Is Little Red Riding Hood just a naive little girl? Only in the tale by the German Brothers Grimm. In older versions of the story, she flirts and the wolf seduces her. Here's a look at various Little Red Riding Hoods.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem/DW/L. Albrecht
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Why Little Red Riding Hood is caught between innocence and sexuality
Is Little Red Riding Hood just a naive little girl? Only in the tale by the German Brothers Grimm. In older versions of the story, she flirts and the wolf seduces her. Here's a look at various Little Red Riding Hoods.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem/DW/L. Albrecht
German Romanticism
The Brothers Grimm describe Little Red Riding Hood as a young girl, innocent and blond - but that wasn't always the case. The girl is much older in other versions of the tale, and there wasn't always a happy ending either. That was a German twist to the story. Little Red Riding Hood first started in France.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem/DW/L. Albrecht
The seductive French wolf
"Viens te coucher avec moi" - Come to bed with me. That's how the wolf tries to entice Little Red Riding Hood into his bed. Accepting his invitation, she undresses - clearly an allusion to sex. In 1697, Charles Perrault wrote his story of the "Petit Chaperon Rouge;" the copper engraving was done by Gustave Doré. In those days, the story was told as a warning against male seducers.
Image: Gemeinfrei
First English version
The tale of the coquettish French Little Red Riding Hood was adapted into English in 1729 - without a happy ending. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother are devoured by the wolf, and that was that. No hunter came to their rescue. Typical for the English version is that the girl wasn't only wearing a red hood, but also a red riding coat.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem/DW/L. Albrecht
Little Red Riding Hood with a happy ending
The first German version of the Little Red Riding Hood was not the work of the Brothers Grimm, but of writer Ludwig Tieck. The romanticist who disliked the gloomy ending of the French version added a hunter who rescued the girl to the original tale. And in 1812, the Brothers Grimm turned the flirtatious Little Red Riding Hood into an innocent little girl, avoiding any sexual connotations.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum der Burg Wissem in Troisdorf
Little Red Riding Hood gets famous
Very quickly, the tale of Little Red Riding Hood became a hit in Germany and the rest of Europe. Elements from the story were printed on post cards and imitated in parlor games. Even today, the sweet little girl with the red hood embellishes champagne bottles, cheese packages and chocolates.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem/DW/L. Albrecht
A modern, headstrong girl
Little Red Riding Hood continues to be en vogue while being constantly reinterpreted. In his children's book "Rothütchen" (Little Red Hat), Geoffroy de Pennart turned her into a recalcitrant girl that even attacks the wolf, reflecting a modern idea of obedient, but self-conscious children.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum der Burg Wissem in Troisdorf
A less violent take
The 1980s were dominated by yet another educational theory. Back then, the objective was nonviolent education. That's why, in a more contemporary version, the wolf didn't devour Litte Red Riding Hood, but restrained himself to controlling her movements with a loop around her foot. That's illustrated here in the book "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" by Laurence Batigne and Bruno de la Salle.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem/DW/L. Albrecht
The wolf as a sex object
The 1990s saw yet another reinterpretation of the tale. This bold 1993 fantasy by Bettina Bayerl called "Keine Gnade!" (No Mercy!) brought back the obscenity and sexuality that was only hinted at in the original French version.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem/DW/L. Albrecht
Little Red Riding Hood becomes the villain
In this version, Burgi Kühnemann portrays Little Red Riding Hood as the real villain who overruns the poor wolf, which is threatened with extinction. Kühnemann is a book artist who works fairy tales. In another version, she draws parallels between Little Red Riding Hood and Hitler, who she claims loved calling himself "Uncle Wolf" and enjoyed being adored for his manliness.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem/DW/L. Albrecht
Little Red Riding Hood - a bit abstract for a change
There's also a version of the Little Red Riding Hood that does without any moral assessments. In the 1960s, artist Warja Honegger-Lavater depicted the tale only with dots. The resulting radical abstraction permitted all kinds of possible and impossible fantasies on the theme, releasing is from various cultures, eras or age groups.
Image: Bilderbuchmuseum der Burg Wissem in Troisdorf
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Little Red Riding Hood has always put me off - that dumb, innocent little girl who surrenders to the big bad wolf, only to be devoured by him. And then there's the manly, courageous hunter who heroically rescues her and her grandmother by cutting them out of the wolf's belly. And of course, though it defies logic, they both emerge totally unharmed.
Obviously, the Brothers Grimm didn't mind the inconsistencies in the story. They were more interested in scaring children. They wanted to teach kids good behavior: Listen to your mother and don't talk to strangers. But today we would call that xenophobia and cowardice.
Nevertheless, when I heard about an exhibition exclusively about Little Red Riding Hood, I was curious. What is it about the fairytale girl that can fill an entire exhibition?
The picture book museum in Troisdorf is housed in this red manor houseImage: AP
The Bilderbuchmuseum - the picture book museum - in Troisdorf is housed in a red manor house in a small town close to Bonn and holds Europe's largest collection on the Little Red Riding Hood. Dozens of girls with red hoods reside side by side over two floors in the house.
On the ground floor of the museum, there is a play area for young visitors. Through a crack in the door, I see a child dressed as Little Red Riding Hood whistling and walking around paper trees. Upstairs, the exhibition is more geared toward adults. There is no artificial forest there, but only display cases with books and pictures on the walls. It's not particularly creative.
The many faces of Little Red Riding Hood
In each display case, a different Little Red Riding Hood encounters a different wolf - and not all of the images are G-rated.
As curator Bernhard Schmitz tells me, the unusual collection was given to the museum by a Swiss couple. For over 30 years, Elisabeth and Richard Waldmann collected Little Red Riding Hoods wherever they went, gathering 800 books written since the end of the 18th century, as well as countless dolls, puppets, toys, flatware, ads, and all kinds of knickknacks. How on earth can anyone be so obsessed with a fairytale figure?
Looking through the wooden display cases looking for the Little Red Riding Hood that I know - the sweet dumb little girl - I come across many others sitting next to her. One of them has bare breasts. Another one has a Mohawk, and yet another looks quite lascivious. Still others are wicked or sardonic. This girl seems to have many different faces.
Burgi Kühnemann turns the Little Red Riding Hood tale upside downImage: Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem/DW/L. Albrecht
An erotic fairytale
The very first one, the French "Petit Chaperon Rouge" is anything but innocent. An adolescent, she obviously enjoys alluring the wolf. And when he invites her to come to bed with his ("Viens te coucher avec moi"), she undresses and lies down naked next to the beguiling wolf. Clearly a case of coquettish seduction.
Then I notice a comic from the 1990s depicting an erotic version of Little Red Riding Hood. Obviously, the sexual aspect of the original tale hasn't gotten lost over time, despite the prudishness of the prudish Brothers Grimm.
An entire room in the picture book museum has been devoted to artist Burgi Kühnemann and her very special Little Red Riding Hoods. She is standing in front one of her works - a hunter's vest with numerous pockets filled with booklets. "The wolf is a traffic victim" is written on the dirty green fabric.
Little Red Riding Hood and the Nazis
Burgi Kühneman takes a booklet from her right breast pocket. In it, a youthful Little Red Riding Hood is sitting behind the steering wheel, about to run over the poor wolf.
"Once there was a report about a wolf that got run over on the freeway," she says. "That's when I thought, people used to be afraid of wolves, but now they stuff them."
Burgi Kühnemann's voice is hoarse and a subdued, but she enjoys talking. She introduces me to her next version of the Little Red Riding Hood: "I'm giving it a political dimension. For example the Nazi era provides a lot of material. Adolf Hitler liked being called 'Uncle Wolf' by little girls."
So the blonde and naïve Little Red Riding Hood is only one of many red-hooded girls. It's the German version for young children. Once again, I walk by the display cases and think, Little Red Riding Hood was clearly schizophrenic.
