“All the better to eat with you”

One of my favorite versions I found online was “All the better to eat with you”. (Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czBCtTLeGUQ&feature=related). This animated version starts with the wolf’s mother telling him to get some food. Walking through the wood he meets Little Red Riding Hood, but it’s her starting to talk to him by telling him to get out of the way. She talks in a French accent and has short hair. Trying to involve her into a conversation, he start talking to her but even though it was her who initiated the conversation, she replies by telling him that she does not talk to animals - and simply walks away. In the next scene we see her walking through the forest and hearing a desperate voice: it’s the wolf ripping off the leaves of a flower piece by piece and playing she loves me, she doesn’t love me. Seeing her, he asks her if she wants to help him collecting flowers for his grandmother. She replies with a contemptuous “flowers?” and starts walking away again but this time he trips her up, catches her in midair and threatens her with a wide open mouth. But her reaction is not fear but a long kiss. She tells him that she always had a special relationship to wolves and that she will see him tomorrow. In the next scene, the grandmother of Little Red Riding Hood calls her but the wolf eats the grandmother during Little Red Riding Hood is still on the phone. Even though she knows that the wolf is at her grandmother’s house, Little Red Riding Hood still goes there and finds the wolf lying in bed with her grandmother’s cloths on. In this version it is the wolf who starts asking little Red Riding Hood asking questions and her answering in a very dominant manner. The third thing he tells her is: “What a tiny little mouth you have”. She replies with the movie’s title: “All the better to eat you with” and gets out her silverware. The version ends with the whole movie having been a theater scene with an audience consisting of only women dressed in red hoods like Little Red Riding Hood, clapping and cheering loudly for the performance.

This version obviously is about feminism and emancipation. Little Red Riding Hood is the strong character in it. This starts with her appearance. She has short hair like a man and her French accent reflects the strong, independent woman from France. But also her behavior clearly depicts feminism: she clearly dominates the male wolf, rejects him several times and is not concerned with things like romanticism. When she says that “she always had a special relationship with wolfs” she clearly talks about sex. In French “voir le loup” (translated: “see the wolf”) means having sex, often even for the first time. (It probably derives from a wolf having a tail, which in French can mean both: literally a tail but also a penis). Thus, talking about a special relationship to wolfs, it is Little Red Riding Hood who takes the stereotypical role of the male by not being romantic but just being concerned with sex. The wolf on the other hand is clearly feminized: he cares about things like romanticism and is not able to dominate her but is instead dominated by her. This can also be seen in the last scene. Even though Little Red Riding Hood does know that the wolf is dangerous and killed her grandmother, she still goes to face him. In this scene we do have a shift from the traditional Little Red Riding Hood where the girl asks the wolf and the wolf replies. It is him asking her questions. During the conversation, the audience even gets the impression that the wolf is scared of her and not Little Red Riding Hood of him. The scene reaches its peak when she tells him that she will eat him. The following clapping and cheering of the female audience only further underlined the feminist approach in this version of Little Red Riding Hood.