Sleeping Beauty
... Had to Rescue Herself
Seriously, what kind of parents send their daughter to languish in a tower and play with sharp objects? And what kind of kingdom has knights who for one hundred years can't be bothered to rescue her? And how many evil godmothers are there really?
I've been reading the classics to my three-year-old daughter, torn between rewriting them on-the-go (lest I have to explain why Hansel & Gretel's father sent them out not once or twice, but three times into the deep dark forest) and convincing myself that stories with archetypes are retold for a reason: to pass down the wisdom of generations in order to prepare us for the horrors of reality. We learn from myth – it paints our imaginations and gives us the tools to survive. That, or it gives us nightmares. Either way, we emerge into the world and wait patiently for our happy ending.
For centuries women have been taught to wait passively. They learn that life will happen to them, possibly with them, but never be directed by them. Like the knight in shining armor, good fortune may arrive or it may not, terror may strike or it may not, but we – the heroines of the story – will have no choice but to prick a finger, eat an apple, or fall a-slumber.
As you've probably guessed by now, this is far from what I will be telling my daughter. Aside from instructing her to read between the lines, kick ass in "stylish yet affordable boots", and appreciate the value of a good snark, I plan to also teach her that it is her job to save the world. That she, specifically, has been chosen – along with every other child who can read, who can think, who is lucky enough to be healthy and fed and warm – to fight the powers of injustice and lend a hand to those trapped in tall towers or deep dungeons.
I will teach her that our world is full of monsters. That they're so numerous and entrenched that most of us forget they're there. We've all had our minds wiped. We've all been made to fall asleep, and it's been longer than a little while.
It is easy to externalize Dollhouse's Echo, to see her as a victim, struggling to regain her identity and freedom. What is harder to realize is that she's in me, in every one of us – the part that struggles to wake up when all of our conditioning is telling us to just tune out. It is easier to abdicate responsibility and wait, to sign a contract and allow ourselves to be programmed for apathy.
And so, the one thing that I will endlessly repeat to my daughter, to my son (and for that matter to myself), is that I will NOT be choosing the easy way. It never leads out anyway.
This is where it begins. At the end of a TV show, at the end of a decade, but at the beginning of a new story. We can choose to wake up and be the rescuers – not just of ourselves but of others. We can lead by example. We can rewrite the future. And you need to do it with me!
