Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood is a folktale that has changed much in its history. It may be a children's story, but it contains within it themes of sexual intercourse, violence and even cannibalism. The tale makes the clearest contrast between the safe world of the village and the dangers of the forest, conventional antitheses that are essentially medieval, though no versions are as old as that.

Modern Uses

Modern uses have been made of Little Red Riding Hood, generally with a mock-serious reversal of Red Riding Hood's naïveté or some twist of social satire; they range from Stephen Sondheim's musical Into the Woods to cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny in drag. One of the most famous is the short animated cartoon, Red Hot Riding Hood by Tex Avery where the story is recast in an adult oriented urban setting.

Related Topics:
Stephen Sondheim - Into the Woods - Bugs Bunny - Drag - Animated cartoon - Red Hot Riding Hood - Tex Avery

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More recently, Neil Gaiman worked a darker, more erotic, and supposedly pre-Perrault version (according to Gaiman's fictional character Gilbert/Fiddler's Green) of the Red Riding Hood tale into an issue (entitled "Collectors") of the Sandman series of comics.

Related Topics:
Neil Gaiman - Sandman

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The character of "Riding Hood" is pivotal in the Fables comic book universe. She is portrayed as an adult, and was briefly the lover of Little Boy Blue at the "Last Castle"---the site of the Fables' last stand against their enemy, the "Adversary." She is later impersonated by Baba Yaga as part of an invasion of Fabletown. There are unanswered questions as to her ultimate loyalties; some Fables believe that she was always a spy for the Adversary.

Related Topics:
Fables - Comic book - Little Boy Blue - Baba Yaga - Fabletown

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Also, the Japanese animated film Jin-Roh, about a secret society within an anti-terrorist unit of a post-war, German-occupied Japan, makes several literary and visual references to the Grimm story (most notably a book purchased by one of the characters and the young female bomb couriers, called "red riding hoods"), but follows the Perrault version of the tale, with an anti-terrorist commando as the wolf (the title is literally "Man-wolf" in Japanese, or, better still, could be translated as "a Wolf as a Man"), and a mysterious woman as the young lady.

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Filmmaker Neil Jordan's horror-fantasy The Company of Wolves, based on a short story by Angela Carter, told an interweaving series of folkloric tales loosely based on Red Riding Hood that fully exploited its subtexts of lycanthropy, violence and sexual awakening.

Related Topics:
Neil Jordan - Horror - Fantasy - The Company of Wolves - Angela Carter - Lycanthropy

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The Fighting game Darkstalkers has a twisted take on the story: A girl named B.B. (Baby Bonnie) Hood (called Bulletta in Japan), a young girl who is actually a bounty hunter (and a serial killer of wolves). She carries an Uzi, hides land mines underneath her dress, and her basket conceals a variety of weapons, from knives to a built-in rocket launcher and a flamethrower disguised as a wine bottle.

Related Topics:
Fighting game - Darkstalkers - B.B. (Baby Bonnie) Hood - Bounty hunter - Serial killer - Uzi - Land mines - Rocket launcher - Flamethrower

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Radio humorist Stan Freberg peformed a radio play spoofing both Little Red Riding Hood and Dragnet called "Little Blue Riding Hood".

Related Topics:
Stan Freberg - Dragnet

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Freeway, a feature film adaptation, starring Kiefer Sutherland and Reese Witherspoon takes the story and transforms it into a modern and realistic, albeit over-the-top, story of an abused teen and a serial killer.

Related Topics:
Freeway - Feature film - Kiefer Sutherland - Reese Witherspoon

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