Red Riding Hood slapped with trigger warning for 'adult content' and 'themes of violence'
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Red Riding Hood slapped with trigger warning for 'adult content' and 'themes of violence'")
Children's story Little Red Riding Hood slapped with a warning.
Cambridge University added a warning to the famous children's story Little Red Riding Hood, stating it contained “adult content” and “themes of violence”. Humanities students were asked to take a critical look at childhood stories.
Cambridge University has slapped a woke warning next to the famous children's story Little Red Riding Hood. The Sun reported that during a webinar, students were told that a lecture on the history of bedtime stories contained “adult content” and “themes of violence”. The warning was issued by Clare College before a free online humanities course that was meant to prepare state sixth form pupils for university study.
In the course meant for A-level and GCSE students, Clare College asked students to critically analyse childhood stories. It urged students to read "beneath the surface" to understand the stories better. However, official notes carried a warning - “Content warning: Please note this session will involve discussion of some adult content including themes of violence, with reference to fairytales.”
Red Riding Hood has undergone several changes since it was first published in 1697. In the original fairytale, the wolf kills both the grandmother and Red Riding Hood. In the 19th century, the Brothers Grimm came out with a different version in which the wolf swallows both the girl and her grandmother whole, but a passing huntsman cuts open the sleeping wolf's belly and releases both of them alive. They then fill his stomach with stones, after which he drowns.
In 2011, Amanda Seyfried starred in a version of the story which was more frightening.
Commenting on the trigger warning, Lord Toby Young, of the Free Speech Union, said, “Putting trigger warnings on fairytales is infantilising, even for Cambridge.”
Past incidents of trigger warnings on literary works
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There have been several trigger warning incidents at the elite university in the past. In 2017, its English department put warnings on lectures about many classic texts. Any sessions which "could be deemed upsetting" carried the red danger icons. Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus was labelled as containing "discussion of sexual violence, sexual assault". In 2022, the Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning (CCTL) told staff to add a warning note to all books and plays featuring violence, discrimination and illness to prevent students from being distressed.
