Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

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.

Alas, if worth be based on beauty, Snow White has surpassed you, cutie.

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.

There was a little girl who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very very good, But when she was bad, they upped her meds.

Rapunzel rode to the city and rented a room in a building that had real stairs. She later established the non-profit Foundation for the Free Proliferation of Music and cut off her hair for a fund-raising auction. She sang for free in coffee houses and art galleries for the rest of her days, always refusing to exploit for money other people's desire to hear her sing.

One day an invitation arrived at their house.  The prince was celebrating his exploitation of the dispossessed and marginalized peasantry by throwing a fancy dress ball.  Cinderella’s sisters-of-step were very excited to be invited to the palace.  They began to plan the expensive clothes they would use to alter and enslave their natural body images to emulate an unrealistic standard of feminine beauty.  (It

Cinderella arrived.  She was dressed in a clinging gown woven of silk stolen from unsuspecting silk-worms.  Her hair was festooned with pearls plundered from hard-working, defenseless oysters.  And on her feet, dangerous though it may seem, she wore slippers made of finely cut crystal.

Old King Cole was a merrie old soul, A merrie old soul was he. He called for his pipe and called for his bowl And toked away, mon, for his irie.

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 a quicker route to Grandma’s house.

Hello, Cinderella, I am your fairy godperson, or individual deity proxy, if you prefer. So, you want to go to the ball, eh? And bind yourself into the male concept of beauty? Squeeze into some tight-fitting dress that will cut off your circulation? Jam your feet into high-heeled shoes that will ruin your bone structure? Paint your face with chemicals and make- up that have been tested on nonhuman animals?” “Oh yes, definitely,” she said in an instant.

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.