Fairy Tale and Film

particularly given its horrific features, we might note that Guiller-
mo del Toro has since sought to capitalise on the film’s surprise com-
mercial and critical success by producing a string of films with similarly 
dark fairy tale elements, such as 
The Orphanage
and 
Mama 
(discussed 
in the previous chapter), which similarly critique authoritarian corrup-
tion while providing fantastic compensation in the afterlife: a canny 
narrative strategy that offsets social critique with sentiment. Alongside 
fellow auteur Tim Burton, del Toro has helped nurture popular interest 
in darker fairy tale motifs, proving that ‘anti-tales’ are not inimical to 

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Fairy Tale and Film
commercial interests, but may even have become a new niche.
7
Market 
forces are a necessary consideration. Films are an expensive business, 
generally motivated by a need to recoup investment and turn a profit, 
and while some retellings may aim to achieve more, perhaps prompt-
ing viewers to reformulate their understanding of fairy tales and the 
ideological work they perform, the results are often constrained by a 
desire to entertain and amuse. Ultimately, reboots and ‘reimaginings’ 
are a means of exploiting a known story, as much as questioning it, and 
even as they promise to give us something new this may not necessar-
ily be novel.
Ever After 
(1998), a revamped ‘Cinderella’ (briefly mentioned in 
Chapter 1), illustrates the pitfalls of mistaking revisionism for radicalism. 
Cathy Lynn Preston’s favourable analysis of the film (2004) rests a great 
deal on its postmodern features, including a framing device that posi-
tions a female descendant as narrator, yet this does not give her version 
greater authority than the Grimm brothers (who visit to hear it), and 
what is purported to be the ‘real’ story is scarcely any more feminist.
8
The heroine may be intelligent, assertive, compassionate and socially 
aware – further defying the usual princess demeanour with her strength 
and impressive swordplay – yet Danielle (Drew Barrymore) puts such 
individuality aside when she falls for a feckless prince, and while the 
film plays with some conventions – casting Leonardo da Vinci as the 
heroine’s ‘godmother’ – other tropes remain untouched, including a 
wicked stepmother whose villainy is simply intensified. (Not only does 
Rodmilla (Anjelica Huston) kill Danielle’s father for his money, she sells 
her stepdaughter off to make more!) Evidently, while any number of 
twists may occur in such postmodern retellings, the demonisation of 
the older ambitious anti-mother is a given, against whom life with a 
vapid young man seems positively idyllic. 
The two versions of ‘Snow White’ released in 2012 may also give their 
heroines a greater part to play, yet while Tatar has sought to claim these 
figures as progressive, describing 
Snow White and the
Huntsman
’s heroine 
as a ‘warrior princess’ – far removed from her ‘insipid’ folkloric forebear 
(Tatar, 2012) – an intrinsic female rivalry undermines such innovation. 
Budgeted at $200 million, its script fought over by nine studios, and 
featuring 
Twilight
star Kristen Stewart, the film clearly aimed to become 
a blockbuster, yet for all its expense and fanfare the Manichean set-up 
reveals nothing new. In an interview given during its release, director 
Rupert Sanders stated that the queen was symbolically intended to rep-
resent death and her stepdaughter life, reiterating an age-old dichotomy 
that uncritically aligns ‘evil’ and death with the older woman who must 

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