MACAYLA COOK
Staff Reporter
Content warning: This article contains references to sexual assault.
When Jennifer Tamas was in school, her interpretations of classic fairy tales were dismissed by her professors. Now, with years of teaching and a doctorate under her belt, her ideas are no longer going unheard.
Tamas is currently an associate French professor at Rutgers University. Her latest book, “Au NON des femmes: Libérer nos classiques du regard masculin,” (which loosely translates to “The no of women: Free our classics from the male gaze,”) offers a deep dive into the 17th century fairy tales that permeate modern culture through a lens informed by the modern #MeToo movement.
“I can have the right to interpret those [stories] the way I wanted when I was a student, and I was told not to do so,” Tamas said.
In order to shed light on the feminist roots of fairy tales, Tamas gave a lecture titled “Beauty and the Beast and Sexual Consent: A Feminist Take on Fairy Tales” last November in Kirkbride Lecture Hall. Many language professors required their students to attend, including Deborah Steinberger, an associate professor of French and comparative literature who invited Tamas to campus.
“When I was in France on sabbatical last [spring], she was on the radio,” Steinberger said. “That’s how I learned about her book, and I thought it would be wonderful to have her come here.”
Many fairy tales were written by French women in the 17th century, “Beauty and the Beast” included. The original printed version is credited to Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and was published in a collection of stories titled “La Jeune Américaine et Les Contes Marins” (“The Young American and Marine Tales”).
Despite the assumptions of modern audiences, Tamas explained that fairy tales were not intended for children. Instead, they were meant to be a source of comfort for young women about to be married.
“Marriage at that time was seen as something that was imposed on you, and especially the first night was a rape,” Tamas said. “So when those women read fairy tales, it was just to show that things could happen differently and to empower women with a sense of urgency and control.”
One such fairy tale that deals explicitly with themes of women’s agency and ability to give consent is Beauty and the Beast. In her lecture, Tamas analyzed the original story of “La Belle et La Bête,” which bears a few striking differences from the popularized Brothers Grimm and Disney versions.
In the original French text, Belle is given free agency to do as she pleases, aside from nightly dinners with the Beast. In contrast to Disney’s interpretation, there is no forbidden wing of the castle and no magical rose, as there is no time limit on the Beast’s curse. He simply must make Belle fall in love with him, and the only way he can fail is if he restricts Belle’s free will in any way.
Every night after dinner, the Beast asks Belle if she wants to sleep with him. She declines, and he leaves her to rest. However, this changes after the Beast nearly dies, is revived by Belle and subsequently becomes human. Belle finally consents to sleep with the Beast. This is when she realizes he merely meant sleep next to him, and the two are eventually married.
Tamas believes that the modern call for feminist fairy tales can be answered by rediscovering the original versions, citing how the hunter who defeats the Big Bad Wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood”was actually added into the story later on.
“You have the bad guy who is a wolf, and you have the good guy who is a hunter, and everything is about men saving women,” Tamas said. “Good guy and bad guy, but she doesn’t get to be either one, because whatever she does is wrong. Whereas if you read these versions written by women, it has nothing to do with that. She escaped by herself.”
The ideas that Tamas presented in her lecture resonated with senior Spanish education major Abby Supplee. While attendance was required, Supplee planned to attend the lecture regardless, adding on that she learned a lot from Tamas.
Ultimately, Tamas’ lecture argued that after years of cultural criticisms of patriarchal messaging, the modern world is the perfect setting for the original versions of fairy tales to be told.
“I really feel like #MeToo is opening doors and people are finally listening,” Tamas said. “But it doesn’t mean that the door opens forever. It will not stay like this forever.”
