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.))

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[teen-twin.livejournal.com]

"I was raised by my ma, no da around. Most of the time I was too caught up in my own things to notice, but I know it wasn't easy for Ma to be raisin' two boys on her own. Kids are difficlt to raise with two parents, when it's only one...and another wayward brat is thrown into the mix, that would complicate matters. The way the story is traditionally presented, we see how Wee Cinderella suffers, and we're conditioned to respond to that. We're forced to see the stepmoher as evil, forced to see the stepsisters as horrid and malicious. We don't see how they have strugged, after losing ther father not once but twice, and the second perhaps treated them as the stepmother treated poor Cindy."

"That's what often happens in society, aye. The less fortunate are overlooked when those who have everything lose it suddenly and find themselves strugging somehow. It's not fair, it's not right, it's not just. Feel the unfortunate soul's pain, because they knew better. Knew different. Knew once how wonderful life could be and it's been taken away. Who cares about the ones who can only dream of a better life? They don't know the different anyway."