Happiness 2.0:
Empowered Fairytale Heroines Reinvent Happily-Ever-After
Lisa Ortiz
Sheila M. Rucki
Abstract
Traditional folk and fairytales have been a barometer defining gender roles, social values,
behavioral norms, and preconceived constructs of happiness. Through fairytales, young
children learn about their social and cultural heritage and build their “cultural capital” i.
However, the fairytale discourse was intended to socialize children by modeling genderspecific identities and behaviorsii. With blooming flowers, anthropomorphized wildlife,
and dainty female lead characters, Walt Disney’s early recreation of the sanitized
fairytale also indoctrinates children early. A virtuous girl’s happy-ending is provided
externally; either a handsome prince or a generous fairy rewards beauty and obedience
above all.
The conference presentation is a collection of still images and short video clips which
illustrate contemporary examples of traditional female fairytale characters rebooting their
storylines, battling their individual villains, rescuing themselves, and forging their own
path towards liberation and happiness. The media analysis and discussion reflects the
growth of gender equality in Western society and the emancipation of the fairytale
heroine.
Key Words: Fairytales, Brothers Grimm, Snow White, Princess Fiona, feminism, folk
tales, media analysis, heroine.
*****
1. Introduction
The two classic folk tales examined in this paper and accompanying media analysis,
“Hansel and Gretel” and “Snow White,” both share a point of origin, as well as similar
transformation into the modern age. The third case study features a contemporary new
fairytale heroine, Princess Fiona, who transforms from the archetypal “Maiden in the
Tower”iii to empowered heroine inspiring change in the other Disney princesses.
The first edition, volumes I and II of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and
Household Tales), published in 1812/1815, contain the original stories cultivated by
folklorists Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. This early collection of stories evolved from the
oral traditions of European peasants, craftsman, ministers, teachers, middle-class women,
and aristocrats as well as existing literary sourcesiv. Primary contributors to the story
collection were German spinners, women who gathered communally to spin fleece and
share the oral traditions of their regionv as a means of entertainment and bonding.
The six subsequent editions of Kinder- und Hausmärchen resulted in progressively
more embellished and often sanitized revisions of the stories. The seventh and final
edition, published in 1857, was considered the definitive work. The editorial
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Happiness 2.0: Empowered Fairytale Heroines Reinvent Happily-Ever-After
interventions and rewrites by Wilhelm over the years made the collection more appealing
to a larger audience, including parents and children, reflecting compatible views of a
middle-class audiencevi. Ideological control is significant when it comes to young
children’s literature because dominant, generally male voices reinforce and naturalize
views into the mainstreamvii.
The commercially successful updates to the stories continued to perpetuate the
Christian, patriarchal values of the 19th century Germanic cultureviii, as well as
represented the puritanical ideology and artistic preferences of the Brothers Grimmix. For
example, in the stories of both “Snow White” and “Hansel and Gretel,” the biological
mother is the one abusing and abandoning her children. By the 1819 revision, the
biological mother was replaced with an ‘evil stepmother,’ reflecting the Grimm’s
personal feelings holding motherhood sacredx. Fairytale scholars have also examined the
Grimm’s bi-polar view of women including variations of the demonizing older woman,
evil queen, unloving mother figure competing with the young, virginal, and obedient
daughter figurexi.
2. Hansel and Gretel: Abandoned Child to Empowered Warrior
As originally published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, “Hansel and Gretel” is the
tale of an impoverished family in rural Germany. At their mother’s insistence, to
conserve resources, the two young children are abandoned in the forest by their parents
and left to die. Hansel cleverly leaves a trail of glistening pebbles and the children return
home. Again, their domineering mother insists that they be abandoned deeper in the
woods. Hansel leaves another trail, but in haste, the second trail is of breadcrumbs. Forest
creatures eat the breadcrumbs and the children remain lost in the woods. Trying to escape
the forest, the starving children encounter a witch who lives in a house made entirely of
bread, cakes, candy, and other tempting sweets. The witch captures the children with the
intention of eating them. While Hansel has been caged for ‘fattening,’ Gretel serves as
the witch’s slave until the opportunity arises to kill the witch. Preparing the large oven to
cook Hansel, Gretel tricks the witch and locks her inside the oven, roasting her alive.
Once the witch is dead, the children return home with the witch’s abundant treasure to
find that their mother has died. Without explanation or apology, their father eagerly
accepts the children back into the home. The perspective of the storyteller in folk and
fairy tales is generally an adult and in tales including child abuse and/or child
abandonment, the adults are not held accountablexii.
In the 2013 film update of the story, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Huntersxiii, the
protagonists are grown and combative adults. No longer are Hansel and Gretel in grave
danger from a menacing witch; the pair’s occupation and the film’s primary plot device is
that they hunt down and kill witches in a faux-medieval dystopia. The movie builds on
the original motifs of parental abandonment, sibling bonding, and the edible house of
candy hidden deep in a forest, but the contemporary protagonists are sleek and aggressive
bounty hunters of witches. Gretel, the lead female character no longer depends on her
brother to care for her or comfort her, but is his equal partner. While the siblings were
abandoned by their father, mirroring the original story, they become orphaned before they
confront him about the abandonment.
Lisa Ortiz and Sheila M. Rucki
3. Snow White: Innocence Becomes Empowerment
The discourse of Snow White, persecuted for her youth and beauty, has been retold
and re-enacted countless times through the generations, in virtually every media format.
Underlying themes expose universal human conditions present in every culture, ranging
from innocence and virtue, vanity, aging, jealousy, patriarchal control, and elusive beauty
standards to the complex relationships between women, specifically mothers and
daughtersxiv. The brief discussion will be limited to three milestone adaptations: the
inaugural published story, Walt Disney’s first animated feature film, and a modernized
cinematic remake. Each chronological example shows Snow White aging more into the
foreground of her narrative, rivaling in importance to the seductive relationship between
the archetypal evil queen and her patriarchal magic mirror, which has been researched at
length. With each retelling, Snow White becomes increasingly more emancipated as
audiences continue to expect fairy tales to represent current cultural norms including
feminism and updated gender politics.
The original tale of “Little Snow White” was included in the Grimm’s 1812, first
edition Kinder- und Hausmärchen. This literary version is the most gruesome and
emphasizes the cruel narcissism of Snow White’s birth mother, who out of jealousy of
her daughter’s emerging beauty summons a huntsman to murder the child when she is
seven years old. The queen’s plot to murder the Princess Snow White continues
throughout the story.
“Take the child out into the forest to a spot far from here. Then stab her to death
and bring me back her lungs and liver as proof of your deed. After that I’ll cook
them with salt and eat them,” the queen tells the huntsmanxv.
The huntsman showing mercy for the young girl releases her in the forest and delivers
the organs of a wild boar to the Evil Queen. Meanwhile, a group of working-class dwarfs,
offer Snow White safety in exchange for her domestic servitude.
“If you’ll keep house for us, cook, sew, make the beds, wash, and knit… you can
stay with us and we’ll provide you with everything you need. When we come
home in the evening, dinner must be ready”xvi.
Obsessed with the beauty rhetoric of her magic mirror, the Evil Queen continues to
try to murder Snow White. With the third murder attempt, Snow White succumbs to a
poisoned apple. Believing she is dead, the dwarfs display Snow White’s lifeless body in a
glass coffin. A prince passing through the region falls in love with Snow White on sight
and
“asks the dwarfs to sell him the coffin with the dead Little Snow White inside …
because he couldn’t live without gazing upon her, and he would honor her and
hold her in high regard as his most beloved in the world”xvii.
Rather than sell Snow White to the prince, the dwarfs give her away, pitying the prince’s
obsession with the girl, as if falling in love with a dead child is accepted as natural. While
in the prince’s possession, Snow While is jostled by one of the prince’s servants and the
poisoned apple piece releases from her throat, breaking the curse and waking her. Upon
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Happiness 2.0: Empowered Fairytale Heroines Reinvent Happily-Ever-After
waking, Snow White agrees to marry the prince the next day. At the story’s conclusion,
the Evil Queen attends Snow White’s wedding to the prince and is forced to dance in redhot, iron shoes until she is burned to deathxviii.
The second pivotal example of the Snow White legacy is Walt Disney’s first, featurelength animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), produced specifically for
children and families. This breakthrough film set the visual standard for what we will
forever symbolize as Snow White, the first and youngest ‘Disney Princess’. Disney
recreated the discourse of Snow White into a “sentimental love story and musical
promoting industriousness and innocence”xix.
In this animated version, the evil queen has been reintroduced as Snow White’s
stepmother. Snow White herself has been aged from a seven year old child to a young
teenaged girl. This Snow White participates in the storyline, by talking and singing her
way through the narrative, rather than portraying the obedient, child-decoration from the
inaugural Grimm version. The story introduces Snow White while she is singing into a
well, “wishing for the one I love, to find me today”xx. It is evident that she already
understands that her main purpose is to secure a husband. She later sings her iconic
anthem, “Some day, my prince will come…” and while cleaning the dwarfs cottage, she
sings, “whistle while you work”xxi. Throughout the tale, we see Snow White dependent
on the animals in the forest to rescue her after the huntsman releases her. Then we see her
care for the benevolent and adoring dwarfs who take her in. The prince falls in love with
Snow White while she is alive eliminating the previous overtones of necrophilia
presented in the earlier Grimm renditionxxii. Finally, we see Snow White ride into the
proverbial sunset with her prince.
By contrast, the latest large screen adaptation is the 2012 Hollywood blockbuster,
Snow White and the Huntsman. Sharing the lead role with the evil queen and the
huntsman, this Snow White displays a depth of character and fierce determination never
previously explored onscreen. Snow White has been aged several years and “was adored
throughout the kingdom for her defiant spirit, as well as her beauty”xxiii. After the
treacherous death of her father the king, Snow White is imprisoned by her new
stepmother, Ravenna, the updated evil queen. When she comes of age, circumstances
allow Snow White to rescue herself and escape the castle on her own. She later befriends
the huntsman, who has been hired by the queen to murder her. Like the previous Snow
Whites before her, she observes and communicates with birds, animals, and beasts,
although not through song. Her list of allies grows to include the huntsman, the dwarfs,
and a childhood friend who happens to be Prince William from the next kingdom. Snow
White transforms from a teen prisoner to a leader, fighting like a warrior and saving local
villagers, as well as the huntsman along the way. Interestingly, when Snow White
succumbs to the curse of a poisonous apple from Ravenna, it is the kiss of the huntsman,
rather than Prince William, that breaks the curse and wakens her. The seven dwarfs,
while included in the film’s plot, fulfill a minimal role of comic relief and familiarity to
the original story.
The story concludes with Snow White killing the evil Ravenna and regaining the
crown of her kingdom. The film’s writer and director chose not to end the film with
Snow White marrying either the huntsman or Prince William, “this Snow White has to
remain a lone heroine, a role model for the independent woman – at times in full
Lisa Ortiz and Sheila M. Rucki
armor”xxiv. This contemporary Snow White has been represented as a liberated woman,
free to construct her own happily-ever-after, sans a prince.
4. Princess Fiona Redefines Beauty Standards
DreamWorks Studio broke the fairytale mold with the animated film Shrek in 2001.
The Shrek franchise is a modern day mash up of all the traditional fairytale characters
interwoven into fresh experiences by clever writing and impressive animation. The
series’ protagonist, Shrek is a gnarly, green swamp ogre tasked with rescuing the fair
damsel Princess Fiona, who is imprisoned by her parents in a clichéd tower far, far away.
When we meet Princess Fiona, she is exactly as Shrek expects a traditional Princess to be
– beautiful and petite, demanding, and impatiently waiting to be rescued. Fiona has a
defined preconception of the roles of the beautiful princess and her “Prince Charming”
rescuer. Fiona also has a secret; she is under a witch’s curse and needs “true love’s kiss”
to break the curse and ensure her beauty. As the film progresses we learn that Fiona has a
sharp wit and is a superhero martial artist who rescues Shrek and their sidekick Donkey,
more than once. Throughout their animated antics, Shrek and Fiona fall in love. When
her secret of being an ogress is finally revealed to Shrek, they kiss and the curse of
conventional beauty is finally brokenxxv. She happily remains an ogress and marries
Shrek.
Fiona is the epitome of a 21st century fairy tale heroine; she is smart, resourceful, and
in control of her destiny. Over the course of the four Shrek films, Fiona consistently
creates her own happily-ever-after. She chooses to live as an ogress in a swamp rather
than as a beautiful princess in a castle. In the Shrek 2xxvi, Fiona and Shrek are both
temporarily transformed into conventionally beautiful human forms after drinking
‘Happily Ever After’ potion. Rather than make the change permanent, Fiona chooses for
her and Shrek to return to their more comfortable ogre selves back in the swamp. In
Shrek the Thirdxxvii, Fiona finds herself acting as temporary queen of Far, Far Away,
when her father the king takes ill. The story’s antagonist Prince Charming invades the
land with the intention of taking the kingdom and imprisons Fiona. Fiona organizes a
resistance of her friends, other fairytale princesses, to fight back. Cinderella, Snow
White, Sleeping Beauty, and a transgender stepsister, all join Fiona and her mom in
escaping prison and saving the kingdom from the evil Prince Charming. Fiona gives an
impassioned speech about not waiting to be rescued and shows the other princesses how
to be independent. It is clear from the beginning of the film series that Fiona refuses
patriarchal control and is determined to maintain her autonomy.
5. Conclusion
By examining the literary evolution and media interpretations of Hansel and Gretel
and Snow White, as well as the introduction of Princess Fiona, we have demonstrated
how the fairytale continues to reflect the ever-changing values of its audience.
Specifically, the cultural effects of feminism have liberated classic heroines and
introduced new ones. Empowered values of strength, intelligence, and athleticism have
replaced the previous female ideology of passive obedience and unrelenting beauty. In
current Western society, the status of hegemonic masculinity has become open to
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Happiness 2.0: Empowered Fairytale Heroines Reinvent Happily-Ever-After
challengexxviii and through entertainment media geared toward children, traditional gender
roles are being challenged and subverted.
Notes
Bibliography
Haase, Donald. “Feminist Fairy Tale Scholarship.” In Fairy Tales and Feminism: New
Approaches, edited by Donald Haase, xx-xx. Detroit: Wayne State University Press,
2004.
Haase, Donald. “Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship: A Critical Survey and Bibliography.”
Marvels & Tales 14, no. 1 Fairy Tale Liberation – Thirty Years Later (2000): 15-63.
Accessed January 18, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41380741.
Joosen, Vanessa. “Feminist Criticism and the Fairy Tale – The Emancipation of ‘Snow
White’ in Fairy-tale Criticism and Fairy-Tale Retellings.” New Review of Children’s
Literature and Librarianship 10:1, (2006): 5-14. Accessed January 18, 2016. DOI:
10.1080/136145404200029409.
Neikirk, Alice. “ ‘…Happily Ever After’ (or What Fairytales Teach Girls About Being
Women).” HoHoNu – Journal of Academic Writing 7 (2009): 38-42. Accessed February
5, 2016. http://hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/Volume_7.php.
Preston, Cathy. “Disrupting the Boundaries of Genre and Gender: Postmodernism and the
Fairy Tale.” In Fairy Tales and Feminism: New Approaches, edited by Donald Haase,
xx-xx. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004.
Smith, Angela. “Letting Down Rapunzel: Feminism’s Effect on Fairy Tales.” Children’s
Literature in Education 46 (2015): 424-437. Accessed January 18, 2016. DOI
10.1007/s10583-014-9239-6.
Warner, Marina. Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. United Kingdom:
Oxford University Press, 2014.
Zipes, Jack. The Complete First Edition - The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimm. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014.
Zipes, Jack. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre.
New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2012.
Zipes, Jack. The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy Tale Films. New
York: Routeledge, 2011.
Lisa Ortiz and Sheila M. Rucki
Presentation Filmography
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Directed by Tommy Wirkola. 2013. United States:
Paramount Pictures. DVD.
Nine to Five. Directed by Collin Higgins. 1980. United States: Twentieth Century Fox
Film Corporation. DVD.
Snow White and the Huntsman. Directed by Rupert Sanders. 2012. Unites States:
Universal Pictures. DVD.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Produced by Walt Disney. 1937. United States: Walt
Disney Productions. DVD.
Shrek. Produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg. 2001. United States: DreamWorks Animation.
DVD.
Shrek 2. Produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg. 2004. United States: DreamWorks Animation.
DVD.
Shrek the Third. Directed by Chris Miller & Raman Hui. 2007. United States:
DreamWorks Animation. DVD.
Lisa Ortiz is an Associate Professor of technical communication at Metropolitan State
University of Denver. While raising two daughters, her hobbies include photography,
silver-smithing and jewelry design.
Sheila M. Rucki …
Angela Smith, “Letting Down Rapunzel: Feminism’s Effect on Fairy Tales,” Children’s
Literature in Education 46 (2015): 426, accessed January 18, 2016, DOI
10.1007/s10583-014-9239-6.
i
Donald Haase, “Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship: A Critical Survey and Bibliography,”
Marvels & Tales 14, no. 1 Fairy Tale Liberation – Thirty Years Later (2000): 24,
accessed January 18, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41380741.
ii
Angela Smith, “Letting Down Rapunzel: Feminism’s Effect on Fairy Tales,”
Children’s Literature in Education 46 (2015): 425, accessed January 18, 2016, DOI
10.1007/s10583-014-9239-6.
iii
iv
Jack Zipes, The Complete First Edition - The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimm (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014), xxxiv. and Donald
Haase, “Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship: A Critical Survey and Bibliography,” Marvels
& Tales 14, no. 1 Fairy Tale Liberation – Thirty Years Later (2000): 27, accessed
7
8
Happiness 2.0: Empowered Fairytale Heroines Reinvent Happily-Ever-After
January 18, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41380741.
Alice Neikirk, “ ‘…Happily Ever After’ (or What Fairytales Teach Girls About Being
Women),” HoHoNu – Journal of Academic Writing 7 (2009): xx, accessed February 5,
2016. http://hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/Volume_7.php.
v
Angela Smith, “Letting Down Rapunzel: Feminism’s Effect on Fairy Tales,”
Children’s Literature in Education 46 (2015): 424, accessed January 18, 2016, DOI
10.1007/s10583-014-9239-6. and Donald Haase, “Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship: A
Critical Survey and Bibliography,” Marvels & Tales 14, no. 1 Fairy Tale Liberation –
Thirty Years Later (2000): 27, accessed January 18, 2016,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/41380741.
vi
Angela Smith, “Letting Down Rapunzel: Feminism’s Effect on Fairy Tales,”
Children’s Literature in Education 46 (2015): 426, accessed January 18, 2016, DOI
10.1007/s10583-014-9239-6.
vii
Donald Haase, “Feminist Fairy Tale Scholarship,” in Fairy Tales and Feminism: New
Approaches 2004, ed. Donald Haase (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), 360.
and Alice Neikirk, “ ‘…Happily Ever After’ (or What Fairytales Teach Girls About
Being Women),” HoHoNu – Journal of Academic Writing 7 (2009): xx, accessed
February 5, 2016. http://hilo.hawaii.edu/academics/hohonu/Volume_7.php. and Jack
Zipes, The Complete First Edition - The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the Brothers
Grimm (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014), xxxi.
viii
ix
Jack Zipes, The Complete First Edition - The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimm (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014), xxxvii.
x
Jack Zipes, The Complete First Edition - The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimm (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014), xxxviii.
Donald Haase, “Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship: A Critical Survey and Bibliography,”
Marvels & Tales 14, no. 1 Fairy Tale Liberation – Thirty Years Later (2000): 26,
accessed January 18, 2016, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41380741.
xi
xii
Jack Zipes, The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy Tale Films (New
York: Routeledge, 2011), 194.
xiii
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, directed by Tommy Wirkola (2013; United States:
Paramount Pictures), DVD.
xiv
Zipes, 2011, p. 11 Jack Zipes, The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy
Tale Films (New York: Routeledge, 2011), 119.
Lisa Ortiz and Sheila M. Rucki
xv
Jack Zipes, The Complete First Edition - The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimm (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014), 171.
xvi
Jack Zipes, The Complete First Edition - The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimm (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014), 173.
xvii
Jack Zipes, The Complete First Edition - The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimm (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014), 177.
xviii
Jack Zipes, The Complete First Edition - The Original Folk & Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimm (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014), 178.
xix
Jack Zipes, The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy Tale Films (New
York: Routeledge, 2011), 121.
xx
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, produced by Walt Disney (1937; United States:
Walt Disney Productions); DVD.
xxi
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, produced by Walt Disney (1937; United States:
Walt Disney Productions); DVD.
Vanessa Joosen, “Feminist Criticism and the Fairy Tale – The Emancipation of ‘Snow
White’ in Fairy-tale Criticism and Fairy-Tale Retellings,” New Review of Children’s
Literature and Librarianship 10:1, (2006): 13, accessed January 18, 2016. DOI:
10.1080/136145404200029409.
xxii
xxiii
Snow White and the Huntsman, directed by Rupert Sanders (2012; Unites States:
Universal Pictures), DVD.
xxiv
Marina Warner, Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale (United Kingdom:
Oxford University Press, 2014), 169.
xxv
Shrek, produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg (2001; United States: DreamWorks
Animation), DVD.
xxvi
Shrek 2, produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg (2004; United States: DreamWorks
Animation), DVD.
xxvii
Shrek the Third, directed by Chris Miller & Raman Hui (2007; United States:
DreamWorks Animation), DVD.
Angela Smith, “Letting Down Rapunzel: Feminism’s Effect on Fairy Tales,”
Children’s Literature in Education 46 (2015): 427, accessed January 18, 2016, DOI
10.1007/s10583-014-9239-6.
xxviii
9