Searching for the o.g. "Little Red Riding Hood"

Discovering an alternative to the patronizing morality of "Little Red Riding Hood" as told by Perrault and the Brothers Grimm

Hello friends! This is Delilah writing on behalf of me and Hunter. We are so grateful to those who have become paid subscribers to support our work with LORE. We not only revive the wisdom of folktales for a new generation; we pay more than a dozen up-and-coming artists per event (all of us queer, trans, and/or POC). Your contributions to this Substack help us pay for marketing, documentation, studio time, and other services essential to sustaining our events and getting those artists paid, as we continue to work toward the institutional funding and commercial success that will carry LORE well into the future. :)

Now for the fun part. Let’s talk about some of the inspiration fueling our next show-party, “little red riding hood” (which is tomorrow, 2/22, at Hex House in Brooklyn!). With each tale we tell, Hunter and I reach toward what we call the “Ur” version; that is, the original or earliest. You might also think of it as the “o.g.” We do this because these ancient stories—which were typically shared aloud, in families and communities, and passed on through oral tradition—were often stripped down, whitewashed, and Christianized when they were written down by authors like Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.

We want to reunite these tales with the wisdom of ancestors who lived before Christianity and whiteness. That’s why we got so excited when Hunter read The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood by Jack Zipes.