Not your mother's fairy tales.
Fairy Tale Friday is a a video series by My Damn Channel featuring a pajama-clad narrator (usually Grace Helbig before Chloe took over) reading out loud from a book of fairy tales as if reading a bedtime story to children.
But these fairy tales are definitely not for children. Strong language, questionable morals, nasty sex, and unsympathetic protagonists abound, and the accompanying illustrations are frequently Not Safe for Work.
In a sense, it can be said that Fairy Tale Friday is a faithful modern continuation of the age-old tradition of the original fairy tales: an oral tradition passed down by women in the common language of the folk.
The series can be watched here
. View at your own risk.
This web series provides examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptational Sexuality: Cinderella is a lesbian.
- All Trolls Are Different: The trolls in "The Snow Queen" resemble troll dolls, and fill a similar role to the trolls in Frozen (2013).
- Anachronism Stew: Most episodes combine a period aesthetic with 21st century technology and culture. Special mention goes to Cleopatra stalking Ceasar's sister on Facebook, and the Great Nuclear Disarmament of 614.
- Artefact Title: The series had expanded beyond traditional fairy tales to include parodies of Shakespeare plays, Broadway musicals, comicbook superheroes, and modern literature like Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey.
- Artistic License – Biology: The sex between the Princess and the Frog. Frogs don't actually have external genitalia.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Belle catches the beast watching porn on his laptop.
- Downer Ending: Most of these fairy tales do not end happily ever after.
- Embarrassing Nick Name: Thumbelina was nicknamed "Cockchafer" in college.
- Femme Fatale:
- Belle is a minor example. She sues the Beast for sexual harassment after having sex with him, even though she instigated the encounter in the first place.
- Lest we forget "Brandii with two Is, and a heart over one I", who stole everything of value from the castle, and was never heard from again.
- Fur Bikini: Cruella de Vil designs lingerie made from animal skins.
- Girl on Girl Is Hot:
- Belle recommends Blue Is the Warmest Color to the Beast for this reason after she catches him watching lesbian porn.
- Glinda teaches Elphaba to take advantage of this to impress guys at parties.
- Good Bad Girl: Little Bo Peep has an extremely high libido, and is not above using her sexuality to get what she wants, but she never does anything really morally reprehensible, and is one of the more likable characters overall (relatively speaking).
- Granola Girl: Thumbelina. She's a vegan who practices yoga, makes disgusting smoothies, and bakes gluten-free even though she has no problems with gluten.
- Hidden Depths: Princess Brandii appears to be a shallow blonde bimbo, but she is actually a Harvard-educated psychiatrist according to the different interpretation offered in Behind the Stories.
- The '90s: Little Miss Muffet is set in 1990s Manhattan.
- Race Lift: Snow White is Asian. Esmerelda is Latino, rather than Romani.
- Really Gets Around:
- Most of the female protagonists to some degree. Elle gave hand-jobs to all the boys in her geometry class, Alice is too insecure to say "no", Thumbelina was nicknamed "Cockchafer" in college, and Rapunzel ends up going into the adult film industry. Little Bo Peep really takes the cake, though.
- Notably averted with Elphaba, who, despite appearances, was the only 18-year-old girl in her neighborhood who isn't pregnant.
- Sensual Slavs: The very sexual Little Bo Peep came to the US as a mail-order bride from Belaruse.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Most of the protagonists range from selfish, and uncaring, to downright sociopathic. A notable exception is Cinderella: She's cool, smart, independent, and actually quite content with her station in life, only going to the ball to humor the Fairy Godmother.
- Unusual Euphemism: "Digging for gold" isn't what it sounds like.
