Fairy Tale and Film

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)

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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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