Fairy Tale and Film

Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 
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Many folklorists contend that tales play out Oedipal dramas in their 
emphasis on family conflicts, yet it is not simply dealing with parental 
conflicts that characterises the main narrative action, but leaving home 
and forming relationships with others. The tale type commonly referred 
to as ‘The Animal Groom’ (ATU 425A) cycle has been praised by Bruno 
Bettelheim (1977) as a means of discussing – and overcoming – fears of 
sexual intimacy, while others (such as Warner and Tatar) have looked 
more closely at gender roles in such narratives. Typically, a male figure 
is placed under a curse that transforms him into a beast, requiring 
a gesture of female devotion to regain his humanity. Related tales ask a 
sister to reverse such a curse by a degree of debasement and fortitude, 
yet the ‘Animal Groom’ tale explicitly romanticises the plot in demand-
ing a stranger’s love. ‘The Frog King’ (ATU 440) is one of the best-known 
examples, yet what is curious about this particular tale is that it is not 
a kiss (in its original version) that turns an enchanted frog back to 
human form, but a gesture of rage, the princess throwing him against 
her bedroom wall when she tires of his demands.
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Having retrieved her 
golden ball she agrees to be his ‘friend’, yet baulks at allowing her loath-
some helper to share such intimacies as eating from the same plate and 
sleeping on her pillow, and shows her true feelings once they’re behind 
closed doors. As many have noted, the story has features of a bawdy 
tale (particularly in occurring in the bedroom where the young couple 
have no chaperone!) yet while folklorists tend to interpret the tale as 
one of sexual initiation unconvincingly transformed into a treatise on 
the importance of keeping your word, it is equally pertinent as a tale of 
a humbled heroine. The princess is a haughty figure, believing she does 
not need to show appreciation for another’s kindness, and clearly feels 
superior to the frog. She learns a lesson in humility by complying with 
his demands – at her father’s odd insistence – and wins herself a part-
ner as a result. As Tatar affirms, vanity and pride are foremost among 
‘the cardinal sins of women in folk tales. These vices make for the strong 
will (familiar enough to us from fairy tales about children) that must 
be broken before a woman is sufficiently obedient to qualify for matri-
mony’ (1992: 103). The father’s role in ensuring his daughter’s compli-
ance is pertinent in this respect (as is the fact that a kiss has popularly 
been substituted with the original act of rage), and the beast’s adoption 
of human form (a handsome prince no less) rewards the heroine for 
overcoming her initial revulsion.
‘Beauty and the Beast’ (ATU 425C) provides another familiar variant on 
this tale of daughterly devotion and romantic transformation, although 
we might note that other versions have far less idealised results.
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34 
Fairy Tale and Film
In the best-known, most feel-good version, written in the seventeenth 
century by Mme de Beaumont, a merchant, having lost his fortune, 
elicits the wrath of a beastly figure, appeasing him with what seems to 
be a scandalous agreement. Having taken avail of his host’s hospitality 
by spending a night at his home and enjoying a good meal, he foolishly 
steals a rose for his favourite daughter, consequently condemning her to 
the Beast in exchange for his life. The family’s impoverished financial 
circumstances, and the daughter’s lack of choice about her situation, 
affirm Tatar’s point that such tales reflect the reality of arranged mar-
riages at the time. ‘In agreeing to marry a suitor chosen by her parents 
a young woman could bring prosperity and honor to her family ... but 
arranged marriages had an obviously disagreeable side to them. The 
woman who was to make such a match had every right to feel fright-
ened by an alliance of such sudden intimacy with a stranger; hence 
it is no wonder that fairy tales turn the grooms of these unions into 
beasts’ (1992: 141). The fact that the daughter turns the situation to her 
advantage – overlooking the Beast’s appearance and locating finer 
qualities within – suggests Beaumont intended her tale as a means of 
dispelling fears about marrying a stranger. Although she experienced 
an unhappy arranged marriage (which she ran away from), her tales 
were primarily informed by her job as a governess, leading Warner to 
conclude that her main purpose was ‘preparing her charges for ... wifely 
duty, readying them to find the male spouse a beast at first, but, beneath 
the rough and uncivilised exterior, a good man’ (1995: 294).
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Cinematic adaptations have sought to find novel ways to set up 
a similar scenario.