Rants, Complaints, Observations and Other Things That Keep Me Awake

Correct me if I’m wrong to assume you have seen the classic movie, The Red Shoes,
frankly, I'd be surprised if you hadn't you’ve heard someone reference it.
A lot of artists that I really like seem to have been influenced by it at some point. The movie is about a Ballerina who falls in love and promises to give up dancing; however, she can’t quite give it up and at the end of the film, she puts on her (red) toe shoes and dances off a balcony in front of a train. We suffer for art just as we are possessed by it: well, you get the idea.
What I didn’t realize or possibly remember was that the idea for the movie came from a Hans Christian Andersen children’s story. You know how the originals of all the fairytales we know and love are far more gory than the watered down versions
we grew up with? The Red Shoes is no different.
To boil it down:
A poor little girl is taken in by a rich old lady. The old lady takes her to get a pair of shoes for her Confirmation and the old lady is so blind she doesn’t notice that the girl chooses a pair of shiny red leather shoes which the little girl wears to church, causing all kinds of scandal. When it gets back to the old lady she is forbidden to wear the Red Shoes again but of course the next Sunday she does. In a quirky twist, she is cursed on her way in to the church by a red-bearded soldier with a gimpy leg -Thereby showing us what Hans’ view (or at least the views of his time must have been) of redheads, soldiers and cripples- and when she comes out she begins to dance without ceasing, day and night until her feet are torn and bleeding. Finally when she can’t take it any longer, she seeks out the town executioner who hacks off her feet – shoes still attached – and carves her a pair of wooden feet and some crutches; but still, everywhere she goes, her amputated feet with the Red Shoes on them are dancing in front of her. (I mean, sorry: how macabre can you get?) Finally she essentially becomes a shut in, living with the local pastor and his wife and children until her sorrow at not being able to go to church and worship becomes so great, an angel comes… “...and her heart became so filled with peace and joy, that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunbeams to Heaven, and no one was there who asked after the Red Shoes.” Think about it for a minute: they used to read this stuff to kids? Kind of a 19th Century version of Scared Straight. When Kate Bush put it, “The shoes do/ that Voodoo/ they’re gonna make her dance/ till her legs fall off…” I thought it sounded grotesque; in hindsight, its quite a lot kinder than the real story! What is it about The Red Shoes that captivates so? How did what essentially amounts to Catholic propaganda to keep girls modest and kept in check enter the lexicon of both Pop Culture and Camp? These are the kind of things that keep me awake Dear Readers...