Little Red Riding Hood 2016 Has An Unhappy Ending

We have to hand it to Mick Phillips for his retelling of the classic tale, "Little Red Riding Hood."  Wikipedia says Charles Perrault’s tale of multiple murder and attempted deception by impersonating “Grandma” was first published in 1697. There are a number of different endings, depending on which version from which European country you read -- Grandma gets eaten, Red gets devoured, both are eaten but cut free from the wolf's belly by a hunter, etc.

In at least one telling of the tale the wolf is killed, which is key to today’s upside down world as portrayed by Mr. Phillips' letter to the editor of the Yakima Herald Republic.

Phillips suggests that in today’s world the bad behavior of the wolf is excused and justified. The heroic action of the woodcutter who saved Red is seen as unprovoked aggression and he is protested, prosecuted and his home and reputation are destroyed. Granny’s home is turned into a shrine in memory to the tragic loss of life of the wolf and the national media covers it wall to wall.

This slice of satire does a great job of exposing what’s happening today. For starters, the concept of right and wrong is gone. For the wolf, it’s not wrong to kill Grandma because the wolf is by nature, a killer. The wolf was simply doing what wolves do. So IF you can accept that, somehow this makes it OK. Which it isn’t, but that gets steamrolled by the pace of what happens next.

So IF that’s true -- that wolves will be wolves -- then merely by opening her door, Grandma has to assume the personal responsibility of provoking the wolf to act in a manner consistent with its “wolfiness.” There is no crime here.

And IF that’s true, then the woodcutter unjustly set himself up as judge, jury and executioner by killing the wolf without taking into account the mitigating circumstance of the wolf’s predatory upbringing and mankind’s encroachment into the forest which is the wolf’s natural habitat.

Consider the "facts ..."

Frightened and confused by the incursion and hungry from the hunting of natural prey being compromised by having the balance of available resources upset by man’s presence, the wolf was virtually forced to eat Grandma and set a trap for Red to secure his very future existence!

But Grandma, what big conclusions you jump to.

All the easier to do when right and wrong aren’t part of the equation.

So IF the wolf was cut down in the prime of his life trying survive, as every wolf has a natural right to do, then surely the place of his demise – Granny’s house -- SHOULD be vacated and dedicated as a shrine, a reminder to us all of the lessons to be learned from this tragedy.

It’s like a lineup of dominoes. If the first push is wrong, the result is wrong multiplied. In fact it’s multiplied to such a degree that Mr. Phillips’ letter to the editor make perfect sense.  And that’s a bedtime story to trigger a nightmare.