If you could rewrite any book’s ending, which one would you choose?

Last time, I wrote Romeo and Juliet.

This time, I am going after “Sleeping Beauty” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” Everyone uses the Disney-style writings of these stories regardless of their original works, which were quite dark. Especially in Sleeping Beauty’s case. The prince impregnates her.

These old fairy tales were warnings for girls to be wary of men. Now the horrors have been removed, but one horror still remains. These men come in and have to kiss the women while they are unconscious to free them from the spell. In Snow White’s case, it is said the piece of apple is dislodged from her mouth, so he really did not need to kiss her.

If you want to keep them as not horror stories, you need to take out the kissing unconscious women bits. There need to be new ways for the women to be “saved”. The prince should bring a doctor or wizard or something. Then get to know the girl not have the end be, “They got married and lived happily ever after.” It sets a bad precedence for children during a very impressionable time when they are learning about gender roles and dynamics. Whether you are for or against the existence of gender roles does not matter because you do not parent all the children of the world. These kids are going to be fed gender roles in one way or another.

Fairy tales need better endings than a kiss and riding off into the sunset to get married. They could end with they have a big party and their marital status is not mentioned. There are various ways to end it in a satisfactory matter for children that requires only changing the last two or three sentences. Who is to say the prince did not get cursed in the first place, if you want to rewrite the whole thing.

Fairy tales have always taught gender roles. Most notably that women are seen lesser than men. Needing rescue. Being victims. Not given a voice. The solution should not be kissing and getting married. It tells little girls that if he kisses you and promises to marry you then who cares what happened before. There are really no good lessons to be learned from these stories, yet very impressionable children are constantly told these stories.