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Jessica Mills
Professor Lewis
English 114B
11 May 2014
The Making of a Hero/ Heroine
In this modern time, people’s opinions and even the symbolism for heroic deeds have
changed dramatically. It is no longer that stereotypical knight in shining armor. Instead it would
be someone’s parents that sacrifice their lives and happiness to give their child every opportunity
to live a safe and successful life. Even with the time gap between the ideologies in the “Little
Red Cap” by the Grimm Brothers, “The Things Walt Disney Never Told Us” by Kay Stone, and
the movie Hoodwinked!; there is still a core belief about heroism. A hero or heroine is someone
that is admired because of actions that help an individual person, a group of people, or the whole
world. It is this belief that causes ordinary people strive to be heroes or to write about them.
Having such a strong theme imbedded in our livelihood, it leaves people wondering what makes
a person a hero. Are they born as heroes/ heroines like the Disney princesses or are they made?
The answer is that heroes and heroines are made from their internal and external challenges they
overcome in their life.
In the movie Hoodwinked! the audience is taken for a spin down a familiar story of the
“Little Red Cap” by the Grimm Brothers. Throughout the movie the famous phrase “Never judge
a book by its cover” is used to address the audience stereotypes that they have for men and
women. Consider the stereotypical view of the female gender; the women in the world are
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viewed as weak and feeble creatures. They are always are protected or saved by the strong and
dependable men. However, in the twisted story of Hoodwinked! the character Red and Granny
Pucket are the ones who saved the day and the whole forest, while the men seemed greedy or
stupefied. Red is not a shy and quiet as a typical little girl, she is a butt kicking girl who wishes
to travel the world and not be viewed as a stereotypical little girl. Her grandma does not fit her
stereotype of being a delicate grandmother, who happens to be goody owner. She competes in
extreme sports, such as cage fights, snowboarding, skateboarding, etc. She does things that make
people question if the sports she does are even legal because of the amount of danger involved.
Unlike the characters in Hoodwinked!, the theme for many older fairy tales and the
Disney princess movies the women needed a strong and courageous man to save them. In the
article “The Things Walt Disney Never Told Us” by Kay Stone, she states that in Disney movies
and numerous fairy tales the heroines were always pretty and helpless. Stones claims that the
characters in the Disney films or in fairy tales were born heroines, not made into ones:
“Heroes succeed because they act, not because they act, not because they are.
They are judged not by their appearance or inherent sweet nature, but by their
ability to overcome obstacles, even if these obstacles are defects in their own
characters. Heroines are not allowed any defects, nor are they required to develop,
since they are already perfect” (45).
In other words, women have to be angels that cannot do anything wrong. In this modern time
that ideology has become common misconception. Women have the right to be heroines because
they too have to overcome the same internal and external challenges that men do.
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The question becomes, can women become heroines? Or do they have to be born with the
traits and have luck on their side like the Disney princesses? In the movie Hoodwinked! the
audience is given the answer that women can be heroines regardless if they were born with the
traits or have luck. The reason is that everyone has challenges that have to face, Red had an
internal obstacle. She went through a Mirror Stage, which in short is a form an identity crisis. A
Mirror Stage is when someone realizes that they are an individual with their own opinion and
life, not something someone told them to be. Red was so used to being a deliver girl for the
Pucket’s family business, that in her mind that was who she was. However when her grandma
betrayed not only her but that image of being a Pucket she no long want anything to do with the
family name or business.
Red believed and relied on her Granny thinking she was truthful and never hide anything.
In the movie, Red remembers her Granny saying “Two things your grandma would never does,
is lie and play extreme sports.” It was because this lack of trust in her grandma that she took off
her red hood, the one thing that said she was a Pucket. Her value in being a Pucket was lost, the
red hood was just an ordinary hood. She could no longer see the meaning behind the hood and in
herself; who was she going to be or what was she going to be? Could she finally leave the forest
and not be held back? By the end of the movie Red realizes that is more to being a Pucket. Red
realizes that being Pucket meant being who ever Red wanted to be. When looking at Pucket wall
of pictures the audience sees that each one was different, but they all had last name and the
desire to make goodies.
In the fairy tale “Little Red Cap” by the Grimm Brothers there was no internal challenge
the character Little Red had to face; even the external challenge that was presented was not
overcome either. In order for Little Red to be a heroine she needed overcome the challenge that
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was presented. The story was more of a lesson, a scare tactic to keep foolish children in line
which works for the time period it was written in. In the tale there was no need or requirement
for a heroine, because the female characters were fitting the stereotypical profile of female
gender. The authors have Little Red endanger herself and her Grandma on purpose because she
failed to listen to her Mother's warning to stay on the path and to not talk to anyone. Ultimately
the lesson being presented makes sense because parents tell their children this all the time, but
just like children today who do not listen to their parents’ guidance Little Red listen to a wolf, a
complete stranger.
The wolf in “Little Red Cap” is good representation of an external challenge because he
symbolized deception at its finest hour. Like the character suggested, men prey on the weak and
helpless, aka women, who do not know better. Little Red was intrigued by the wolf and was
more willing to listen to his guidance. While she was picking flowers her poor grandma, who
could not defend herself, was eaten by the wolf. When Little Red was done doing what the wolf
suggested for her to do, she came and was eaten too. In the end a strong woods man came and
saved them because neither Little Red nor her grandma overcame the external challenge.
In the movie Granny Pucket overcomes her external challenge, stereotypes, to be the
strong and slightly crazy woman she was. Stereotypes are the best example of an external
obstacle that not only women have to overcome, but men too. Thanks to past ideologies in stories
like “Little Red Cap” grandmothers are viewed as weak, fragile, senile, and helpless. Granny
Pucket liked to live life to the extreme by doing crazy sports, even though it meant keeping Red
in the dark. By keeping her in the dark she was lying and hiding giant trophies and medals and
felt guilty about it every day. She had created her own internal obstacle, she divided herself in
two. One version was the sweet dependable grandma and the other extreme sports. She had an
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identity crisis; she did not know which to choose because both lives were important to her. At the
end she realized her granddaughter was the most important and her identity being a grandma
comes first then the extreme sports.
In a world that is slowly getting brighter for the heroes and heroines around the world,
people need more movies like Hoodwinked!, people need tales and articles to encourage them to
keep fighting their internal and external challenges. Especially women, because in this modern
time ideologies and beliefs have changed. Women are no longer expected to be at home or out of
sight, they are expected to be in the work force and making a living. Women are more
independent compared to past generations. This independence is what makes modern day women
heroines and not Disney princess. Women are overcoming there internal and external challenges
and reaching for the unknown.
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Works Cited
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. “Little Red Cap.” Surlalune Fairy Tales. Ed. Heidi Anne
Heiner. 28 June 2007. Web. 26 January 2014.
Hoodwinked! Dirs. Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards and Tony Leech. Perf. Anne Hathaway, Glenn
Close and James Belushi. The Weistein Company, 2005. DVD.
Stone, Kay. “Things Walt Disney Never Told Us.” The Journal Of American Foklore.88.347
(1975):42-50. Web. 26 January 2014.