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Fairy Tale and Film
of social and financial security for female characters – claiming that
‘status and fortune never result from the female’s self-exertion’ – and
berates ‘the fairy tale’s potency as a purveyor of romantic archetypes’
(1984: 217–18). Like Lieberman, Rowe makes a number of assumptions
about negative influence, without providing any supporting data. Lucie
Armitt reiterates the standard argument. Objecting to the limitations
offered to female characters (and, by extension, female audiences), she
asserts ‘as feminists argue, one can reduce the role played by women
here to “mother, witch or princess: bad, mad, or invisible”’ (1996: 28).
8
With the first two roles invariably demonised in the best-known fairy
tales – good mothers tending to die soon after childbirth and thereby
leaving their daughters at the mercy of villainous stepmothers and
witches – the princess is left in an obvious quandary. Powerless and
threatened (with fathers who are either absent or who also threaten
the heroine in some way), Armitt affirms that ‘the only way “out” for
the female protagonist is by winning her prince and embracing the
enclosures of the “happily ever after”. The political dangers of this are
that if we are seduced into believing the fairy-tale world to be one of
order and harmony, we may end up following the rules of these stories
ourselves’ (1996: 28). Armitt voices a familiar criticism here, yet a great
deal depends on how much we are genuinely ‘seduced’ by fairy tales, or
believe their contents to be credible. As well as being wary of assuming
any direct sociological influences we need to consider such tales with
appropriate understanding of the circumstances that shaped them.
Angela Carter reminds us that marriage signified a form of wish-
fulfilment in times when lives were precarious, affirming that
Most fairy and folk tales are structured around the relations between
men and women, whether in terms of magical romance or of coarse
domestic realism. The common unspoken goal is fertility and con-
tinuance. In the context of societies from which most of these stories
spring, their goal is not a conservative one but a Utopian one, indeed
a form of heroic optimism – as if to say, one day we might be happy,
even if it won’t last. (1990: xviii)
Within this context marriage functions as a simple desire to claim a
stake on the future, and Carter’s distinction between ‘magical romance’
and domestic realism is equally pertinent, with differing stories present-
ing contrasting relationships – including examples where women have
the upper hand. Rowe’s hyperbolic view of marriage ‘as the victory of
patriarchal culture itself’ (1984: 221) exemplifies a need to be cautious
Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams
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about making critical evaluations solely through contemporary mores.
We also need to consider the diversity of responses that have been made
to such tales and the impact feminist criticism has had in generating
alternatives.
In some respects there seems to be a vested critical interest in
not
seeking alternatives, largely in order to repeat the same negative asser-
tions. The inordinate degree of attention given to a handful of fairy
tale heroines – namely Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty – is
attributable to one main factor: they are consistently targeted by critics
for the same reasons that they were initially selected and shaped by col-
lectors and editors – because they fit a particular stereotype, or, rather,
they have been made to fit one. In each tale the central female character
is said to typify the ‘innocent persecuted heroine’ (ATU 510), relying on
a heroic male to transform her life, yet these tales were subject to quite
radical transformations prior to reaching their ‘canonical’ status, and
have been imbued with renewed significance ever since.
9
As a number
of critics have noted, stories underwent a considerable process of altera-
tion and refinement prior to being published.
10
A male bias is apparent
in the gender of those most closely affiliated to the burgeoning fairy
tale industry – such as Charles Perrault and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm –
who may have been inspired by a variety of influences yet filtered ideas
through their own particular values and concerns, including what was
perceived to be appropriate conduct for females. The result was not
only a tendency to endorse monogamous relations via the institution
of marriage, but a number of accompanying narrative interventions. As
well as alienating women from one another through an emphasis on
female rivalry, negative male characters were conspicuously replaced by
the heroic prince that ‘saves’ the heroine. From unnatural fathers intent
on ‘marrying’ their daughters to male intruders who take advantage of
incumbent women, fairy tales once included a host of unsavoury male
figures and their erasure is not solely attributable to having a newly
conceived child audience in mind, particularly given the way in which
female villainy was not only retained, but distinctly amplified.
11
Maria
Tatar argues that a primary intention behind fairy tales includes female
socialisation, affirming that they set out ‘models of successful accultura-
tion while supplying women with what conventional wisdom perceived
as the correct program for making and preserving a good marriage’
(1992: 96), yet she also points out that many contrary examples exist
around the world, including tales where female curiosity and resource-
fulness are championed rather than censured, while male versions of
‘Cinderella’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ further warn us against applying too
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