History Main / LittleRedFightingHood

The TropeCodifier is Creator/JamesThurber's "The Little Girl and the Wolf" (1939), in which the titular character blows the wolf away with an automatic gun she carries in her basket. [[OlderThanTheyThink Contrary to what modern audiences might think]], Thurber's parody is not necessarily also the TropeMaker: among the many traditional folktales of the Red Riding Hood family, there are many in which the heroine escapes from danger by her own wits, and some in which the villain dies. Indeed a look into the original Creator/BrothersGrimm book reveals that the familiar tale in which Red Riding Hood gets saved by a huntsman is directly extended with an alternate variant in which Red Riding Hood runs into yet another wolf; wisened up by her previous experiences, she outsmarts the wolf and with a ploy devised by granny, drowns him in a vat of water.

In her original fairy tale incarnation, Literature/LittleRedRidingHood was a naive, helpless little girl who was at the mercy of [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything a vicious predator]]. The story has become so ingrained into Western culture that any time we see a little girl dressed in a red hooded coat on television, [[LittleDeadRidingHood it is reasonable to expect that something terrible is going to happen to her]].

-->-- [[http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/quotes/picnicba.html "The Little Girl And The Wolf"]] by Creator/JamesThurber

** This symbolism is the result of a lucky coincidence, however, as the hoodie was actually orange and only turned red in color correction. The film makers swear up and down [[FauxSymbolism this was not meant to be symbolic]].

* Amusingly subverted in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', where a girl named Velouria looks almost exactly like a slightly older version of the trope... save for how ''she's an actual werewolf''.

* Played with in ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', when Buffy dresses up as Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween.

** In the opening of "Earshot" when [[DecoyDamsel Buffy is pretending]] to be a VictimOfTheWeek to lure out a demon, she's wearing a red hoodie.

* ''VideoGame/LobotomyCorporation'': One of the [[EldritchAbomination abnormalities]] you have to manage is Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary, who may or may not be the original Little Red Riding Hood grown up into a bounty hunter with a vendetta against [[BigBadWolf The Big And Might Be Bad Wolf]].

* Mark Texeira's re-imagining of the tale for Penthouse Comix. "Red" is a werewolf hunter who catches her quarry by posing as a prostitute and... you can probably figure out the rest.

* Red is portrayed this way whenever she's a playable character in a ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'' video game. Namely ''VideoGame/Shrek2'', ''VideoGame/ShrekSuperSlam'', and ''Shrek: Smash n Crash Racing''.

* ''VisualNovel/ShallWeDate: Lost Alice'' [[GenderFlip gender-flips]] Red into a gun-toting young man who shot the wolf antagonist's father.

* Red is portrayed this way whenever she's a playable character in a ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'' video game. Namely ''Shrek 2: The Video Game'', ''VideoGame/ShrekSuperSlam'', and ''Shrek: Smash n Crash Racing''.

* Red is portrayed this way whenever she's a playable character in a ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'' video game. Namely ''Shrek 2: The Video Game'', ''Shrek Super Slam'', and ''Shrek: Smash n Crash Racing''.

* ''Film/HardCandy'' has a teenage girl with a [[IconicOutfit red hoodie]] being lured into a confrontation with a child predator she met online. The twist is that she realizes he's a dangerous pedophile, and [[PayEvilUntoEvil wants to do terrible things to him]].

* Ruby Rose, the first of the four main protagonists of Creator/MontyOum's ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'', is inspired by Red Riding Hood. In the trailer featuring her, she wipes out an army of werewolves using a [[FriendlySniper sniper rifle]]/[[SinisterScythe scythe]] [[SwissArmyWeapon hybrid]] called [[ICallItVera Crescent Rose]], which she built herself. However, the motif has become less and less prominent as the series goes on.

A popular, [[{{Grimmification}} Grimmified]] variant is to give her a gun, an [[AnAxeToGrind axe]] or some other weapon and have her hunt down the "wolf" (Who [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent may]] or [[AnimalMotif may not]] be a literal wolf) herself. This variant will feature a [[AgeLift teenage or adult Red]], who will naturally be HotterAndSexier, making her double as a LadyInRed. If she says "What big eyes you have" it will be a PreMortemOneLiner right before putting one right between said eyes.

A popular, [[{{Grimmification}} Grimmified]] variant is to give her a gun, an axe or some other weapon and have her hunt down the "wolf" (Who [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent may]] or [[AnimalMotif may not]] be a literal wolf) herself. This variant will feature a teenage or adult Red, who will naturally be HotterAndSexier, making her double as a LadyInRed. If she says "What big eyes you have" it will be a PreMortemOneLiner right before putting one right between said eyes.

-->-- [[http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/quotes/picnicba.html "The Little Girl And The Wolf"]] by ''Creator/JamesThurber''