Author Sarah A. Hoyt was kind enough to let me guest post on her blog, According to Hoyt. You can read the piece here. Thanks, Sarah.
A friend forwarded this YouTube video to me. The idea is, “How would Shakespeare have told the story of the Three Little Pigs.”
I don’t love it, frankly, because I don’t think the comedian uses the words as well as he might, and this is the kind of thing you’ve got to absolutely nail (at least for my taste).
But I got to wondering, how do they tell the story of the Three Little Pigs nowadays? Surely its traditional lesson—that you ought to take trouble to construct strong defenses, to protect yourself from enemies—is unacceptable in today’s educational environment. I imagine the contemporary version would go something like this.
There were three little pigs whose mother sent them out to make their fortunes in the world. When they’d come to a new part of the forest, they decided to build themselves houses. The first little pig built his house out of straw. The second pig built his house out of sticks. But the third pig built his house out of bricks.
One day the first little pig was in his house when the big bad wolf came to the door.
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in!” said the wolf.
“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!” the pig replied.
“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down!” said the wolf.
And he huffed and he puffed, and he blew the house of straw down. And the first little pig ran to the second little pig’s house.
The wolf followed him there, and he stood outside the door and cried, “Little pig, little pig, let me come in!”
“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!” the second pig replied.
“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down!” said the wolf.
And he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew the house of sticks down. And both the little pigs ran to the third little pig’s house.
The wolf followed them there, and he stood outside the door and cried, “Little pig, little pig, let me come in!”
“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!” the third pig replied.
“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down!” said the wolf.
And he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew, but he could not blow down the brick house.
Then the wolf went to the government, and lodged a complaint against the third little pig. “This pig has built a house on lands traditionally belonging to the wolves,” he complained. “And he did it without filing an environmental impact statement. Also, his very presence here is an insult to wolf culture, and makes our cubs cry.”
And the government came and bulldozed the house, and the wolf ate the three little pigs.
A nonprofit organization sued the wolf on behalf of the pigs’ heirs, but the plaintiffs were found by the court to have no standing.
Did you hear the parable of the intellectually different man who built his house on sand, in a floodplain, and the traditionally intellectual man who built his house on a rock?
The intellectually different man got the army corp of engineers to build levees so his house won’t be flooded. Unfortunately, that was expensive and required taxes to be raised. The other guy, who was already paying a huge mortgage, couldn’t withstand the mortgage and the higher taxes, so he lost his house.
Very good. Very good.
Actually, the wolf would probably use his influence with local officials to declare the neighborhood where all three pigs built their houses as “underdeveloped,” force them out using eminent domain, and build luxury condos while snacking on ribs. 😉
Seriously, though. We have a “treasury of classic children’s tales” and in ours, the first two little pigs don’t escape to the third pig’s house, they get eaten. The end is the third pig visiting his mother, and they feel glad that one survived. Yikes!
I was actually going to tell the story that way, but I figured it would add an unnecessary level of complexity, since most people nowadays are only familiar with the softened version.