Lucy Harris Smart Smart Smart

To begin my blog post, I wanted to give a little insight into how I do the blogging assignment. Every week, I type a fairy tales related term into Google News and see what comes up. Most of the time, this scientific method produces results that are relatively to moderately hilarious. This week was no exception. As the South Park aficionados in the audience know, the title of my post is a reference to the now infamous Mormon episode. Anyways, the very officially titled Dieter Uchtdorf, who holds the office of the Second Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, gave a speech as part of the General Young Women Meeting (which somehow seems grammatically incorrect but I digress). Anyway, in this meeting, Dieter addressed how super awesome he thought the words "Once upon a time" truly were.
These words "promise something: a story of adventure and romance, a story of princesses and princes. It may include tales of courage, hope and everlasting love. In many of these stories, nice overcomes mean and good overcomes evil. But perhaps most of all, I love it when we turn to the last page and our eyes reach the final lines, and we see the enchanting words 'and they lived happily ever after."
He also goes on to say:
"In that story, the main character may be a princess or a peasant; she might be a mermaid or a milk maid, a ruler or a servant," he said. "You will find one thing all have in common — they must overcome adversity."
Sandwiched between their "once upon a time" and "happily ever after," they experienced hard times, he said.
"Why must all experience sadness and tragedy? Why could we not simply live in bliss and peace, each day filled with wonder, joy and love?" President Uchtdorf asked. "In stories, as in life, adversity teaches us things we cannot learn otherwise. Adversity helps to develop a depth of character that comes in no other way.
"It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself that determines how your life's story will develop."
In closing, President Uchtdorf promised that "happily ever after" is not something just found in fairy tales.

Sorry to make this so quotation heavy but I wanted to put the story in proper context because we all know that no one is going to actually read the story. (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700020052/General-Young-Women-Meeting-Overcoming-adversity-key-to-happily-ever-after-says-President-Uchtdorf.html?pg=1) Of all the things that I have read in the recent past, this is certainly the most naive. First off, while not only unrealistic, Dieter's comments rhetorical question about why we can't live in a utopian world is literally one of the dumbest things I have ever heard anyone say. Yes, happily ever after is something just found in fairy tales and it is not always even found there. Having read some fairy tales and done even a semblance of literary analysis would have made this idiot release that the very virtues he champions are often wholly lacking in this idyllic world he addresses. Though we have talked about it many times, Cinderella is raped...there is no happily ever after after that, and I don't care what anyone says. To take a postmodern slant on it, people use these words and conjure up these ideas without any semblance of what they are saying or even the meaning conveyed by these ideas. Some fairy tales are happily ever after. A lot aren't. Disney pandered to his audience. That doesn't mean all fairy tales are emblematic of this perfect world. The sign and the signified have become wholly detached from one another because of people who don't think about what they say or do. One of the speakers even goes on to say that each young woman should "see yourself as our Heavenly Father sees you. … You were born to be a queen." First off, what the fugue does that even mean? Absolutely nothing. It is empty words. Maybe every girl doesn't want to be a queen. And they shouldn't necessarily want to. I guess in essence what I am trying to see is for the love of all things holy, think about what you are saying before you say it. Also to end cap my rant here is a portion of the "All About the Mormons" episode of South Park. Both unfortunately and fortunately, it's in German. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvaTLs3XYZQ