What I Mean by Fairy Tale Disney
A lot of people look to fairy tales as a blue print for storytelling. Maybe one day, I will find my voice in fairy tales. I would like to do so since I have studied fairy tales in both undergrad and grad school. If I do, I will look to the older versions of the tales. But fairy tales are best known through Disney. My post this time will be on the evolution of Disney's fairy tales, coinciding with shifting cultural ideals. I may yet gather ideas for my own adaptations by studying theirs. I will focus on fairy tale versions, skipping sequels and animal-centered yarns. For this reason, I won't study Alice in Wonderland, Black Cauldron, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, or Peter Pan because they adapt books not actual fairy or folk tales. Some of the same principles can apply to these films. I will look at the fairy or folk tale adaptations in three sets, the earliest set from the 1930's-50's, the 1980's-90's set, and the Pixar or latest set.
First Set
If you'll notice, the first three fairy tale adaptations--"Snow White," "Cinderella," and "Sleeping Beauty"---tell essentially the same story. The princesses live with mother figures who make them live like peasants, doing manual labor. This mother-based or matriarchal order is, for the most part, presented as unfortunate or less than ideal. The ideal for all three is to rejoin the patriarchal or father-based order in which the father of the prince wants his son to give him grandchildren through marriage. The princes tend to get less characterization than even the princesses, who are primarily viewed as the ideal of the day, beautiful and docile. They are perfect and two-dimensional. Because the princesses are the ideal woman, magical creatures help them achieve the culturally acceptable dream of marriage to the prince. The princess has little to do with her own happily ever after. If I were to adapt any of these tales into fictional form, the Disney versions would be useless to me because the ideals have changed so drastically since those times and docility does not make for a very interesting character trait in a modern princess figure. In fact, it runs contrary to the modern ideal woman.
Middle Set:
Decades passed without a real Disney fairy tale adaptation. By the time Disney restarted their fairy tale versions, it was late 1980s, early 1990s, and ideals had changed considerably. These tales would be more fruitful to study for ideas for a modern adaptation. The strength of the patriarchal connection and ideal was weakened by that point. Kings no longer appear in the films to demand grandchildren. Furthermore, the prince figure no longer has to be an actual prince. They just have to conform to the masculine ideal of noble, muscular, heroic, self-sacrificing, charming, often wealthy, and kind. It's more or less the same ideal as in earlier versions but allows for more character and variety. Prince Eric from "The Little Mermaid," Belle's Beast, and the title character of Hercules [not based on a fairy tale, but still based on Greek folklore] are all technical princes, though Aladdin and Mulan's [once again, based on folklore, not fairy tale] Captain Li Shang are not. Regardless of their profession, they conform to the heroic ideal. This is where the centralization of the prince starts to slip some since suddenly, not all princes have to be actual aristocracy.
Women's ideals for themselves have shifted not just in the culture but in women themselves. Not every one of the female protagonists fantasize about becoming part of the man's world as Ariel does. Ariel could easily be compared in terms of plot line to the earlier set, though she has far more character and is rebellious against the patriarchal order. As with the earlier set, she very quickly fantasizes only of becoming Prince Erik's bride. Other main characters have different goals. Belle dreams of adventure, Jasmine wants to escape the bonds of aristocracy, Mulan seeks to save her father, and Hercules's Meg tries to free herself from involuntary servitude. These female characters, princess or otherwise, have dreams that do not include fantasizing about how "Someday, my prince will come." This middle set is a more useful prototype for a modern character. Most of the time, the prince figure is tacked on as an afterthought or a means to an end.
As part of this, the center of control starts to shift. No longer is the man solely capable of choosing the woman. In many cases, the man makes the advances--as in Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hercules, and Mulan--but the woman can and often does turn him down at first. Jasmine is the princess and the only one in the relationship capable of having the power to choose. Belle has the power to simply walk away but chooses to return. Ariel actively pursues her prince rather than waiting for him to come to her. Love for these characters is suddenly a choice, not a compulsion, a two-way street. It is no longer an easy matter of leaving the negative influence of a woman's house and going to the idealized home of the man. A man is not always the rescuer, or actor, but can be the rescued, or acted upon. The prince as the heroic center of the tale about which the woman's desires and choices revolve, has slipped and become somewhat off-center.
Pixar Set:
With the latest set, prince characters no longer have to be princely or even worthy. In the middle set of fairy or folk tale movies, the woman still ends up with the man across the board. The man is still princely and usually makes the advances toward the woman in the first place. These versions have taken steps away from the original ideal of a prince-centered world but not as many as one might first suppose. This does not make them in any way bad or necessarily inferior, but it just shows a step along the way to where the tales are now.
One might class "Enchanted" with the third set because it was intended to be the first of the latest princess tales, though it was not a Pixar team movie. It makes reference to the basic plot of the first three, with a girl immediately swept off her feet by a prince. Now, the fairy tale in "Enchanted" seems to be formulated from those earlier movies and was fabricated for this story, but it blazes the pathway for the tales that follow. In it, the princess figure becomes more complicated, more modern, and rejects the simple, two dimensional prince that appeals to her in the beginning. Instead, she turns to a modern man who is not perfectly princely. She begins with the desire to marry a prince, and ends up married but not to a prince. We take yet another step on the pathway to decentralizing the prince, yet the tale is still man-centered in the end. This could be an interesting study, however, for ideas about adapting fairy tales for a modern audience.
It was at this time Pixar was acquired by Disney and was given reigns over Disney animation. I will, therefore, use both Pixar and Disney movies interchangeably since they are all made by the same parties. The first truly Pixar-run fairy tale movie is "The Princess and the Frog." There is a prince, and they do end up together. But as with the middle set, Tiana at first has no desires to get married. She's much like Belle but to more of an extreme. Her dreams circle around her career, and her romance can only begin when not one of them but when both of them become beasts, equals on the same playing field. Class differences become, thereby, meaningless. It is very much like the middle set in terms of ideals and gender relations except that the prince is a selfish egotist, poor, and unprincely. If anything, the prince is most like Gaston, Belle's villain. This is the main shift from the middle set. In the latest set, the ideal of perfection for both male and females is discarded.
"Brave" shifts again with yet another original fairy tale in which the only princes are unworthy of the main character. They are not charming nor her equals in any way. She becomes her own champion, her own best match, able to complete herself. The only love story centers on the relationship between Merida and her mother. There is a father, but the center of power is clearly in the realm of the women. The father defers to the mother when it comes to authority, and women are at the center of the story. This movie is one of the most extreme cases of the decentralization of prince charming. The prince has become a footnote to the woman's story.
"Tangled" brings the central male back, yet he is still anything but prince charming. He is a thief, like Aladdin, but selfish and egocentric like the prince from "Princess and the Frog." He isn't even a diamond in the rough. He is the rough. Meanwhile, Rapunzel has been the victim of abuse for most of her life and is emotionally damaged. Neither is perfect. At the same time, the movie reintroduces romance. Yet the one with the upper hand, the one with the power in the relationship is Rapunzel. In some ways, it's also like the middle set in its romantic storyline, yet in its imperfect characters, particularly the male figure, it departs significantly.
"Frozen" expands on the cultural shifts of previous movies. It offers both the pathway to romance as in most of the other modern versions and a pathway to power, independent of masculine influence. The locus of power, both political and magical, starts with both mother and father and is passed to Elsa alone. The pathway to romance offers possibly the most striking shift for the prince yet. While Elsa has and needs no romantic options, Princess Anna has two. Like Belle before her, she is presented with one man who is handsome and charming and another who is more at home with the beasts. But in this case, she falls for the wrong one, one who appears to be the perfect Prince Charming but yet turns out to be a murderous usurper and traitor. Prince Charming is not just imperfect but villainous. He is far from ideal in the end, but her other option, Kristoff, a blue collar worker with hygienic and social issues, is also not the princely ideal. Yet of the two, he conforms to the current social ideal, the average guy. The prince has thoroughly been pushed out of his traditional place at the center of the narrative, especially when he's banished and made to do manual labor. One may be tempted to say his place has been taken by another man, but that's not really the case, either. The true central love story full of acts of heroic self-sacrifice does not involve him but centers on the sisters. The romance is a side note and inessential. This movie respects the idea that there are multiple pathways for a woman, and some of them may include mistakes and independence. The ideal of perfection for male and female have disappeared. All of this allows for the possibility of female power, shared power, and choice.
Conclusion:
All of these newer movies would make for an interesting study of how to adapt a fairy tale to modern fiction in a way that would appeal to and be meaningful for modern audiences. In the earlier adaptations, male characters hold all choice, most power, and almost all responsibility to act. In the newer ones, more possibilities present themselves for men and women. The ideal of perfection gives way to uniqueness and fallibility. For me, the newer ones are the far more interesting ones and much more useful as I look to create my own adaptations.
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