Fairy Tale and Film

Postmodern Revisions 
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We are back in the woods with 
The Brothers Grimm 
(Terry Gilliam, 
2005) where fairy tales again come true in unexpected and unpleasant 
ways – although a pantomime feel undercuts the fear factor. Postmodern 
devices include rewriting the Grimm brothers as charlatans rather than 
scholars and inserting them into the action. When various young girls 
disappear in the woods, including recognisable characters such as Red 
Riding Hood and Gretel, the brothers investigate, coerced by a general 
from the French occupying army, aiming to disabuse peasants of their 
superstitious beliefs. However, they are forced to conclude that the 
disappearences are a case of ‘authenticated enchantment’. Magic, in 
other words, is real. We learn that a vain queen (Monica Belluci) took 
up residence in a tower in the woods to evade the plague. Using sorcery 
to stay alive, yet hideously aged, she enchants a huntsman to bring her 
females to regain her youthful beauty. For all its cavalier attitude, the 
plot thus hinges on the misogynist cliché of a powerful seductress who 
sucks the lifeblood from village girls (an apparent descendant of the 
vampiric Countess Bartory and precursor to Ravenna) and turns men’s 
minds to mush. Angelika (Lena Headey) may be a more unconventional 
female character, yet mainly serves as a disputed love interest for the 
brothers (reiterating the trouble women can cause) and is distastefully 
held captive by an amorous Italian to ensure that the Grimms are the 
ones who save the day. Order resumes when the queen is destroyed, the 
brothers smashing her magic mirror. However, a remaining shard, bear-
ing the queen’s eye, leaves its ‘happy ever after’ in question, affirming a 
reluctance to dispense with the genre’s biggest cliché.
Disney’s 
Tangled
(Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, 2010) is nota-
ble in this regard, providing a radically reworked ‘Rapunzel’ which 
conspicuously intensifies the witch’s villainy. Retitled to evade any 
reference to its source story, with executives believing a direct fairy 
tale connection would deter male interest, various twists are made of 
the tale.
17
On the plus side, the heroine’s hair functions as more than 
a ladder; it lights up, heals and is used to empower the heroine.
18
More negatively, her foster mother is presented as a callous predator, 
rather than protector, while the male lead serves as liberator. In the 
original story a baby is fostered by a neighbouring witch because of her 
mother’s desire for stolen vegetables and her husband’s hasty agree-
ment, yet the film makes the child a magical princess cruelly stolen 
by ‘Mother’ Gothel. Driven by vanity (a trait notably absent from the 
original tale), she exploits Rapunzel’s regenerative power to regain her 
youthfulness, selfishly seeking to keep this for herself. The tower, once 
figured as a form of protection from men (with early versions of the tale 

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Fairy Tale and Film
featuring intruding ‘princes’ impregnating the unwitting girl), is now a 
prison devised by the ultimate smother-mother, gaining her daughter’s 
compliance by encouraging a fearful view of the world. While Gothel 
deliberately undermines Rapunzel, self-realisation comes through the 
hero’s entrance into her life. Flynn Rider – as he calls himself – is no 
passing prince, but a thief who takes refuge in the tower after stealing a 
crown. Swiftly disarmed by Rapunzel (with a frying pan), he is coerced 
into helping her find her true home, eventually reveals his real name 
(Eugene) and proves himself a loyal friend. He rescues Rapunzel when 
Gothel returns her to the tower, and despite becoming gravely injured, 
selflessly rejects the chance to be healed, cutting Rapunzel’s hair off to 
dissuade Gothel’s malevolent interest (causing the shocked harridan 
to fall to her death from the window). In a rare point of fidelity to the 
original story, Rapunzel’s tears also have healing properties, enabling 
Eugene’s recovery, and he oversees her reunion with her parents and 
closes the film by telling us they lived happily ever after. Much like the 
‘Snow White’ remakes that followed, an evil female is destroyed while a 
hero of dubious moral character is improved by his relationship with 
a kind-hearted and courageous heroine. 
The same plot is reworked in