Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs
(1937),
Cinderella
(1950) and
Sleeping Beauty
(1959),
arguing that
The rugged male hero is, of course, daring, resourceful, polite, chaste,
and the conqueror of evil. This evil is always associated with female
nature out of control – two witches and a bitchy stepmother with
her nasty daughters. The ultimate message of all three films is that
if you are industrious, pure of heart, and keep your faith in a male
god, you will be rewarded. He will find you and carry you off to the
good kingdom that isn’t threatened by the wiles of female duplicity.
(2002b: 60–1)
28
Fairy Tale and Film
Why focus on such dated examples, we might ask, particularly as the
female roles created in the last few decades suggest a response to such
criticism? Belle, the heroine of
Beauty and the Beast
(Gary Trousdale and
Kirk Wise, 1991), was one of the first female characters to affirm an
overhaul of the Disney ideal: presented as a book-loving young woman
who favours the Beast over an arrogant macho rival. A similar scenario is
set up in
Aladdin
(Ron Clements and John Musker, 1992), with Princess
Jasmine defying her father’s right to decide whom she will marry – and
eventually forcing a change in the constitution.
The Princess and the Frog
(Ron Clements and John Musker, 2009) opens with a flashback show-
ing the heroine sneering at the romantic impulse behind ‘classic’ fairy
tales. As adulthood dawns she adheres to her father’s belief in getting
ahead through hard work and although she falls in love over the course
of the film this doesn’t deter her entrepreneurial aims, finally setting
up a restaurant business with her new-found love. These more recent
films feature assertive heroines who defy expectations in choosing their
‘princes’, while other examples eschew romance altogether.
Mulan
(Tony
Bancroft and Barry Cook, 1998) tells the tale of a young girl who, far
from simply aiming to be someone’s wife, poses as a man and becomes
a successful warrior, while
Brave
(Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman and
Steve Purcell, 2012) kicks the passive princess firmly into the twenty-first
century by taking issue with the whole marriage question: its heroine,
Merida, competes for her own hand to maintain her independence. In
Frozen
( Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, 2013) a princess finally takes her
place on the throne without any need for a consort, aided by her loving
sister, archly subverting Disney’s usual take on ‘true love’.
In sum, the corporation has provided heroines with greater ambition
and interest than earlier incarnations, suggesting some response to
feminist criticism.
15
It is easy to be cynical about Disney’s reasons –
recognising changing times and knowing they have to appeal to a new
generation of mothers, as well as their children.
Beauty and the Beast
is
claimed by Warner to be the first Disney film to reflect an awareness of
contemporary sexual politics, explicitly designed for female approval,
yet she also claims that it constitutes ‘Hollywood’s cunning domes-
tication of feminism itself’ (1995: 313). A similar wariness has been
exhibited by other critics, claiming any suggestion of emancipated her-
oines is a cynical co-optation of feminist thinking intended to disarm
dissenters. For example, although
Enchanted
(Kevin Lima, 2007) sends
up Disney’s patented idealism by exposing the rift between reality and
fantasy, romance remains key. The wide-eyed Giselle (Amy Adams),
who emerges from the animated world of fairy tales into modern-day
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