Life in the Hood ain't so Grimm (Red Riding Hood)

As a break from the mix of disturbing and encouraging news from the Middle East (see my Twitter feed in the left sidebar) - and, for that matter, the Midwest (um, Wisconsin - may the GOP back down and recognize social realities) - here is an absolutely hilarious review of the upcoming movie Red Riding Hood, from my favorite newspaper, The Guardian.

Okay, so it's not actually a review of the movie - it's a review of the trailer!  The Guardian does this from time to time...and frequently makes me laugh out loud.

Red Riding Hood trailer: life in the hood ain't so Grimm

If you go down to the woods today, ladies, it seems you're more likely to get lucky with your fella than meet a cross-dressing wolf...

Amanda Seyfried as Red Riding Hood

Fairytales have always played a vital function, offering strict morality lessons that help to mould each generation of children into well-developed adults. However, now that they're primarily being used to sell subscriptions to satellite television companies, there's a real danger they may soon be a thing of the past.

So thank heavens for Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood, her forthcoming adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood. If anyone can faithfully recreate the precise events of the definitive 1857 Brothers Grimm version of the story in a way that will appeal directly to the youngsters of today, it's her. Let's take a look at the new Red Riding Hood trailer to see her wonderfully faithful adaptation in action ...

1) Here she is, Little Red Riding Hood. "A dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her," according to the Brothers Grimm. And she's wearing the bright red cape given to her by her grandmother, too. This is going to be delightful.

2) However, all is not well in Little Red Riding Hood's village. A vicious predator is on the loose, and it's picking off villagers at random. What sort of monster could be responsible for a campaign of such relentless evil?

3) That's right: a wolf. This worries Little Red Riding Hood, because her beloved yet sickly grandmother lives in an isolated cottage in the woods by herself so she's most at risk from a wolf attack. That's why, even though she knows the danger involved, Little Red Riding Hood decides to pack her things and ...

4) Oh. She decides to have it off with a bloke up against a wall. Which admittedly isn't in the definitive text of the story, but since it's been argued that Little Red Riding Hood can be read as an allegory for sexual awakening, we can write this off as an acceptable deviation. Anyway, shag over, Little Red Riding Hood sets off into the woods to ...

5) Seriously? To have it off with the same bloke? Again? This doesn't really seem on. If her grandmother has already been eaten by the wolf – which she totally has, by the way – then every time Little Red Riding Hood has sex from now on, she's going to automatically equate feelings of arousal with the murder of her elderly relative. That's bound to cause all kinds of profound and complex intimacy issues somewhere down the line. Demonstrate some reasonable foresight, Little Red Riding Hood...

To read the rest of this review, please click on The Guardian: Life in the Hood ain't so Grimm. To watch the official Warner Brothers US trailer, click on Red Riding Hood.