I beg to disagree on the fairy tales. If not Disney you speakith of, they are actually very powerful and not even child friendly. There is more ancient wisdom hidden in those tales than anyone realizes.

If Disney...again, same thing. Walt was a follower of the Knight's Templar, and his early tales are filled with more pagan symbology than ou can shake a stick at. I must also say (as an example of basterdized and gutted Disney films by critics), the Cinderella thing is waaaay out of hand. I recall being entranced by that as a child, and the lesson I brought from it was when little miss was sobbing in the garden, everything has gone wrong, and there's no way ever it could work out now. And then her fairy godmother appears, and says she is there because, even then, little miss never gave up hope. And it blew my eight year old mind, that someone could still hope, still have faith even when the world collapsed around them. The later to-do about the "passive female" bit--never noticed it as a kid. I wasnt trained to look for it, so that bit went right over my head.

We think we kow what kids see, but we dont. We thihk we know what we're feeding them, but we dont. Tales we dissect, look down our noses at, and relegate to the back wall of the nursery are the original tales of wonder, power, gods, faith, honor, and other things that originally made this world spin. And when we dont sacharine them to sugar sweetness, we continue to feel the impact, even when we dont know why anymore.

Heh. Done my own bit of research on children's tales, though mostly from a religious bent. For the record, being raised on the Illiad and the Oddessy never hurt me. (Much.)