Being Human may refer to:

• Being Human (film), 1994 film starring Robin Williams
• Being Human (album), 1999 album by Michael Peterson
• Being Human (documentary), 2005 film by Denys Desjardins
• Being Human (TV series), a BBC Three horror-drama series
  • Being Human (North American TV series), a North American remake of the BBC series

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Michael Socha (born 13 December, 1987) is an English actor, best known for his roles in the critically acclaimed films This Is England and Summer,^[2] and the television series This Is England '86 and Being Human.^[3]

Early life[link]

Socha was born in Derby, England, to Robert and Kathleen Socha (nicknamed "Kath") on 13 December 1987.^[4] He is the older brother of actress Lauren Socha, star of the Channel 4 comedy-drama Misfits. Michael was raised in the town of Littleover,^[2] and attended St Benedict Catholic School.^[4] Socha was a rebellious pupil, and in his own words "a little shit".^[2] He often skipped school, but when forced to attend he tried to make it fun by doing the things he was most interested in.^[5] At the age of 11 Michael unsuccessfully auditioned for the lead role in a school musical play.^[6] When Michael was 12, his mother read in a local newspaper about a play being cast by the Chellaston Youth Players. She asked her son and daughter if they wanted to try out for it, and both did.^[7] Michael's motivation for auditioning was his anger at being denied a role in the musical and his desire to prove his teachers wrong about his acting skills.^[2] He won the lead role of Bugsy Malone in the play.^[6][8] He acted in several plays for the group, but by his own admission did not take acting very seriously.^[8]

Through teachers at Michael's school the family learned about film director Ian Smith's Central Television Junior Workshop,^[6] a free actors' workshop for young people from the Nottingham area.^[4] He enrolled in the course when he was 14,^[2] but was almost refused admission as he had failed to learn the monologue for his audition and was put in the "reserve group". His second audition went the same way, but the programme relented and allowed him in after a time.^[2] Michael says the workshop had a strong impact on him, and he began working hard at acting.^[8] His first professional role came when he was cast in a small part in a short film.^[2] He was quickly cast in several small parts subsequently, and hired an agent.^[8]

Socha's father had a long history of alcohol abuse, and his parents separated.^[2] In 2004, Robert Socha died of an alcohol-related heart attack.^[2][4] According to Kath Socha (a residential social worker),^[2] the death of Michael's father made her son very independent. "Michael was walking the streets of London at 16 going to auditions. He had to because I was working. He'd go off with a map and Tube fare."^[4]

Michael Socha liked drama, English and history courses, however, and received his GCSEs in those three subjects.^[2] He credits his teacher, Mrs Urquhart-Hughes, as someone who watched over him, motivated him, and got him to do his homework after school.^[5]

His first job after leaving school was in a manufacturing factory.^[5] He disliked it and quit, and enrolled at Burton College, a further education school.^[9] He worked at two other factories after leaving school, as well as at a car wash. He also worked as a labourer for his uncle's bricklaying firm, mixing mortar for the bricklayers. But as he was constantly taking off work at the last moment to attend auditions he quit working full time and dedicated himself to acting.^[5]

Career[link]

Socha's breakthrough role came early in his acting career. In 2006, he was cast as the bully Harvey in Shane Meadows's skinhead subculture film, This Is England.^[8]

In 2008, he was cast in Kenneth Glenaan's BAFTA Scotland-award winng film Summer, where he acted opposite Robert Carlyle.^[8] The same year, he appeared in Duane Hopkins's film Better Things and the independent small-budget comedy Dogging: A Love Story.^[8] He also appeared in three episodes of the BBC One medical drama Casualty.^[8] In February 2009, Socha made his stage debut at Nottingham Playhouse in Glamour, a comedy by Stephen Lowe.^[2][8] The same year, he appeared in an episode of the science fiction police drama Paradox on BBC One and in the made-for-television film The Unloved for Channel Four.^[10]

Despite his initial success, Socha was "penniless" and "waiting for work" for much of 2009 and early 2010, sitting at home and watching daytime television.^[3] His next big break came when Shane Meadows asked him to reprise the role of Harvey the bully for a four-part television series for Channel Four.^[3] The series, This Is England '86, follows the lives of the film's characters three years after the events originally depicted. It aired in September 2010. That same year, Socha appeared in an episode of the hit television comedy Married Single Other^[3] as well as the film Bonded by Blood.^[10] He also appeared in the This Is England Christmas special, and in a music video with American soul music singer Lauren Pritchard.^[10]

Socha appeared in BBC Three's hit supernatural series Being Human in 2011, receiving good critical notice as the innocent young werewolf Tom McNair.^[7] He almost did not appear on the show. He missed his audition after a taxicab hit him and fled the scene while he was helping a friend move furniture across a road in Normanton. Although only bruised, he missed his audition and had to plead for a second chance.^[10] He won the role of Tom, a young werewolf who has been brought up in the wild by his father and taught to hunt vampires. During the transformation scenes, Socha was asked to appear nude. Socha's friends worried about how they themselves would react to doing nude scenes, but Socha says, "I just thought 'fuck it, I’ll do it'". He discussed the scenes with co-star Russell Tovey, who convinced him to do the scenes nude. Socha says that after about 30 minutes he relaxed and began to enjoy the filming.^[5] During his time on Being Human, Socha says he became good friends with Tovey and co-star Robson Green. Socha has admitted that he can get carried away while performing some of his more physically demanding scenes (such as running naked through the woods). On another occasion, acting out a werewolf transformation in a metal cage, he almost injured himself after his physical acting became too extreme. He has received at least seven minor injuries requiring medical treatment and reporting to authorities.^[10]

Socha was upgraded from a recurring role to the main cast for the fourth series of Being Human, after the previous main cast, including Russell Tovey, left the show. The fourth series started airing in February 2012.^[11]

Personal life[link]

As of October 2010, Socha had a girlfriend, Faye, whom he had dated for more than five years.^[6]

Socha says he likes to spend his spare time going out or relaxing at home doing nothing. He has a fondness for French cinema (although he speaks no French) and for reality television shows like Big Brother.^[6] His favourite football team is Derby County^[10]

He told the publication Gay Times that he struggles with being a well-known actor. "It’s hard trying to find that balance between being who I am in Derby with the people I’m with in Derby, and then being Michael the actor, and it’s quite hard finding that balance. That’s what I always struggled with at school. I’m still gonna be Michael who’s Michael, it’s just I do a bit of acting, and some of the lads take the piss, but then after a year or so it’s just who I was and if they didn’t like it they could fuck off."^[5]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Michael Socha at the Internet Movie Database

A depiction by Gustave Doré.

	"Little Red Riding Hood" The version found in The Book of Fables and Folk Stories by Horace E. Scudder.
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Little Red Riding Hood, also known as Little Red Cap, is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. The story has been changed considerably in its history and subject to numerous modern adaptations and readings. The story was first published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697.^[1]

This story is number 333 in the Aarne-Thompson classification system for folktales.^[2]

Tale[link]

Little Red Riding Hood, illustrated in a 1927 story anthology

The story revolves around a girl called Little Red Riding Hood, after the red hooded cape/cloak (in Perrault's fairytale) or simple cap (in the Grimms' fairytale) she wears. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sick grandmother.

A wolf wants to eat the girl but is afraid to do so in public. He approaches Little Red Riding Hood and she naïvely tells him where she is going. He suggests the girl pick some flowers, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole,(In some stories, he locks her in the closet), and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandma.

When the girl arrives, she notices that her grandmother looks very strange. Little Red Riding Hood then says, "What a deep voice you have,""The better to greet you with," said the wolf."Goodness, what big eyes you have.", said the little girl."The better to see you with.", said the wolf. "And what big hands you have!" exclaimed Little Red Riding Hood, stepping over to the bed. "The better to hug you with," said the wolf. "What a big mouth you have," the little girl murmured in a weak voice. "The better to eat you with!" growled the wolf, and jumping out of bed, he swallowed her up too. Then, with a fat full tummy, he fell fast asleep.

A lumberjack, however, comes to the rescue and with his axe cuts open the wolf, who had fallen asleep. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They fill the wolf's body with heavy stones. The wolf awakens and tries to flee, but the stones cause him to collapse and die. (Sanitized versions of the story have the grandmother shut in the closet instead of eaten, and some have Little Red Riding Hood saved by the lumberjack as the wolf advances on her, rather than after she is eaten.)^{[citation needed]}

The tale makes the clearest contrast between the safe world of the village and the dangers of the forest, conventional antitheses that are essentially medieval, though no written versions are as old as that.

Relationship to other tales[link]

The theme of the ravening wolf and of the creature released unharmed from its belly is also reflected in the Russian tale Peter and the Wolf, and the other Grimm tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, but its general theme of restoration is at least as old as Jonah and the Whale. The theme also appears in the story of the life of Saint Margaret, where the saint emerges unharmed from the belly of a dragon.

The dialog between the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood has its analogies to the Norse Þrymskviða from the Elder Edda; the giant Þrymr had stolen Mjölner, Thor's hammer, and demanded Freyja as his bride for its return. Instead, the gods dressed Thor as a bride and sent him. When the giants note Thor's unladylike eyes, eating, and drinking, Loki explains them as Freyja not having slept, or eaten, or drunk, out of longing for the wedding.^[3]

"The better to see you with": woodcut by Walter Crane

Tale's history[link]

Earliest versions[link]

The origins of the Little Red Riding Hood story can be traced to versions from various European countries and more than likely preceding the 17th century, of which several exist, some significantly different from the currently known, Grimms-inspired version. It was told by French peasants in the 14th century as well as in Italy, where a number of versions exist, including La finta nonna (The False Grandmother).^[4] It has also been called "The Story of Grandmother". It is also possible that this early tale has roots in very similar Oriental tales (e.g. "Grandaunt Tiger").^[5]

These early variations of the tale differ from the currently known version in several ways. The antagonist is not always a wolf, but sometimes an ogre or a 'bzou' (werewolf), making these tales relevant to the werewolf-trials (similar to witch trials) of the time (e.g. the trial of Peter Stumpp).^[6] The wolf usually leaves the grandmother’s blood and meat for the girl to eat, who then unwittingly cannibalizes her own grandmother. Furthermore, the wolf was also known to ask her to remove her clothing and toss it into the fire.^[7] In some versions, the wolf eats the girl after she gets into bed with him, and the story ends there.^[8] In others, she sees through his disguise and tries to escape, complaining to her "grandmother" that she needs to defecate and would not wish to do so in the bed. The wolf reluctantly lets her go, tied to a piece of string so she does not get away. However, the girl slips the string over something else and runs off.

In these stories she escapes with no help from any male or older female figure, instead using her own cunning. Sometimes, though more rarely, the red hood is even non-existent.^[8]

Charles Perrault[link]

French images, like this 19th-century painting, show the much shorter red chaperon being worn

The earliest known printed version^[9] was known as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge and had its origins in 17th century French folklore. It was included in the collection Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals. Tales of Mother Goose (Histoires et contes du temps passé, avec des moralités. Contes de ma mère l'Oye), in 1697, by Charles Perrault. As the title implies, this version^[10] is both more sinister and more overtly moralized than the later ones. The redness of the hood, which has been given symbolic significance in many interpretations of the tale, was a detail introduced by Perrault.^[11]

The story had as its subject an "attractive, well-bred young lady", a village girl of the country being deceived into giving a wolf she encountered the information he needed to find her grandmother's house successfully and eat the old woman while at the same time avoiding being noticed by woodcutters working in the nearby forest. Then he proceeded to lay a trap for the Red Riding Hood. The latter ends up being asked to climb into the bed before being eaten by the wolf, where the story ends. The wolf emerges the victor of the encounter and there is no happy ending.

Charles Perrault explained the 'moral' at the end so that no doubt is left to his intended meaning:

From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition – neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!

This, the presumed original, version of the tale was written for late 17th century French court of King Louis XIV. This audience, whom the King entertained with extravagant parties and prostitutes, presumably would take from the story the intended meaning.

Brothers Grimm[link]

Wilhelm (left) and Jacob Grimm (right) from an 1855 painting by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann.

In the 19th century two separate German versions were retold to Jacob Grimm and his younger brother Wilhelm Grimm, known as the Brothers Grimm, the first by Jeanette Hassenpflug (1791–1860) and the second by Marie Hassenpflug (1788–1856). The brothers turned the first version to the main body of the story and the second into a sequel of it. The story as Rotkäppchen was included in the first edition of their collection Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales (1812)).^[12]

The earlier parts of the tale agree so closely with Perrault's variant that it is almost certainly the source of the tale.^[13] However, they modified the ending; this version had the little girl and her grandmother saved by a huntsman who was after the wolf's skin; this ending is identical to that in the tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, which appears to be the source.^[14]

The second part featured the girl and her grandmother trapping and killing another wolf, this time anticipating his moves based on their experience with the previous one. The girl did not leave the path when the wolf spoke to her, her grandmother locked the door to keep it out, and when the wolf lurked, the grandmother had Little Red Riding Hood put a trough under the chimney and fill it with water that sausages had been cooked in; the smell lured the wolf down, and it drowned.^[15]

The Brothers further revised the story in later editions and it reached the above mentioned final and better known version in the 1857 edition of their work.^[16] It is notably tamer than the older stories which contained darker themes.

After the Grimms[link]

Numerous authors have rewritten or adapted this tale.

Andrew Lang included a variant called "The True History of Little Goldenhood"^[17] in The Red Fairy Book (1890). He derived it from the works of Charles Marelles, in Contes of Charles Marelles. This version explicitly states that the story had been mistold earlier. The girl is saved, but not by the huntsman; when the wolf tries to eat her, its mouth is burned by the golden hood she wears, which is enchanted.

James N. Barker wrote a variation of Little Red Riding Hood in 1827 as an approximately 1000-word story. It was later reprinted in 1858 in a book of collected stories edited by William E Burton, called the Cyclopedia of Wit and Humor. The reprint also features a wood engraving of a clothed wolf on bended knee holding Little Red Riding Hood's hand.

In the 20th century, the popularity of the tale appeared to snowball, with many new versions being written and produced, especially in the wake of Freudian analysis, deconstruction and feminist critical theory. (See "Modern uses and adaptations" below.) This trend has also led to a number of academic texts being written that focus on Little Red Riding Hood, including works by Alan Dundes and Jack Zipes.

Interpretations[link]

Red Riding Hood by George Frederic Watts

Besides the overt warning about talking to strangers, there are many interpretations of the classic fairy tale, many of them sexual.^[18] Some are listed below.

Natural cycles[link]

Folklorists and cultural anthropologists such as P. Saintyves and Edward Burnett Tylor saw "Little Red Riding Hood" in terms of solar myths and other naturally-occurring cycles. Her red hood could represent the bright sun which is ultimately swallowed by the terrible night (the wolf), and the variations in which she is cut out of the wolf's belly represent by it the dawn.^[19] In this interpretation, there is a connection between the wolf of this tale and Sköll, the wolf in Norse myth that will swallow the personified Sun at Ragnarök, or Fenrir.^[20] Alternatively, the tale could be about the season of spring, or the month of May, escaping the winter.^[21]

Ritual[link]

The tale has been interpreted as a puberty ritual, stemming from a prehistorical origin (sometimes an origin stemming from a previous matriarchal era).^[22] The girl, leaving home, enters a liminal state and by going through the acts of the tale, is transformed into an adult woman by the act of coming out of the wolf's belly.^[23]

Rebirth[link]

Bruno Bettelheim, in The Uses of Enchantment, recast the Little Red Riding Hood motif in terms of classic Freudian analysis, that shows how fairy tales educate, support, and liberate the emotions of children. The motif of the huntsman cutting open the wolf, he interpreted as a "rebirth"; the girl who foolishly listened to the wolf has been reborn as a new person.^[24]

Sexual awakening[link]

Red Riding Hood has also been seen as a parable of sexual maturity. In this interpretation, the red cloak symbolizes the blood of menstruation,^[25] braving the "dark forest" of womanhood. Or the cloak could symbolize the hymen (earlier versions of the tale generally do not state that the cloak is red). In this case, the wolf threatens the girl's virginity. The anthropomorphic wolf symbolizes a man, who could be a lover, seducer or sexual predator. This differs from the ritual explanation in that the entry into adulthood is biologically, not socially, determined.^[26]

Norse myth[link]

The poem Þrymskviða from the Poetic Edda mirrors some elements of Red Riding Hood. Loki's explanations for "Freyja's" (actually Thor disguised as Freya) strange behavior mirror the wolf's explanations for his strange appearance.

The red hood has often been given great importance in many interpretations, with a significance from the dawn to blood.^[27]

Modern uses and adaptations[link]

WPA poster by Kenneth Whitley, 1939.

There have been many modern uses and adaptations of Little Red Riding Hood, generally with a mock-serious reversal of Red Riding Hood's naïveté or some twist of social satire; they range across a number of different media and styles. Multiple variations have been written in the past century, in which authors adapt the Grimms' tale to their own interests.

The tale can be told in terms of Little Red Riding Hood's sexual attractiveness. The song "How Could Red Riding Hood (Have Been So Very Good)?" by A.P. Randolph in 1925 was the first song known to be banned from radio because of its sexual suggestiveness. The 1966 hit song "Lil' Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs takes the Wolf's point of view, implying that he wants love rather than blood. In the short animated cartoon Red Hot Riding Hood by Tex Avery, the story is recast in an adult-oriented urban setting, with the suave, sharp-dressed Wolf howling after the nightclub singer Red. Avery used the same cast and themes in a subsequent series of cartoons.^[28] Allusions to the tale can be more or less overtly sexual, as when the color of a lipstick is advertised as "Riding Hood Red".^[29]

This sexual analysis may take the form of rape. In Against Our Will, Susan Brownmiller described the fairy tale as a description of rape.^[30] Many revisionist retellings depict Little Red Riding Hood or the grandmother successfully defending herself against the wolf, including a version developed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which ends with Little Red Riding Hood cutting her own way out of the wolf's stomach and saving her grandmother.^[31]

The story may also serve as a metaphor for a sexual awakening, as in Angela Carter's story "The Company of Wolves", published in her collection The Bloody Chamber (1979). (Carter's story was adapted into a film by Neil Jordan in 1984.) In the story, the wolf is in fact a werewolf, and comes to newly-menstruating Red Riding Hood in the forest in the form of a charming hunter. He turns into a wolf and eats her grandmother, and is about to devour her as well, when she is equally seductive and ends up lying with the wolf man, her sexual awakening.^[32] Such tellings bear some similarity to the "animal bridegroom" tales, such as Beauty and the Beast or The Frog Prince, but where the heroines of those tales transform the hero into a prince, these tellings of Little Red Riding Hood reveal to the heroine that she has a wild nature like the hero's.^[33]

Little Red Riding Hood is also one of the central characters in the 1987 Broadway musical Into the Woods by Steven Sondheim and James Lapine. In the song, "I Know Things Now" she speaks of how the wolf made her feel "excited, well, excited and scared," in a reference to the sexual undertones of their relationship. Red Riding Hood's cape is also one of the musical's four quest items that are emblematic of fairy tales.^[34]

Publishers like BeeGang and So Out maintained unaltered the original story written by Charles Perrault mainly adding interactivity or educational content to their book apps; Other publishers like BlueQuoll, an Australian publishing group, have pushed further the boundaries of the narration and re-invented the story even in the title, Mr. Wolf and the Ginger Cupcakes that puts the wolf at the center of the narration. In their version the element of good vs evil is removed from the story and the wolf is not portraited as a negative character that deserves to die miserably at the end of the story.

See also[link]

Children's literature portal

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Little Red-Cap

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Little Red Riding Hood

• Little Red Riding Hood at the Internet Movie Database
• A three dimensional book of Little Red Riding Hood – created by Jan Hogan and held by the Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland
• SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages: The Annotated Little Red Riding Hood.
• Little red Riding Hood felt Board Story from Felt Works
• Another collection of different versions of Little Red Riding Hood.
• A free online video of Little Red Riding Hood.
• Homepage of the Little Red Riding Hood Project
• Terri Windling's 'The Path of Needles or Pins: Little Red Riding Hood' – a thorough article on the history of LRRH.
• Catherine Orenstein's 'Dances with Wolves' from Ms. magazine. – a shorter article on the history of LRRH (by the author of a book on subject).
• Olivier Dezutter's 'Little Red Riding Hood : a Story of Women at the Crossroads' – an article concerning different stories and images of LRRH.
• The Disney version of Little Red Riding Hood at The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts
• Full text to Little Red-Riding-Hood from "The Fairy Book"
• Original versions and psychological analysis of Little Red Riding Hood
• Little Red Riding Hood, audio version (French)
• eBook Le Petit Chaperon Rouge with sound and modern pictures, Zabouille éditions (French)
• Link to the Publisher BeeGang
• Link to the Publisher So Ouat
• Link to the Publisher BlueQuoll
• Link to the page of Mr. Wolf and the Ginger Cupcakes