Once Upon a Time...

I recently found Shelley Duval's Faerie Tale Theater on Netflix, and I just viewed the very first episode, "The Tale of the Frog Prince," which has a copyright of 1983. I remember watching this series on PBS when I was a child, so I was thrilled to find access to the witty fairy tale performances I cherished online through Netflix streaming. This particular episode featured Robin Williams as Frog Prince, prancing around in a green suit, jesting about with his signature flair.

While viewing this episode, which I remember seeing as a child, I pondered over the role of fairy tales in modern culture, as well as my own life. I have always cherished a story, so much so that I majored in English Literature in college. Now, I teach Language Arts (a.k.a. Reading and Writing), so my fondness for a good story has intensified as an adult. Though I know there are no fairy godmothers or glass slippers, I appreciate the archetypes as symbols of the things I know to be real. A good friend or a grandmother who sacrifices for a child's success is the personification of the fairy godmother, while the dream job is exemplified by Cinderella's glass shoe. Fairy tales are the building blocks of all stories, really, whether we wish to acknowledge this truth or not. They give us hope and teach us lessons, which can be applied in many areas of life. Though not every tale we read, or view in theaters for that matter, ends in happily ever after, the dream of happily ever after underscores them all. For the absence of the happily ever after is what distinguishes an irony or tragedy from comedy and romance. The fairy tale itself is a measuring rod for all stories.

I have always been allured by typical formulaic chick flicks for the joy of feeling that somewhere out there, true love exists, and the unlovable find love, and the ugly find beauty, and as the king in "The Tale of the Frog Prince" emphasized, "You mustn't associate beauty with virtue." And these tales, these promises of what can be or what is inside us all, will never fade, no matter how skeptical our world appears.