{"id":12341,"date":"2014-03-18T21:36:27","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T02:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/simchafisher\/?p=12341"},"modified":"2015-01-10T21:33:59","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T02:33:59","slug":"cisgendered-bears-and-other-horrible-things-that-have-happened-to-my-mommy-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/simchafisher\/2014\/03\/18\/cisgendered-bears-and-other-horrible-things-that-have-happened-to-my-mommy-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Cisgendered Bears and Other Horrible Things That Have Happened to My Mommy Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A few weeks ago, a mom of my acquaintance got The Three Little Bears<\/em> from the library, but was irritated to discover that the story had been bowdlerized for 21st century sensitivities. \u00a0Gone were the heteronormative Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear. Instead, we just had three genderinoffensive bears, one big, one medium, and one small. What. A. Crock.<\/p>\n

PIC three bears Galdone<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But when she posted a picture, I thought, Wait, that\u2019s got to be Paul Galdone, who has been illustrating for a lo-o-o-ong time. I looked it up, and sure enough, this version of The Three Bears<\/a> came out in 1972. Definitely post sexual revolution, but hardly an era when devious children\u2019s illustrators were stretching the definition of family \u2014 at least not in mainstream children\u2019s books.<\/p>\n

Following a hunch, I did some quick research, and discovered that the \u201cThree Bears\u201d story was first written down by Robert Southey in 1837<\/a>, and \u2014 lo and behold, the original version was about three male<\/em> bears. I don\u2019t think they were some kind of transgressive, tradition-flouting bears shacking up in the woodsy version of Castro Street. They were just three bears trying to deal with porridge in the way that they thought best.<\/p>\n

PIC three bears Southey<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t blame the original mom for thinking there was something hinky going on. We really do have to be on constant alert for hidden and not-so-hidden agendas driven by people we wouldn\u2019t trust to boil an egg for us, much less teach our kids what is normal and what is not. \u00a0At the same time, being on constant alert can make us a little nutty, and we begin to see bogeymen in every corner,<\/p>\n

PIC Francis afraid<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

when sometimes it\u2019s really just your chair with a robe hanging on it in a sinister way.<\/p>\n

When I read books that are 25 years old or more, I play a little game: \u00a0I scan the illustrations and text to see if anything would jump out at the typical concerned mom if it were written today. Look for it, and you\u2019ll find quite a lot! I\u2019m not even talking about deliberate naughty easter eggs that they\u2019re assuming most people will miss, like what the obviously drunk animators snuck into the backgrounds of ancient Bugs Bunny cartoons<\/p>\n

PIC Looney Tunes with porno poster<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just talking about things that people didn\u2019t used to flip out about, because there wasn\u2019t any real threat of a concerted, deliberate effort to change children\u2019s ideas of what is normal (or the threat was in its earliest stages). Lots of topless people, bottomless people, guys who may or may not be super gay, and so on. These things pepper old kid\u2019s books for decades, and no one batted an eye. \u00a0People simply didn\u2019t used to be on high alert at all times.<\/p>\n

All that being said, I\u2019m not sure what to make of a strange and hilarious book we just found: \u00a0Monsters<\/em> by Russell Hoban<\/a> (who, speaking of a chair with a robe on it, did the wonderful Frances books<\/a>) and illustrated by Quentin Blake.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a funny little story about a boy \u2014 maybe eight years old \u2014 who likes to draw monsters (and oh my gosh, the illustrations are perfect-o):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

His mother asks him whether he wouldn\u2019t like to draw other things \u2014 \u201chouses, trees, birds, and animals\u201d \u2014 but he is only interested in drawing monsters.<\/p>\n

All of John\u2019s monsters were violent. \u00a0They fought with passing strangers and random spacecraft and they fought with one another, and if they found themselves alone they made threatening noises to themselves while waiting for somebody ugly to turn up.
\n\u2018GNGGHHHHH!\u2019 they said, \u201cNNARRRGH!\u201d and \u201cXURRRVVV!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He reassures his worried parents that he is fine, getting along with his teachers fine, getting along with the other kids fine. \u00a0One day he begins to draw a monster that is really big \u2014 in fact, he can only get parts of its huge, bristly monstrous tail on a sheet of paper. This one \u201csomehow seems more serious than the others.\u201d \u00a0The parents are worried, but the art teacher reassures them that \u201cBoys are naturally a little monstrous.\u201d They go to the doctor, who prescribes a pill, and tells them to come back if the drawings keep coming. Which they do.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t give away the end, but the doctor gets what he\u2019s got coming, and the boy ends up feeling much better.<\/p>\n

Now, if this book had come out in 2014, Russell Hoban would be served with a lawsuit from Gloria Allred, his cause would irritably championed by Camille Paglia, and Tony Esolen would be offering him a home cooked meal drenched in a gravy of tears of rage and sorrow, and Matt Walsh would be saying something that is sorta kinda true, but making it sound so baboonishly false that you want to disown yourself for even halfway agreeing with him.<\/p>\n

It would have been a thing<\/em>, you see, a big thing<\/em> about how boys are treated, how their natural masculinity is medicated into oblivion, and what monstrous things will eventually happen when boys are not allowed to be boys, or what it is that we are saying to girls<\/em> by not saying that they<\/em> are naturally a little monstrous, and so on. But the book is from 1991, when we were still teetering on the brink of Always Being Hysterical All the Time About Everything Especially, ESPECIALLY, What We Are Teaching Our Children.<\/p>\n

Uphhh, I\u2019m just so tired. So tired of having to figure out what\u2019s appropriate, what\u2019s inappropriate, what\u2019s sending the wrong message, what\u2019s playing into the whole \u201csending the wrong message\u201d nonsense, and so on. It\u2019s almost a relief to know that kids tend to remember things you weren\u2019t even aware of telling them, and they forget the things you all but tattooed into the inside of their eyelids.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I really like Paul Galdone, because he always draws pictures of what is actually going on in the story; and I really like Russell Hoban, because he really remembers what it\u2019s like to be a kid. Thus endeth my analysis. I\u2019m gonna go draw some monsters.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago, a mom of my acquaintance got The Three Little Bears from the library, but was irritated to discover that the story had been bowdlerized for 21st century sensitivities. \u00a0Gone were the heteronormative Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear. Instead, we just had three genderinoffensive bears, one big, one medium, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":12348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[509,6,92,506,507,508],"class_list":["post-12341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-always-being-hysterical-all-the-time","tag-books","tag-kids","tag-paul-galdone","tag-russell-hoban","tag-three-bears"],"yoast_head":"\nCisgendered Bears and Other Horrible Things That Have Happened to My Mommy Brain<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A few weeks ago, a mom of my acquaintance got The Three Little Bears from the library, but was irritated to discover that the story had been bowdlerized\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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