Theatrical Adaptation

True or false

There are many different definitions for the word myth. One of the most prominent is that a myth is something that is false; something that is not true, but we all believe it because it’s what we have been told, most of the time, someone tells us to scare us.
The most memorable myth I have been told is not to swallow my gum. I was told many myths about this, actually. One said that it would stay in my stomach for 12 years. Another said that it would stay in my stomach and grow bigger and bigger for 7 years. And the most frightening one-it would clog my throat, and I was going to choke and die. Another myth I have been told is not to swallow watermelon seeds. Why? Because it will sprout and I will have watermelons growing in my stomach until they get so big that I have to have them surgically removed. I believed this for a good 5 or 6 years until I accidentally swallowed a seed, and I got so upset I sat up all night crying, and my sister had to explain that it wasn’t true. But because my mom had told me these stories, I believed them.
The same could be said about “urban legends” and fairy tales. Because we have been told these stories for such a long time, we believe them. An urban legend that I once saw solved on the show “Myth busters” was the myth about if you mix pop rocks and coca cola, then you will die. They say something about the carbonation mixed with the sugars and ingredients that make pop rocks pop causes your body to basically implode. But this was proven false. Because no one was willing to volunteer their lives, for all they knew, this became a myth. And everyone believed it because for so many years people were told this story, and over the years the story became more severe, and perhaps grotesque, causing people to fear even thinking about it. Fairy tales, on the other hand, have changed over the years, too. If you take the Disney movies, that are told to be fairy tales, they are changed to gain an audience from children. The fairy tale of The Little Mermaid and even Pocahontas are changed to draw in a bigger crowd with their happy endings; the typical fairy tale ending of “and then they lived happily ever after.” But in real life, that never happened. Or in the original stories. But let’s face it, no one would want to go see the true story of Pocahontas, in which her real name was not Pocahontas, but Matoaka, and she was captured and taken to England, and that is where she met John Smith. But she didn’t fall in love with him right away. She very much disliked him at first (The Pocahontas Myth).
I would have to say that my definition of a myth is not that it is a story that is false. I believe now that a myth is simply a story that is passed from generation to generation, that has yet to be proven false.

posted by LilmissKS @ 12:37 AM