You remember Goldilocks. Not the pubescent blonde who hopped from bed to bed because she wanted it “just right.” That would be too hot. And not the tiresome towhead who tediously touted tepidness. Sorry, that was cold.
I’m talking about a small-town girl whose story psychologist Bruno Bettelheim described as, “a struggle to move past Oedipal issues and confront adolescent identity problems,” whereupon fellow psychologist Alan Elms chimed in that Bettelheim, “may have missed the anal aspect of the tale that would make it helpful to the child’s personality development.”
Harvard professor Maria Tatar chided Bettelheim as well: “While the story may not solve oedipal issues or sibling rivalry as Bettelheim believes ‘Cinderella’ does, it suggests the importance of respecting property and the consequences of just ‘trying out’ things that do not belong to you.”
Are these people kidding? No wonder Goldilocks fled into the woods. (I’m surprised Cinderella didn’t join her.).
