Fairy tale dramas have dominated primetime lineups for the past couple seasons, with millions of adult viewers sprawled on the couch, remotes in hand, watching the latest episode of ABC's Once Upon a Time and Once Upon a Time Wonderland; NBC's Grimm and Dracula, FOX's Sleepy Hollow, and the CW's Beauty and the Beast and Arrow. We are smitten.
The swoon-worthy, sensitive men-of-action certainly have something to do with it. And imagining ourselves in the roles of these beautiful women of action—not the passive damsels in distress of the past—entices us as well. Who wouldn't want to don a rich velvet cape, grab a silver sword, and rescue Prince Charming? I wouldn't mind Alice's roundhouse kicks, but I doubt the high stakes drama, thwarted passion, and outstanding computer graphics tell the whole story.
I confess I've always adored fairy tales. I read them as a child, read them to my own kids, and even invented a few along the way. My son still talks of Filbert, the good-hearted dragon I sent into battle each bedtime against his nemesis Peroxio.
Yet, society may tempt us to deem the fairy tale genre as a childhood throwback or a guilty pleasure. After all, we're meant to outgrow the fantasy, just as we advise head-in-the-clouds dreamers that "life's no fairy tale."
To the contrary, I believe there's a profound sense of real-life truth lying within these fantasy stories. Throughout history, fairy tales have provided stable ground, a comforting picture of a world where morality matters. These stories give us glimpses of truth in a society that often distorts right and wrong.
We may adapt the plots, the characters, and the fantastical settings, but the core remains the same. There is good and evil in the world, hard choices need to be made, daily living requires courage, and there will always be consequences for the wrong actions.
The Grimm brothers understood this and first published Nursery and Household Tales in 1812, codifying and uniting German culture and oral tradition. And this desire for stability, community, and common ground is no less needed today than during Napoleon's sieges.
We ask ourselves, Will right prevail? Can dreams come true? Does true love exist outside of castles? These are large and looming questions, and simply because we don't chat about them over coffee doesn't mean they don't dwell in our heads and in our hearts. We yearn for Snow White's faith that good will triumph and Alice's conviction that true love lasts.
The moral clarity fairy tales provide instinctively feels right to us, but such truths rarely come up day-to-day. In his essay "Myth Became Fact," C.S. Lewis describes the rich imaginative atmosphere of fairy tales and myths as a perfect conduit for expressing and discovering truths. They provide a context for the unknown and, to our linear and limited minds, the unbelievable. There is an experiential quality to myths that marry thought to experience.
In fact, he strongly urged us—as Christians—to never lose sight of this connection for it is in this intersection we can approach the miracle that is our faith. Elements of Christ's birth, death, and resurrection resemble the rich imaginative and mythical elements of so many other tales. Numerous cultures claim a tale of a god killed and risen—including the Norse, Aztec, Japanese and Greek. And we should not eschew such comparisons and connections to Christ, but expect them. Myth was traditionally employed, not as an exaggerated or fanciful story, but as an explanation for a culture's worldview, history and traditions.
Christ's birth and resurrection did not lose these mythical elements when they became fact. Rather those very elements, where imagination marries faith, help provide the context in which we can approach the fantastic reality of God entering into our world at a particular time and place.
Is there any better reason to love for myths and fairy tales? Through the story of Christ, I am intimately involved in one and should bring to that divine fairy tale all my wonder, gratitude, imagination, and awe. There's a little left over for the others, and I stand with Lewis and his assertion: "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly." And I'll go a step further and devour them on TV as well.
Each evening I'm reassured by glimpses of truth and clarity, standing apart in the daily wave of propaganda directed at us. I suspect I'm not alone in feeling this way for my sole adoration cannot have made them so popular. We cheer for Snow White as she saves her family, giddily watch as Alice searches and finds Silas, wonder if Abbie can save the entire world, and hope NYPD Detective Catherine Chandler will be able to protect the Beast from himself… and from her dad.
With each show I watch, I trust good will prevail, love will last eternally, and some things in life are worth fighting, even dying, for. I trust, stepping into the imaginative experience, that I, that we, can defeat the villain.
Katherine Reay is a writer, wife, mother, runner, and most recently, debut novelist of the highly acclaimed Dear Mr. Knightley (HarperCollins Christian Publishing). Having lived all across the country and Europe, she now calls Seattle home. Katherine's second novel, Lizzy and Jane, will be released in the fall of 2014.
