a lot of Issues™), and I think it speaks to the way in which we as a society have a thing for "bad boys" that just "need a little love" to become Good Boys right now. The way a culture views and retells fairy tales and folklore is very indicative of the ways that culture is trying to grapple with certain Big Issues, and that's no less relevant to us than it was to people hundreds of years ago.

Oh my god The Book Thief. That's my second favorite book ever, second to the current book that I'm rereading, East, by Edith Pattou.