Journalism Class - Friday October 7

[jerusalem-s.livejournal.com]

Muttering quietly beneath his breath, Spider is leaning against his desk, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and an old book in his hands. "All right, class. You've talked about the four basics of most stories guaranteed to grab someone's attention - heroes, villians, beauty and ugliness." He held up the book. "Today we're going to take a very basic story from this book of Fairy Tales, and discuss what it might have been like with any one, or all four, of those traits reversed beneath the obvious surface. Treat the story as a whitewash of very different events or one side of a much darker story."

"I've chosen two stories and there are copies of each on my desk. Take them, familiarize yourself with the stories, and discuss. If you have a favorite story that is also in this book," he raised it again, "you may use that instead, but be sure to make copies of the story so that those students unfamiliar with the world from which it was drawn can debate and follow along."

The two print-outs consist of the older, darker version of Cindarella (complete with maimings and eye gougings) and Rapunzel (again with the eye gougings and this time with Teen Pregnancy (tm)!.

"This assignment is worth double credit, particularly if either start a debate on the nature of one of our four topics in context, or manage a good revision of the chosen story itself. You may be as literal or metaphorical as you like." Spider glanced around. "Please try to keep off-topic chatter to a bare minimum today."


((OOC: Pardon the player as they are very, very sleepy, but the point of all this is, more or less, to put a 'spin' on the existing story so that the 'facts' support the change in status from beautiful/ugly - hero/villian.))

Comments

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

John takes the two hand outs.

"You know, regardless of the way she went about it, I always thought Cinderella's stepmother was, deep down in her heart, thinking of her kids first by trying to find a suitable suitor to provide and care for them. And if she got some power and money out of the deal, then all the better. She was almost the hero in the story but Cinderella stole her thunder."

[maias-notebook.livejournal.com]

I agree, the step mother was watching out for her own. I mean she was forced to sacrifice her life to care for a child that was not hers after her husband up and died on her and Cinderella was an indulged spoiled brat who's father denied her nothing. I mean, imagine not only have to deal with losing your husband that you loved and raising your two daughters once again on your own, but now out of moral obligation to the man you loved, you have to raise Cinderella who was obviously never told no. I think some eye gouging and beatings may have been needed because she was so overindulged. I mean who's to say she was not a wild little tramp and the only way to control her was to keep her beaten down and tired from working all day to keep her from going out at night and coming home in the condition of our Rapunzel here.