(ambient chimes)
(sweet chimes)
- [Voiceover] It turns
out that in fairy tales,
these wonderful little things,
started out with a lot more death,
a lot more destruction, cannibalism.
- [Voiceover] Murder, rape.
- [Voiceover] So adults
told each other tales,
and these formed the basis of fairy tales.
But the Disney version
basically has, like,
Cinderella is very sweet
and beautiful and kind.
But she's being basically human trafficked
by her own wicked stepmother.
- [Voiceover] And in the original version,
it's actually pretty much like that.
But the evil stepmother in this version
says to her stepdaughters,
to the oldest one,
she's like, "Here's what you do."
"I know that shoe won't fit
around your big hammertoe."
"Here's a knife, cut that thing
off, and the shoe will fit."
And she does it.
She cuts off her toe,
puts on the slipper,
and the prince is like,
"This is great."
Until these pigeons, magic
pigeons, come along and say,
"Hey, prince,"
(coo)
"check that toe out."
"It's bleeding through the glass slipper."
- [Voiceover] They're like,
her shoe is filled with blood.
(giggles)
The youngest one tries the same thing,
except she cuts off part of her heel.
The two pigeons point out the bloody shoe,
and then finally, somehow,
Cinderella ends up with
the shoe on, right?
- [Voiceover] Yeah, and he says,
"I found you."
"We're gonna go get married."
And in an act of good favor,
she invites the
stepsisters to the wedding.
- [Voiceover] 'Cause she
was such a nice person.
- [Voiceover] Probably to
rub salt in the wounds.
- [Voiceover] She knew
that her pigeon friends
were going to pluck their eyes out,
which they did.
- [Voiceover] Yep, one at a time,
and then they come back and finish the job
and pluck out the other eyes.
Can we talk about The
Juniper Tree real quick?
- [Voiceover] I love this one.
(giggles)
- [Voiceover] So, like we said,
in fairy tales there
are all kinds of things
that could happen,
and The Juniper Tree may be
the worst one of 'em all.
So in this case,
we have an evil stepmother, of course,
who hates her stepchild, who is a boy.
So she comes home and says,
"Hey, you want an apple?"
And the boy says,
"Sure, let me lean in there and get one."
And she, it's a trunk,
and she slams the trunk
down and cuts his head off.
(giggles)
- [Voiceover] Yeah, and
that's just the beginning.
So she's like, all right,
probably not a wise move.
Let me put the kid in a chair,
stick this head back on his neck,
and wrap a scarf around it,
and just, here, open his eyes here
and a put a little smile on his face.
Then her real daughter comes in,
not a stepdaughter.
- [Voiceover] Right.
- [Voiceover] Her favorite real daughter.
- [Voiceover] Yes.
- [Voiceover] And is
like, he looks all weird.
Why is he just sitting there like a dolt?
She says, "I don't know."
"Go slap him and bring him around a bit."
So she boxes his ear,
his head falls off.
- [Voiceover] And by the way,
the little girl loved the little boy.
- [Voiceover] So she knocks his head off,
and the mom's like, "You knocked
your brother's head off,"
"and you won't get in any trouble."
"Let's just cook him into a stew"
"and feed him to your father."
- [Voiceover] And the little
girl's, like, beside herself
with, like, guilt and shame and horror
and thought that she killed
her beloved stepbrother.
- [Voiceover] Yeah.
- [Voiceover] But she goes along with it,
'cause this is what her mom's saying.
And the father comes home,
and he eats the stew--
- [Voiceover] Yeah, then
you add a little misogyny
and greed on the end.
- [Voiceover] Yeah.
- [Voiceover] 'Cause he's like,
no one else in this family gonna eat this.
- [Voiceover] Yeah.
- [Voiceover] But me.
- [Voiceover] It's pretty nuts.
And in the end,
the little girl takes the boy's bones
and buries 'em by the juniper tree,
and he's reborn as a bird,
and ends up killing the wicked stepmother
and then comes back to life as the boy.
So it all works out in
the end for the boy,
but it's pretty nuts as far
as, like, these stories go.
Like, that has it all.
(creepy chimes)
