History YMMV / Bluebeard

** The ''Anime/GrimmsFairyTaleClassics'' version of Bluebeard is just as vile. Here he ''deliberately'' targets a maiden who not only is pretty but ''extremely'' naive and poor, stalking her briefly before he proposes to her and showers her in riches and luxury, and then turning on her when she naively enters the cellar and chasing her around to kill her. The ''very'' creepy imaginery of his episode does ''not'' help.

** Perrault ends his story with the moral that a woman sticking her nose in her husband's affairs will ruin a perfectly good marriage - even if said affairs include murdering countless women.[[note]] It should be noted, however, that Perrault might have been [[SarcasmMode being sarcastic]] here; there are other examples of him telling perfectly immoral stories with an immoral Aesop in order to cause a repulsion from the reader against the fact that this Aesop sometimes happens. The most well-known example is the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb. The Wolf decides to eat the Lamp, gives a fallacious reason for it, the Lamb is obviously right, the Wolf eats him anyway, and the Aesop given is "The law of the strongest is always the best". Yet you can bet that Perrault didn't believe a single word of that as a moral value. [[/note]]

* CrowningMomentOfFunny: The Creator/CatherineBreillat movie version has the story being recounted by two little girls. When they get to the part where the girl in the story marries Bluebeard, they argue, because they don't seem to understand what marriage entails. The younger girl at first insists that it entails the wife being cooked and eaten by the husband, than claims that it's something involving an ogress, than claims that it means that the husband and wife become homosexuals.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: There supposedly exists a poem version of the story where Bluebeard is a regular man, the bride is very selfish, and the room is merely an empty room for Bluebeard to gather his thoughts. The bride, not being able to bear the thought of her husband keeping secrets from her, opens the room, and when Bluebeard finds out, he merely divorces her.

** These depictions have since fallen out of favor, as the story is by and large no longer used in pantomime. More modern adaptations of the story (such as the Creator/CatherineBreillat film and the Bluebeard episode of ''Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics'') have kept the characters and setting European. (Both adaptations give the wife European names - the movie names the wife Catherine and the anime names her Josephine.)

*** In case you're wondering, [[spoiler: Brides #1 and #2 were literally TooDumbToLive, and Bride #3 did poor Bluebeard in, and presumably made up to classic fairy tale to save face. He's somehow alive, however, since he is telling all this to the narrator.]]

** Perrault ends his story with the moral that a woman sticking her nose in her husband's affairs will ruin a perfectly good marriage - even if said affairs include murdering countless women.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: Perrault did not write Bluebeard or any of his other stories for children, yet they were commonly marketed to children for centuries. Bluebeard frequently appeared in fairy tale collections for children until the early twentieth century.

** CompleteMonster: The [[UrExample original incarnation]] of the [[AntagonistTitle titular Bluebeard]] stands as one of the earliest examples of a vicious killer. [[FauxAffablyEvil Posing as a rich gentlemen]] to win the heart of a young maiden, Bluebeard seduces the girl into marriage. Bluebeard hands the maiden all the keys to the doors in his mansion, but warns her never to open one particular door. Inevitably, [[CuriosityIsACrapshoot the maiden's curiosity]] drives her to open the door, revealing Bluebeard as a {{serial killer}} who married many women, murdered them by [[SlashedThroat slitting their throats]], then hid their bodies in his mansion. Bluebeard finds out, and in a fit of rage, tries to kill the maiden as well before being stopped. With little motivation to couple his spree-killing aside from occasionally being depicted as {{greed}}y, Bluebeard defined, and still stands as the most brutal incarnation of, [[TheBluebeard one of the most terrifying modern serial killer tropes]].

* {{Fanon}}: Due to the popularity of a British pantomime by George Colman, Bluebeard was frequently depicted as Turkish or Middle Eastern throughout the nineteenth century. His last wife was given the Arabic name Fatima. The nature of the story makes this orientalization of the story rife with UnfortunateImplications by today's standards. Andrew Lang insisted that Bluebeard was European and objected to his illustrator including oriental elements in the illustrations for ''The Blue Fairy Book''.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr6a6v21TIc ...And then they had a fashion show!]]

* CrowningMomentOfFunny: The CatherineBreillat movie version has the story being recounted by two little girls. When they get to the part where the girl in the story marries Bluebeard, they argue, because they don't seem to understand what marriage entails. The younger girl at first insists that it entails the wife being cooked and eaten by the husband, than claims that it's something involving an ogress, than claims that it means that the husband and wife become homosexuals.

** These depictions have since fallen out of favor, as the story is by and large no longer used in pantomime. More modern adaptations of the story (such as the Catherine Breillat film and the Bluebeard episode of ''Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics'') have kept the characters and setting European. (Both adaptations give the wife European names - the movie names the wife Catherine and the anime names her Josephine.)

** These depictions have since fallen out of favor, as the story is by and large no longer used in pantomime. More modern adaptations of the story (such as the Catherine Breillat film and the Bluebeard episode of ''Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics'') have kept the characters and setting European. (Both adaptations give the wife European names - the movie names the wife Catherine and the anime names her Josephine.)

** These depictions have since fallen out of favor, as the story is by and large no longer used in pantomime. More modern adaptations of the story (such as the Catherine Breillat film and the Bluebeard episode of ''Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics'') have kept the characters and setting European. (Both adaptations give the wife a French name - the movie names the wife Catherine and the anime names her Josephine.)

** These depictions have since fallen out of favor, as the story is by and large no longer used in pantomime. More modern adaptations of the story (such as the Catherine Breillat film and the Bluebeard episode of ''Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics'') have kept the characters and setting European.

** These depictions have since fallen out of favor, as the story is by and large no longer used in pantomime. More modern adaptations of the story have kept the characters and setting European.

** These depictions have since fallen out of favor, as the story is by and large no longer used in pantomime. Recent adaptations have kept the characters European.

** Perrault ends his story with the moral that a woman sticking her nose in her husband's affairs will ruin a perfectly good marriage - even if said affairs include murdering countless women.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Some versions (including Fitcher's Bird) give the moral "It's ok to betray someone's trust as long as you aren't caught."

* CompleteMonster: The title character, when his true nature is revealed.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Some versions (including Fitcher's Bird, above) give the moral "It's ok to betray someone's trust as long as you aren't caught."

** There is also an absolutely hilarious [[EasternAnimation Soviet cartoon]] called "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pVX32r6RFM The Very Blue Beard]]" in which the Bluebeard gets to tell his own side of the story to a detective. One wife was fashion obsessed, the other health obsessed, the third believed in an open relationship - well, sorry, love, that's the way it turned out.