Author: Mark Bolton. Subbing: Deepseek. Illustrations: Fotor.
Dear Carolynn
A few weeks into my first year of school, it became painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that if the education system needed a living, breathing example of the “Perfect School Dunce,” I’d have been a top contender. Not quite the gold medalist, mind you, but definitely in the running for a silver or bronze. The education system and I didn’t exactly click. It was more of a reluctant truce—like teammates who tolerate each other for the sake of the team.
School felt like a brainwashing machine. “Repeat after me. Don’t question. Just… absorb.” Very little about it inspired me. It was also too bland, there was no imagery or storytelling.
But now entering the final quarter on this planet, I look back on those days with pride Why? Because I’m relieved I didn’t fully absorb the system’s programming. Was I too smart to fall for it? Nah. I was just too clueless to understand what it even wanted from me.
Gratefully, I came out of that system an uncarved block, and I developed critical thinking. It just took life experience to enhance that critical thinking to unchain myself from other systemic carved blocks, as you will read below, Carolynn.
What I did learn throughout my school days, though, came from my peers. In particular those early interactions—forced together in a melting pot of innocence; personalities, cultures, and genders—were my real education. We were all strangers, shoved into the same room and told to “get along.” And somehow, we did. But they also helped foster my self-esteem issues that were already implanted from a very early age.
Being born late in the year meant most of my classmates were older than me. The boys? Fine. The girls? I struggled with it so much. They were taller, smarter, and—worst of all—more mature. I felt inferior to the girls, and I didn’t like it one bit. Before you get annoyed with me, Carolynn, I will explain why.
The Kreisler In The Corner
TV. Oh, TV. My childhood heroes were all cut from the same cloth: brave, selfless, and always saving the damsel in distress. Thunderbirds, Zorro, the Lone Ranger—they were out there rescuing these poor helpless women with their sprained ankles while I was dreaming of being a real life hero. I’d create scenarios in my head where these girls would be gathering around me and thanking me for saving their lives.
Let’s not forget Superman (1950’s TV series) always pulling a young Lois Lane out of the mess she got herself into. Lois was a young female newspaper reporter for The Daily Planet fighting for recognition in the 1950’s ‘mans world’ taking risks to win that coveted front page scoop. Worse still, Superman had to save The Daily Planet’s cadet photographer, Jimmy Olsen, from the mess Lois dragged him into, and Jimmy never protected her from herself. He annoyed me. Not because he didn’t stand up to Lois, but because he was a guy who needed saving. That didn’t fit my narrative. Heroes saved girls, and girls were saved by men. That’s how it worked. (NOTE: I was watching repeats. I’m not that old).
By the time puberty hit, my hero complex had morphed into something… problematic. I thought the only way to be loved was to save someone. So, I went looking for damsels in distress. Spoiler alert: It didn’t work. What I got was a long list of girls who saw me as their “reliable best friend” to talk to about how badly they were being teated by the guys they liked. Even Col Hogan (Hogan’s Heroes) was getting laid by women every week, and he was in a WW2 German prison camp. Not exactly the idolisation I was going for. Worse still, I wasn’t genuine, because I was wanting something in return.
These days, that hero instinct is still there, but it’s evolved. I want to be there for the people I love—not to be idolised, but because I care, and if I’m needed, it’s unconditional.
The question I asked myself after you died, Carolynn, with all of my desires to be a hero, why couldn’t I save you from the villains?
I concluded that the answer is the damsel in distress needs a hero, and a hero needs a damsel in distress. But it’s all crap, I could’t save you because I didn’t have the solutions. Nobody did other than you. As hard as it was, and still is today, you are the hero. Nobody could tell you what to do or not do.
Anyway, leaving that aside, I grew up in a fabricated and mind manipulating world—one that also held a hint of Cold War subliminal messaging in innocent TV shows. Good USA; bad Soviets. It was then, as it is now so deeply entrenched in our everyday world, and we so willingly allow propaganda and myth into our psyche.
But first I had to have been softened up when I was a very little child. Was it Snow White? Sleeping Beauty? Or was it Cinderella? The typical, “And they lived happily ever after” stories we saw at the cinema in that full and rich Disney colour. The story, the effects and the colour…those visuals with the tales penetrating our brains.
That’s my story though. What about the affect this had on vulnerable females of my generation? Disempowered young girls believing that they needed a hero to make their lives safe and happy ever after.
Happily ever after? Maybe. But the real story of a loving relationship is supporting each other through the messiness along the way. However, more often than not, tragedy is the end of the fairytale in far too many cases.
So, with my healthy dose of cynicism and a lifetime of hearing, seeing and reading about these tragedies, I decided, stuff this, so I wrote a sequel to Cinderella. With a historical twist here and there to lighten the heaviness, I wanted to explore some of the tragic realities of believing too much that fairytales are real life. Sadly, although slightly fictionalised, it is based on a true story.
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