Little Red Riding Hood Revisited

In the 2007 Disney Film Enchanted, there is a scene in which Gisele, the stereotypical beautiful singing princess, tells the “real” version of the Little Red Riding Hood fairytale to Robert’s daughter Morgan. According to Gisele, Little Red Riding Hood chased the “poor wolf” around his grandmother’s house with an axe, thereby reversing the traditional victim-villain character roles. In a film that continuously pokes fun at the more unrealistic elements of Disney fairytale films this rewriting of a traditional story fits right in.

While some may believe that the Walt Disney Company is purely focused on giving its films’ audiences unrealistic ideas on life, love, adventure, etc., it is refreshing to know that from the studio’s origins in the 1920s to its overwhelming popular commercial status today Disney has been able to recognize some of the more ridiculous elements of fairytales as seen from a modern perspective. The first cartoon series produced purely by the Disney studios was called Laugh-O-Grams, and some of the featured stories around which animators modeled the cartoons were in fact fairytales. After reading the original Perrault and Brothers Grimm versions on Little Red Riding Hood it is quite interesting to watch Disney’s early take on the story.

In the Laugh-O-Gram cartoon of LRRH, LRRH is summoned by her mother to take doughnuts to Grandma. LRRH drives her car out of her garage, suggesting that she usually performs a type of delivery service. On her way to Grandma’s she meets the wolf character: a man in a bigger car wearing a top hat who gawks at her and seemingly (there is no dialogue) tries to convince her to come with him wherever he is going. She rejects him, and he speeds off to Grandma’s house. Grandma is away at the movies so the “wolf” goes inside to wait for LRRH. Her arrival and entrance into the house is followed by what seem to be puffs of smoke signaling a fight along with the worlds “HELP!” The house then begins to rock uncontrollably and jump around as if a major struggle is occurring inside. Meanwhile LRRH’s dog runs to a young and handsome pilot who he convinces to come save LRRH by pulling the house up, saving LRRH, and dropping the man in a lake. The cartoon ends with a kiss between LRRH and the pilot.

The first thing I noticed was that the “wolf” is no longer a wolf but a man. This immediately reminded me of the moral at the end of the Perrault version, which warns about tame “wolves” while really meaning men. It seems as if Disney is directly calling attention to that element of the story. Another point of interest was the events occurring from the point when LRRH enters the house to the end. Is the physical rocking of the house meant to be sexually suggestive or is it just meant to tell the audience that LRRH and the man are fighting? The lack of explicit dialogue leaves the mystery unsolved. Finally, the change from the huntsman who saves LRRH and her grandmother because he had previously been after the wolf to a prince-like pilot who ends up with the princess character in the end was extremely interesting. Perhaps this shift foreshadows the future role of the prince in Disney’s full-length animated features beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937.

While it is often easy to write off Disney productions as having the same cliché formula of “happily ever after,” considering the beginning stages of Disney animation can often serve as an interesting insight in adaptations and story development.