Actress Kara Tointon's 'woke' story-telling app censors 'inappropriate' fairytales including children's classic Cinderella
3 February 2023, 16:01 | Updated: 3 February 2023, 16:03
Actress Kara Tointon has released a new woke storytelling app that censors 'inappropriate' fairytales, adapting classic fables in an attempt to abolish 'old-fashioned stereotypes'.
Developed during lockdown alongside three friends, the mother-of-two and Strictly Come Dancing winner's app also allows users to re-record the tales using their own voice.
In one of the adapted stories, Cinderella can be seen to scold the prince for his quick proposal, while Sleeping Beauty doesn't feature the traditional kiss that wakes her from her slumber.
A collaboration with Durham University's Professor of Anthropology, Jamie Tehrani, the Tell app grants users access to 80 classic tales, including The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, The Emperor's New Clothes, and Cinderella.
The latest altered classic sees the Brothers Grimm fairytale The Frog Princess renamed The Frog, altered so the Princess ends up as a frog rather than the Prince.
Even acclaimed author Hans Christian Andersen has undergone a scrupulous edit, with The Princess and the Pea - a fable about a prince trying to find a royal bride by testing her sensitivity to a pea below mattresses - facing modernisation.
The app coincides with the results of a survey by lighting company Twinkly, which reveals more than 40 per cent of Generation Z - those born from 1997 to 2012 - think traditional fables are 'inappropriate'.
While 89 per cent of those surveyed also believed they perpetuated 'old-fashioned stereotypes'.
With some fairytales including Beauty & the Beast and Jack & the Beanstalk dating back more than 4,000 years, the app believes modernisation is key.
Tell co-founder Marius Jensen, Kara's ex fiancé, adds: 'My mission is to change the face of storytelling.
"Stories were traditionally passed down from generation to generation, passing on wisdom and entertainment."
However, Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union, said: "I remember reading fairytales to my children and being annoyed that the father figures, whether in Snow White or Cinderella, are always deadbeats.
"But I wasn't so arrogant as to rewrite them. I knew these stories contained a deeper wisdom that was passed on from one generation to the next and had withstood the test of time."
Tell hands out free books every month, alongside adapted tales, and is available to download free from the Apple App Store and Google Play.
