Richards
Jacquelyn Richards
FRE 2991
Fairy Tales in Visual Media
In ABC’s series Once Upon a Time, fairy tales are brought to life on the screen. They may contain some of the main messages as the stories many children grow up with, but the show is also full of twists and reinterpretations of classic tales. One such twisted tale is that of Little Red Riding Hood. Brought to modern-day Maine as Ruby Lucas, this Little Red Riding Hood is nothing like the one in the tales told to children before bedtime. Sexy and strong-willed, Ruby Lucas is a good example of one of Once Upon a Time’s many attempts at empowering women. This essay will discuss how body shape and position, dress, and color in depictions of Ruby Lucas are used to reinforce and promote modern-day notions of female sexuality.
Of all the characters on Once Upon a Time, Ruby Lucas is easily the most sexualized. Far from the chubby, short, innocent little girl depicted in most storybook illustrations of Little Red Riding Hood, Ruby is the epitome of sexuality. She is very young and pretty, as well as tall, thin, and busty: basically the ideal look for a woman. The outfit she is wearing in the picture being analyzed shows off her flat stomach as well as her long legs. Also of note is her body position. In this screenshot of an episode, Ruby, working as a waitress in her grandmother’s diner, is speaking to a stranger in town, a traveling author. Having never been outside of town, Ruby leans in over the table to get more details from him about the places he has been. She continues to lean towards him as he speaks until her grandmother takes notice and tells her to “stop flirting.”
The body shape and position of Ruby Lucas in this picture greatly reflect Ruby’s sexuality. She is known for her flirting and promiscuous outfits, and is always leaning one way or another when talking to other characters, or leaning up against walls or objects, all of which are very suggestive. However, one may take note that the audience for Once Upon a Time is mainly female. If only women are watching the show, then why sexualize this character so heavily? It could be some sort of ploy to attract more male viewers, but since Ruby’s character slowly becomes less and less frequent in the show after the first season, this is probably not the case.
It is more likely that the show has transformed Little Red Riding Hood into Ruby as a symbol to empower women to embrace their sexuality. The original tale of Little Red Riding Hood warned girls and women against passion and sexual desire, but in today’s world women have all the sexual freedom they want. Ruby Lucas is headstrong, does what she wants, and dresses however she wants, and acts as a symbol that encourages women to do the same. This point is made perfectly clear in the story through the plot alone: In the traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood, the little girl is in fear of being devoured by the wolf, which represents sexual temptation. However, in Once Upon a time, Red Riding Hood is not threatened by a wolf, she is the wolf. Ruby Lucas is a werewolf. Since she is such a sexual character, one could say that Ruby’s inner wolf represents her inner sexuality. And just as she uses her wolf powers to her advantage in a fight, Ruby can use her sexuality as an advantage, and shows the perks of embracing one’s sexuality. Ruby’s encouragement of sexual expression is also proven by the analysis of her dress and the use of color for her character on the show.
Just as important as Ruby Lucas’s body shape and position is the way she is dressed. In the screenshot, she is wearing a revealing outfit, which is typical for her. She sports a partially unbuttoned white work shirt which she has tied up to reveal her stomach, very short red shorts, and high heels. As usual, she wears her hair long with red streaks in it, and a great deal of eye makeup, which she pairs with red lipstick. This outfit is of course meant to put emphasis on her body (shorts and a belly-shirt) as well as identify her as a sexual being that isn’t afraid to wear what she wants in order to attract male attention, which she does quite frequently on the show.
Ruby’s choice of apparel also functions as a means to rebel against traditional societal views about the way that women should dress and behave. She and her grandmother, who obviously has more traditional values, always seem to be at odds over something, and clothing is one of those things. At times, after arguments with her grandmother, Ruby will show up to work wearing more revealing clothes than usual, just for the sake of rebellion. Ruby’s showing of skin in the photo given and any other photos are prime examples of her departure from traditional notions of how women should dress and into the here and now, where clothes that reveal skin are perfectly acceptable, and even mainstream. In older days, women had to “respect themselves” by covering up, but today’s society glorifies in women being comfortable in their own skin, and Ruby is the embodiment of this.
Finally, the third and extremely important in proving that Ruby Lucas reinforces modern-day female sexuality is the use of color on her character. In the picture studied, Ruby wears a white shirt. Since Ruby’s character works in the diner, she is often seen wearing variations of this outfit: the tied up white button-down blouse, sometimes paired with a short white skirt and apron. Typically, white is used in images to represent innocence. However, in this case, though the shirt is white, the fact that it reveals her stomach and is paired with the other pieces of her suggestive outfit does not suggest that Ruby is an innocent person. Rather, the white is almost being used with a sense of irony: to emphasize that Ruby is far from innocent. The white shirt creates contrast with her flirtatious and sexual nature in order to emphasize it. Not only does the white of Ruby’s shirt create contrast with her personality, but it is also meant to contrast with and emphasize the most important color of Ruby’s palette: red.
Clearly, red is the single most important symbol in the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The story aims to warn girls about sexual temptation and in so doing uses red, the color of passion, on the cloak of the main character, an innocent little girl. On Once Upon a Time, the color red is used on a grown woman to emphasize her sexual qualities. There is never a moment in the show where Ruby is not seen wearing a good quantity of red, and in the photo studied she wears an abundance. She wears red streaks in her hair, red eye shadow, red lipstick, red shorts, an apron with red lining, and even a red ring. Since red is the symbol of passion and sex, it makes perfect sense then that the most sexualized character would be wearing nothing but red. Even Ruby’s name is a synonym for red, insinuating how sexual a character she is. And again, since this is a show not created for men, this sexualization can only mean to encourage women that sexuality is a good thing.
All in all, Ruby Lucas stands as a reinforcement of today’s views on women’s sexuality: that women should embrace their sexuality by doing and wearing whatever they want. Women can express themselves freely, both sexually and through dress and behavior. Ruby’s body shape, apparel, and the use of color on her character exemplify these modern societal notions of female sexuality. By providing an excellent example of female freedom, Ruby Lucas encourages all of us to embrace our inner wolf.
Screenshot from ABC’s Once Upon a Time, Season 1, Episode 15 “Red-Handed”