- A Disney-produced Silly Symphony called The Wise Little Hen uses this tale as its basis. This version features Peter Pig and Donald Duck (in his debut), instead of the cat and the frog from the folk version, as the ones who decline to participate in the preparation of the bread.
- Politically-themed revisions of the story include a conservative version, based on a Ronald Reagan monologue from 1976. The farmer claims that the hen is being unfair if she does not share her bread with the other animals and forces her to share her bread with those who would not work for it. This in turn removes the hen's incentive to work resulting in poverty for the entire barnyard. An alternate version reimagines the tale as a satire on capitalism, with the hen promising slices of bread in return for work, but keeping the largest share for herself despite doing none of the work. Mavina Reynolds gave a twist to the story by making it a pro-work, anti-shirk socialist anthem, with the worker hen retaining all the fruits of her labor: "And that's why they called her Red."
- The Little Red Hen was featured in episode 14 of the animated series Super Why! In the book, the animals who decline to help the Little Red Hen make corn bread are a dog, a cat, and a duck. Super Why changes the ending by having the three animals help the Little Red Hen bake the corn bread for her chicks and later joining her in eating the corn bread.
In the tale, the little red hen finds a grain of wheat and asks for help from the other farmyard animals (most adaptations feature three animals, a pig, a cat, and a rat, duck, goose, dog, or goat) to plant it, but they all refuse.
At each later stage (harvest, threshing, milling the wheat into flour, and baking the flour into bread), the hen again asks for help from the other animals, but again she doesn't receive any help.
Finally, the hen has completed her task and asks who will help her eat the bread. This time, all the previous non-participants eagerly volunteer, but she disagrees with them, stating that no one helped her with her work. Thus, the hen eats it with her chicks, leaving none for anyone else.
Wow, who'da thought a kids' story could be politicized in that many ways!
ReplyDeleteThat Super Why! synopsis is *so* typical of kids' television these days. Conflict-free plots, capped by non-resolutions of sharing and cooperation. "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" would never make it past the PBS and Sprout censors these days.
ReplyDeleteI suppose they wouldn't like the road runner and the coyote. Seriously, though, we could use a little more of that sharing and cooperation.
DeleteYes. And they don't come naturally to many young children. And young children are receptive to sharing and cooperation when they are guided to them - kids are much better at learning than we are. We could wish for some less vapid plots, though.
DeleteI thought we were in favor of conflict-free restaurant visits.
DeleteSeriously, most of the stories pitched for children, through the WWofDisney (dog smarter than boy; boy smarter than mother; mother smarter than father; father four steps behind and a little off the path) have struck me as Not Advisable for Growing Minds. I don't trust any of them but Dr. Seuss (with reservations). Of course, when my son asked for the songs I sang to them so he could sing them to his son, he noticed they were all about killing people on a mountain or foxes eating chickens on a snowy night or people 500 miles from home or seeing ghosts the copper bosses couldn't kill. Son wondered why he didn't become a psychopath.
There's always "Chicken Little," and the sky is falling in case you haven't looked up recently.
DeleteWalt Disney was a sadist. If you saw a cute animal in the opening srquence, you could get it would be dead with a small child sobbing over its lifeless form by the end of the show. " Ol' Yeller. " I wouldn't let the dog out of my sight for days after seeing that.
ReplyDelete