I'm kind of surprised by people's takes on this. In the past, stories stuck because the characters meant something to a culture & there were good & bad versions, but specific stories & motifs survived because they resonated the most & the ones that didn't were forgotten.
Albeit, this is also generally why most people know a lot of old stories through Disney & other films & aren't aware of any aspects of the original books/ anthologies the stories came from which weren't put in there (not just morbid endings of certain Grimm fairy tales, but also the fact that the Wizard of Oz actually keeps going after Dorothy kills the witch & they get their gifts from the wizard, for instance. They have to go on a whole other quest to track down Glenda, whereas the movie just makes her show up & help them.) & there is a disconnect in that.
As someone who wanted to be a creator & writer, though, I'm interested to see how modern culture will evolve, now that some of our own stories are going to be open to interpretation, now.