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

[deadlikegeorge.livejournal.com]

George thinks guiltily of Phoebe. "Sometimes it's not that they don't care, or that they're being selfish... it's that they don't realize their own actionsare having such a damaging impact.

"It's sort of like the beauty conversation we had earlier. What if you're being purposely cruel to someone because you think that it's the best thing for them -- being cruel to be kind? And what about 'tough love?' You're completely justified in your own mind, you're the hero of the piece. What if the Stepmother thought that what she was doing to Cinderella was the best possible thing for her?"

[nightsmoonchild.livejournal.com]

"Right would be loving all the children equally. She loved the father, and the girl was a product of him, a living reminder of him. Treating her like dirt certainly couldn't be right, it also wouldn't be right to treat her like her father treated her when he was alive. Right would hav ebeen trying to find a middle ground. Bu the stepmother wasn't thinking that way. I agree with you, she thought/i> she was doing the right thing for the child, trying to teach her humility. But thinking something is right does't make it right."