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Political Correctness - we are all familiar with it. We have to be. In a sensitive world of religion, identity, sex, creed, color, age, orientation, profession , class, the list goes on and on. If anyone has seen Blazing Saddles the movie, knows that even though it satires the PC of everything, they would also know that it would be an extreamly difficult and tall order to reproduce the movie or remake it in this day and age. You simply could not make that transition in this era. James Finn Garner first published Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life & Times in 1995, he took a look at how ridiculous the political awareness was spinning out of control and satirised it through the medium of fairy tales.

When I first read Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life & Times, I didnt know what to expect; I half heartedly believed that what I had bought was going to be slightly funny but perhaps a little enduring with the tweaking. But I became quickly aware just how James Finn Garner has honed Political Correctness into an art.Can you imagine a scenario where Cinderella actually ended up getting along with her sisters-of-step? How would The Three Bears handle Goldilocks being a rogue environmental scientist? Within these pages you can find the answer to these questions and more. This book takes these and other classic fairy tales from our childhood, strips them of offensive (to some people) language, replaces said language with more neutral word choices, for a brand new take on classic stories. Sounds boring? Hardly. With a selection of twenty-two Western European fairy tales enslaved in the shackles of sexism, ageism, anthrocentrism and any other forms of bias he could detect, he has re-worked them ,offering us gems like "The Three Codependent Goats Gruff" and "Sleeping Persun of Better-Than-Average Attractiveness." He uses spellings like "wommon" and "womyn," refers to Hansel and Gretel as "pre-adults" and talks about "three goats who were related as siblings." He carefully specifies that Red Riding Hood's grandmother "was in full physical and mental health and was fully capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.".Without a doubt Mr Garner is the master of sanitation when it comes to the editing process. I have included 2 stories for examples. If you fancy a reading five or ten minutes before going asleep, this is the perfect bedtime companion - although the temptation would be to read on until the book was finished, please dont you are in danger of guilding the lily with such stories or gorging yourself on two much of a good thing. Savour these stories like exceptionally rich chocolates from a box - too many of them could disagree with you but one at a time will leave you salavating for more.


Politically Correct Three Little Pigs
Once there were 3 little pigs who lived together in mutual respect and in harmony with their environment. Using materials that were indigenous to the area they each built a beautiful house. One pig built a house of straw, one a house of sticks, and one a house of dung, clay and creeper vines shaped into bricks and baked in a small kiln. When they were finished, the pigs were satisfied with their work and settled back to live in peace and self-determination.

But their idyll was soon shattered. One day, along came a big, bad wolf with expansionist ideas. He saw the pigs and grew very hungry in both a physical and ideological sense.

When the pigs saw the wolf, they ran into the house of straw. The wolf ran up to the house and banged on the door, shouting, "Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!"

The pigs shouted back, "Your gunboat tactics hold no fear for pigs defending their homes and culture."

But the wolf wasn't to be denied what he thought was his manifest destiny. So he huffed and puffed and blew down the house of straw. The frightened pigs ran to the house of sticks, with the wolf in hot pursuit. Where the house had stood, other wolves bought up the land and started a banana plantation.

At the house of sticks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted, "Little, pigs, little pigs, let me in!"

The pigs shouted back, "Go to hell, you carnivorous, imperialistic oppressor!"

At this the wolf huffed and puffed and blew down the house of sticks. The pigs ran to the house of bricks, with the wolf close at their heels. Where the house of sticks had stood, other wolves built a time-share condo resort complex for vacationing wolves, with each unit a fibreglass reconstruction of the house of sticks, as well as native curio shops, snorkelling and dolphin shows.

At the house of bricks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted, "Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!"

This time in response, the pigs sang songs of solidarity and wrote letters of protest to the United Nations.

By now the wolf was getting angry at the pigs' refusal to see the situation from the carnivore's point of view. So he huffed and puffed, and huffed and puffed, then grabbed his chest and fell over dead from a massive heart attack brought on from eating too many fatty foods.

The three little pigs rejoiced that justice had triumphed and did a little dance around the corpse of the wolf. Their next step was to liberate their homeland. They gathered together a band of other pigs who had been forced off their lands. This new brigade of porcinistas attacked the resort complex with machine-guns and rocket launchers and slaughtered the cruel wolf oppressors, sending a clear signal to the rest of the hemisphere not to meddle in their internal affairs. Then the pigs set up a model socialist democracy with free education, universal health care and affordable housing for everyone. {My note: well it is a fairy tale after all.}

Please note: The wolf in this story was a metaphorical construct. No actual wolves were harmed in the writing of the story.

Little Red Riding Hood - A Politically Correct Fairy Tale


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by Jim Garner

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There once was a young person named Red Riding Hood who lived with her mother on the edge of a large wood. One day her mother asked her to take a basket of fresh fruit and mineral water to her grandmother's house -- not because this was womyn's work, mind you, but because the deed was generous and helped engender a feeling of community. Furthermore, her grandmother was not sick, but rather was in full physical and mental health and was fully capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.

So Red Riding Hood set off with her basket of food through the woods. Many people she knew believed that the forest was a foreboding and dangerous place and never set foot in it. Red Riding Hood, however, was confident...

On her way to Grandma's house, Red Riding Hood was accosted by a Wolf, who asked her what was in her basket. She replied, "Some healthful snacks for my grandmother, who is certainly capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult."

The Wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone."

Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way."

Red Riding Hood walked on along the main path. But, because his status outside society had freed him from slavish adherence to linear, Western-style thought, the Wolf knew of a quicker route to Grandma's house. He burst into the house and ate Grandma, an entirely valid course of action for a carnivore such as himself. Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist notions of what was masculine or feminine, he put on grandma's nightclothes and crawled into bed.

Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said, "Grandma, I have brought you some fat-free, sodium-free snacks to salute you in your role of a wise and nurturing matriarch."

From the bed, the Wolf said softly, "Come closer, child, so that I might see you."

Red Riding Hood said, "Oh, I forgot you are as optically challenged as a bat. Grandma, what big eyes you have!"

"They have seen much, and forgiven much, my dear."

"Grandma, what a big nose you have -- only relatively, of course, and certainly attractive in its own way."

"It has smelled much, and forgiven much, my dear."

"Grandma, what big teeth you have!"

The Wolf said, "I am happy with and what I am," and leaped out of bed. He grabbed Red Riding Hood in his claws, intent on devouring her. Red Riding Hood screamed, not out of alarm at the Wolf's apparent tendency toward cross-dressing, but because of his willful invasion of her personal space.

Her screams were heard by a passing woodchopper-person (or log-fuel technician, as he preferred to be called). When he burst into the cottage, he saw the melee and tried to intervene. But as he raised his ax, Red Riding and the Wolf both stopped.

"And what do you think you're doing?" asked Red Riding Hood.

The woodchopper-person blinked and tried to answer, but no words came to him.

"Bursting in here like a Neanderthal, trusting your weapon to do your thinking for you!" she said. "Sexist! Speciesist! How dare you assume that womyn and wolves can't solve their own problems without a man's help!"

When she heard Red Riding Hood's speech, Grandma jumped out of the mouth, took the woodchopper-person's axe, and cut his head off. After this ordeal, Red Riding Hood, Grandma, and the Wolf felt a certain commonality of purpose. They decided to set up an alternative household based on mutual respect and cooperation, and they lived together in the woods happily ever after