Grimm & Once Upon A Time: Our Love of Storytelling

     When NBC announced it's premiere of Grimm, I thought it was a "hitch your wagon to a star" moment after ABC's Once Upon A Time became so successful. In reality, TV shows are chosen by some stations way before public opinion can be measured (Grimm was probably set to air after Once Upon A Time before the stats came out). Both shows have been successful: Once Upon A Time and Grimm are set to premiere their 3rd seasons. Yet I'm not going to analyze the shows too much, I'm going to analyze what makes them popular: Our love of story. Since Man discovered that He can create, He has been sitting around the camp fire entrancing everyone with epic tales of heroes slaying monsters and evil witches and princesses locked away by some curse. You can imagine that there wasn't much to do in the very old days since there was no TV or InTouch Magazine and dying young was an everyday reality. Storytelling was and still is a form of entertainment whatever the medium.

      The concept of Once Upon A Time is the Evil Queen (Regina) curses the kingdoms of the Enchanted Forest to come to our modern world where there are NO happy endings (pretty pessimistic). Yet Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter, Emma, escapes this curse and is the key to breaking the curse. Excellent writing and imaginative spins on the stories of our childhood (making them darker and more complex) giving them a more adult and relatable content. The characters have more layers and they make decisions with a deeper conscience yet sometimes they do so without thought of consequence. The Evil Queen didn't start out evil; she just had some mommy issues and lost her true love.

      Some mythologies have made it into the TV show Once Upon A Time. Such as: the story of King Midas (which is a Greek story about greed) and the Legend of King Arthur (Sir Lancelot makes a "cameo" appearance). The Little Mermaid is expected to make an appearance soon. Even stories from our favorite classic novels: Frankenstein, Peter Pan, and Alice in Wonderland (a tv series spin-off set to premiere with it's counterpart Once Upon A Time) all modern storytellers have weaved their way into the web of the ABC series.

      With Grimm, it's purely about the bloody, violent yet engaging tales of German folklore. Most of the Wesen species are classified by German words: Fuchsbau (Fuchs means fox), Löwe (German for lion), and Hexenbiest (Hexe is German for witch). The group known as The Royals, are the nameless kings, queens, princesses, and charming princes that in reality were not so benevolent and forgiving, but more wrathful and autocratic. The hunters of Wesen are known as Grimms who can see the Wesen in their true forms. The show's popularity can be attributed for creative darker spins on the old fairytales and excellent writing. The tagline: "Story time is over" was a perfect set up and described the show's concept perfectly. Nick Burkhardt is one of the few remaining Grimms but unlike his ancestors, Nick is not the type of guy who goes around chopping off the head of Wesen for any reason. This fact allows us to cheer for Nick like we would for any hero in a fairytale. Why? Because we like to hope that times can change and that we can become more civilized. Nick being a cop probably attributes to his sense of justice and only going after the guilty, giving people the benefit of the doubt.

     From the time we were children, we've been told the stories of Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. All of these, perhaps more than the Bible, have ignited our imagination of true love conquering all, a girl can go from rags to riches, the outcast can slay the monster and become the hero. These stories also tell us that if we're bad, then bad things will happen to us. And when we are good, then great things will happen to us. In Bill Maher's Religulous, he asked a Christian woman that if she had grown up with the Grimm Fairytales or stories by Hans Christian Anderson instead of the Bible, would she notice the difference. Of course the woman took offense to this valid question so I'll answer in an unbiased way (I was raised Roman Catholic): no; you wouldn't notice. The purpose of the Old Testament stories (which are just as bloody and full of rape and incest as the Grimm fairytales) as it is of the stories of our childhood, is to teach us lessons about life and how Karma can be a bitch.