Profs & Pints Philadelphia: The Dark Side of Fairy-Tale Romance

Profs and Pints Philadelphia presents: “The Dark Side of Fairy-Tale Romance,” on the nightmarish elements of the tales we’ve repackaged as the stuff of lovers’ dreams, with Linda Lee, lecturer in folklore and fairy tales at the University of Pennsylvania.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profs-and-pints-black-squirrel/fairy-tale-romance .]

From romcoms to reality TV shows to wedding venues to Valentine’s Day, we’re inundated with messages idealizing the idea of a “fairy-tale romance.” But the fairy tales underlying all the hype about charming princes, grand balls, true love’s kiss, and the happily-ever-after actually can be profoundly unsettling and full of reasons to run like hell.

Gain an appreciation of how modern society glosses over the darker elements of fairy tales with Linda Lee, who previously has given excellent Profs and Pints talks on witches and on Christmas folklore.

She’ll begin by discussing how much the idea of fairy-tale romance pervades mainstream media and popular culture, giving her audience a brief tour of fairy-tale romance tropes across genres and in movies, television, advertising, video games, and elsewhere.

It’s understandable that people might swoon over canonical fairy tales’ fancy dresses, crowded ballrooms, expansive libraries, and magical enchantments. But the romances at the core of the actual fairy tales often can be quite problematic, and we’ll also look at those.

“Cinderella,” for example, depicts women competing for male attention in ways that involve extreme measures like self-harm. Dead mothers, abusive stepparents, and family pressure to marry factor in as well.

In “Beauty and the Beast” a younger daughter is expected to sacrifice her future to rectify her father’s mistake. Other beastly elements of the tale: dubious consent, arranged marriages, anger management issues, monstrous love interests, isolation, manipulation, and possibly Stockholm syndrome.

In “Snow White” a young girl’s seemingly dead body is an object of desire, and we’re told of pedophilia, the threat of violence, cannibalism, necrophilia, and consent violation. “Sleeping Beauty” features a prince who believes he’s entitled to sexual access to a sleeping princess, as well as adultery, cannibalism, and abandonment.

You’ll come away with a deeper appreciation of the tales themselves and reason to roll your eyes at those who try to sell you on fairy-tale romance as an ideal. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Guests are welcome to arrive any time after 5:30. Talk starts at 6:30.)

Image: A Jennie Harbour illustration of “Sleeping Beauty” from My Book of Favourite Fairy Tales, published in 1921. (Public domain.)