Once Upon a Time -- The Series

When the television series "Once Upon a Time," began on ABC earlier this year, I resisted watching it. One of my students heartily recommended it, but I have always been a bit of a purist about fairy tales.  I like the early collections where the tales were not sanitized by the Disney notion that everything has a "happily ever after ending."  Not that I don't like happily-ever-after endings; in fact, I do.  But like fairy and folktale scholar Jack Zipes, I wish that Disney was less consumer-oriented, less determined to make the blue birds in Snow White so damned cute and the mice in Cinderella such expert dressmakers.  I do not reject the idea of a fairy godmother, shape shifters, evil personified by an old witchy-y crone.  I see those people every day (metaphorically).

I don't know exactly WHY I watched "Once Upon a Time" the first time, but once I did, I have found myself intrigued by the notion that we are actually living out scripts or lives that have been created for us.  This is not a new concept for me, and oddly enough, this notion does not conflict with my belief that God has a plan for my life and that if I am to live according to His plan, I have to be open to his direction -- this has been a bit of a problem most of my life because I tend to plunge headlong into things without listening for God's direction.  Sometimes that works out for me; other times, not so much.

"Once Upon a Time" is a bit cheesy, but it does have at its root a similar theme.  We are all destined to fill our 24 hours with something.  What we fill it with is up to us. Are we truly free agents, able to make decisions and choices that lead to our best lives and best selves, or are we destined to walk a particular path that may be fraught with pain and suffering and loss?  How will making our own choices affect our life's walk?  

I like the connections between the "old" stories and the new lives that the fairytale characters find themselves living after a kind of storybook apocalypse.  It affirms my belief that history is intimately connected to the present and the future. 

I don't recommend this series unless you are familiar with and love the traditional fairytales; otherwise, it will seem silly, adolescent, and shallow.  If, however, you share the terror of Hansel and Gretel when you hear their story of abandonment; if you share the hope of Cinderella that someday her prince will come; if you believe that Jack can beat the giant and recover his family's treasures; if you understand why the Little Mermaid is willing to give up her immortality for love, then you'll 'get' the series.