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Hero’s journey, Little Red Riding Hood and the movie Freeway (1997) - academic article summary.

posted 10 months ago by Boromir (9712)
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Nouri, Y. (2017). On damsels and heroines: A comparative study of the hero’s journey in Little Red Riding Hood and Freeway.

Purpose of this paper: study, compare and contrast the concept of Hero's Journey in the tale of Little Red Riding Hood and the movie Freeway. The paper only focuses on Departure (Separation), and Initiation phases.

In the Departure phase, the stages are:
1) the Call to Adventure;
2) Crossing the First Threshold;
3) Belly of the Whale.

In the Initiation phase:
1) the Road of Trials;
2) the Ultimate Boon.

intro:The hero myths of many cultures follow the same basic pattern of separation, initiation and return. These 3 steps represent the process of self-discovery which is at the center of the Hero Journey. In essence the Hero's Journey is a story of transformation, which typically includes the symbolic death and rebirth of the hero. The story begins with normal people leading their normal lives, but something happens that disrupts the status quo. They set off to find a solution, and they face many tests and challenges along their path. At the end of the tale, they return home with some newfound wisdom or power.

1. The Call to Adventure. It is when destiny calls the hero to leave "the ordinary, mundane world" to enter "a Special World, new and alien".

Freeway (1997): Her call to adventure is made when both her parents are arrested. Vanessa wants to go live with a grandmother she has never met, who lives north of Vanessa in Stockton. Vanessa’s social worker does not see any other option but foster care, so, Vanessa chains the woman to a bed, gathers a few items in a basket and escapes to begin her journey towards her grandmother's house.

2. Crossing the First Threshold: threshold must be crossed in order for the hero to enter onto the path that destiny has determined.

Freeway (1997): To reach her grandmother's house Vanessa must make her way along the freeway. Entering the freeway marks her crossing the threshold, where she must face danger and challenges. The freeway for Vanessa in her journey has the same significance as the wood for Little Red Riding Hood.

3. The belly of the whale is an allegory for the unfamiliar dimension the hero enters after crossing the first threshold. The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero's known world and self

While searching for flowers, she goes deeper and deeper into the wood, thus entering the heart of the forest. The forest represents the belly of the whale.

Freeway (1997): Vanessa's forest is the freeway. The freeway (belly of the whale) is the dark and dangerous world where the freeway killer roams, in which she must survive. The freeway is Vanessa's way to transformation. Nothing would be the same for her from the moment she drives her car through it to begin her journey

Initiation.
a. Road of Trials: After entering the belly of the whale "the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials". The hero must undergo these tasks or ordeals to begin the transformation.

Little Red Riding Hood meets two challenges on the way to her grandmother's house. The first one is when she meets the wolf for the first time. The second challenge happens when she meets the wolf at her grandmother’s house. She fails to recognize the wolf in disguise and gets eaten by the wolf.

Freeway (1997): Vanessa's first challenge happens when her car breaks down. Bob (the wolf) who is driving stops to help. He offers her a ride, which she accepts. He attack her, she shoots him in the neck and leaves him for dead, finishing her first challenge successfully. Her second trial happens when she is making her way to a truck stop diner, covered in blood. She's arrested as she leaves. We see her entering the juvenile detention facility. By escaping the prison she completes this part of her quest successfully as well.

b. The Ultimate Boon is what the hero set out to find. It is the achievement of the search or the quest's goal, and "the adventure is here accomplished [which] signifies that the hero is a superior man". All the previous steps serve to prepare and purify the person for this step. The ultimate boon is the reason why the hero faced all the obstacles along the path. These obstacles prepared and purified him for the culmination of the journey. The achievement of the boon is the realization of the hero; it is when he acquires a deeper and more accurate view of life and himself.

Little Red meets two challenges which she fails to overcome. Little Red Riding Hood would have achieved the ultimate boon if she had defeated the wolf by her own cunning. But it is the huntsman who kills the wolf and rescues the grandmother and Red.

Vanessa clearly dominates within this story as she initially shoots Bob, manages to escape prison, and in their final encounter strangles him until he is dead.

Conclusions in the post below ⬇️

[–] Boromir (9712) 10 months ago

Conclusions:

In Grimms' fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood is inexperienced, naive and suggestible. She is unaware of the animal's devious nature and plays right into the wolf's hands.

According to many critics, Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood was rewritten based on the values of patriarchal system and its decree. It stands up for the feminine obedience and sets off an idea as regards to the assumed characteristics of women. In this version, the girl needs a man, namely a fatherly hunter, to rescue her from the big bad wolf.

On the other hand, in the oral tale LRRH is the complete master of her destiny. She manages to escape from the animal's clutches. She is a cunning and mature little girl capable of turning the tables on the wolf.

However, since the beginning of the 20th century different subversive strategies, which echo these postmodernist characteristics, have been used to distort traditional, strongly patriarchal fairy tales. Many "modern adaptations of the tale usually have Red Riding Hood fighting back against the image of helplessness and sexual naiveté.

In this regard, Bright's Freeway can be seen as a critique of Little Red Riding Hood in which the nature of sexuality and gender stereotypes have been questioned and debated in most innovative ways. In this LRRH, the wolf makes one huge mistake: he picks a girl who certainly does not need a woodcutter to do her butt-kicking for her.

Vanessa manages to accomplish her hero's journey, something which Little Red Riding Hood fails to do thanks to how she was divested of her will by the Grimm Brothers. Unlike Vanessa, LRRH is not a changed person at the end of the tale. Vanessa is similar to the original oral tale heroines. She is resourceful and has a strong will. What Grimms snatched from LRRH, Vanessa brings it forth with all her power and by killing the wolf achieves the ultimate boon and completes her journey successfully, a journey which she was destined from start to win.