5/07/2007

The Two Three Sides of The Three Little Pigs...

One involves a wolf huffing and puffing and destroying ("blowing down") two of the three pigs' houses. Simple enough, and defying the test of time. The Brothers Grimm, in the German translation, have a more graphic version of the story, with the wolf meeting his end in a pot of boiling water.

The other may require record-breaking timeouts and a farewell to Library Lady for a spell if your four or five year old retells a racier version of The Three Little Pigs - complete with sounds and other graphic terms extremely not suitable for kids - that would make Howard Stern blush.

In Vermont and Brookline, however, the parents themselves would probably retell the story at home, making the wolf a martyr overlorded by the bourgeoisie pigs, and became a hero to oppressed predators by advocating armed revolution and burning the pigs alive. The brick house would be converted a palace for the wolf and his faithful cadre, and the wolf would quickly implement agrarian reform so that any pigs living would have to turn over their crops to the state, who would then distribute them between the party leaders and let the survivors starve of hunger. Then, a big bad chimp with a Texas accent would come in and tell the people that the wolf had WMD; his troops would surround the wolf's palace, and the people, sick and tired of the wolf's dictatorship (and the presses puff pieces on the wolf), would overthrow the wolf and destroy the printing presses of his fans. The wolf would be put into exile until he died of media neglect.

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