Fairy Tale and Film

Postmodern Revisions 
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questionable objectives. Her aim of being the first company to secure 
trade with China may be intended to prove how much she has inher-
ited her father’s unfettered imagination yet has been criticised for its 
Imperialist overtones (appearing woefully negligent of Britain’s role in 
the opium wars), and while the point is to create an opportunity to 
escape a cloistered society that fails to value our eccentric heroine, evad-
ing the usual romantic denouement, its good intentions are undone by 
shaky colonial aims, as well as the parallel drawn between an evil queen 
and a mother who has no consideration for her daughter’s happiness. 
A spin-off series, 
Once Upon a Time
in Wonderland
(ABC 2013–14), plays 
even more dramatically with Carroll’s creation in a move that might be 
regarded as further consolidating the Disney Corporation’s ‘ownership’ 
and appropriation of fairy tales. However, far from simply affirming 
their reputation as a ‘paratext’, we might consider some other recent 
films that dramatically rework classic tales yet also affirm themselves as 
innovative rule-breakers.
Frozen
(Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, 2013) takes issue with a number 
of common Disney criticisms, particularly the vilification of a power-
ful woman. A radical rewrite of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Snow 
Queen’ (1845), the film redeems a former villain and allows its queen to 
ascend the throne without a consort, focusing on the love between two 
sisters as the most important relationship featured, while a suggested 
love interest is exposed as duplicitous and dangerous. Admittedly, the 
result is such a loose interpretation of Andersen’s tale it scarcely seems 
to warrant any connection, yet its positive intentions might nonethe-
less be applauded. As its producer, Peter Del Vecho, states in comparison 
to its source ‘“inspired by” means exactly that. There is snow and there 
is ice and there is a queen, but other than that we depart from it quite a 
bit’, aiming to tell the story ‘in a way that we can understand the char-
acters and relate to them’ (Connelly, 2013).
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The fact that its female 
co-director was responsible for the script has been widely credited for 
giving the story an unconventional female spin, reconnecting two 
estranged sisters, and resulting in perhaps one of the most widely seen 
films to pass Sweden’s Bechdel Test. (Developed in 1985 as a means of 
detecting gender bias in cinema, in order to pass, a film must have more 
than one named female character and they must have a conversation 
about something other than a man.) As Jennifer Lee states proudly of 
Frozen
, ‘We definitely pass’ (qtd in Gee, 2013), and it is sobering to think 
that this is so remarkable, particularly for a high-grossing film – and 
especially one made by Disney. As Catherine Gee notes, ‘Many Disney 
(and Pixar) films do not pass this test, and even those that do tend 

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160 
Fairy Tale and Film
to do so by pitting a female heroine against a thoroughly evil female 
villain, rather than having the two be sidekicks or friends’ (2013). 
The difference is acknowledged by co-director Chris Buck, who states 
that ‘When it comes to certain things earlier princesses may have done, 
I think Disney has grown up a bit’ (2013). Where Andersen offered no 
explanation for his villain (who kidnaps the heroine’s best friend after 
turning his heart to ice) – a failing 
Winter Witch
(David Wu, 2012)
 
sim-
ply repeats – 
Frozen
provides a context that redeems the queen, without 
removing her power or placing her in thrall to a man. Although purists 
may balk at such a radical revision, in seeking to provide a rewrite that 
modern (especially female) audiences can engage with – and earning 
considerable approval – the film proves that interesting innovations can 
be found in the most surprising of places, reiterating a need to dispense 
with jaded assumptions.