Hello Everyone! As you know I am a women of the world who prides herself on that. I recently revisited a gem from my childhood called Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. It was a show that aired on HBO from 1995-2000. Basically it was a show that took all the typical fairy tale characters and flipped it on there heads. They would change their culture and gender and had the characters voiced by well known actors and actresses. It was fairy tails for ever child.
This got me thinking about the Disney version of all these characters like Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty in the Beast and others and how they have such an impact on young kids. The sad thing about Disney is they are not good at representing our people very well if at all.
Take Pocahontas she was only 12 years old when she first came in contact with the settlers. In the Disney version they have her in this tight little dress and she is like 17 seducing John Smith. As a decent of her people on my Mom’s Dad’s side it sickens my family how they portray her.
Or even take any of the typical Disney princesses Cinderella- Blue eyes, blond hair Snow White- Black hair, green eyes Belle- brown hair, brown eyes
Nun of these princess can fight for themselves and always need someone to save them. (minus Mulan she kicks ass) They just recently in the past 5 years made an African American princess.
In the HBO series its not always the case. In their version Cinderella is a latina, Snow White becomes White Snow and is Native American & Belle becomes Beauty and is African American. Even Aladdin and Ariel get a makeover Aladdin becomes Chinese and Ariel becomes Japanese.
Also this series had some funky songs that to this day are still stuck in my head. They sung everything from soul, to reggie, to country, folk, hip-hop, rock they sung it all. People like Raven, Whoopi Goldberg, Vanessa Williams, Will Smith, and others where the voices of these beloved characters. Another thing is that they always had somebody from that culture voice the character. They not only did fairy tales either they did nursery rhymes & fables and sometimes even changed the story line of a well know classic all together.
I think what I really loved about this series compared to Disney was that they represented every culture under the sun in some way and the fact that they were real about their betrayal of the culture while still having a little fun. It made our people feel like yes I can be the princess at the ball or I too can be the fairest of them all. They still saw that evil doesn’t pay off and being true to yourself was important. That we are strong and independent people who are here and we are going to shake up this world.
To wrap it up this is an important show that I feel all people should watch and have their kids watch because it is important that we know our people can live in castles, be princesses & save the world.
A few of my favorite Episodes:
Beauty & the Beast-
Rupunzel-
White Snow (Snow White)-
The Princess and the Pauper-
Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes-
The Golden Goose-
Rumpelstiltskin-
The Valiant Little Talor-
Jack & the Beanstock-
Little Red Happy Coat (Little Riding Hood)-
Cinderella-
Hanselito & Gretelita (Hansel & Gretel)-
The Little Mermaid-
The Emperors New Clothes-
You can find others on Youtube if you just type in HBO Fairy Tales.
Have a blessed day! 🌺
