Metamorphosis: The Dynamics of Symbolism in European Fairy Tales (review)

Jorgensen, Jeana

doi:10.1353/mat.2004.0041

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“…This sense of surprise is a displacement of the liveaction Cinderella's slow growth towards acknowledging her own power -which is given her as a mantra by her dying mother: 'Have courage, and be kind. ' Jorgensen (2007) points out that fairy godmothers are rare in oral folktale, and that Disney's 'Cinderella' is the main reason that readers think otherwise. The 2015 Fairy Godmother's first appearance, however, is as an old woman in rags with bad teeth and in need of a bath, whom Cinderella encounters when she goes out into the garden in tears at being denied a final chance to go to the ball.…”

Section: Soletras -Revista Domentioning

confidence: 99%

‘“Be the One that Rescues You”: Contexts for the Construction of Agency in Kenneth Branagh’s “Cinderella”’

Macleod¹

2017

SOL

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Disney's 1950 animated feature 'Cinderella' remains one of the studio's most successful properties. So widespread is its popularity that students are often surprised to learn that the narrative is not original, but an adaptation of Basile's 'La Gatta Cenerentola' (1634), Perrault's 'Cendrillon' (1697), 'Aschenputtel' by the Brothers Grimm (1812) and other source texts, although as Ohmer (1993) points out, only Perrault is credited. Alarm at the significance of this cultural amnesia is a major factor in Zipes's frequent railing against Disney's appropriation of traditional fairy tales . Bacchilega (2013), however, argues that rather than focus on what is absent from Disney's texts, it would be more constructive to unpack the cultural values embedded in contemporary adaptations. This article therefore explores some of the contexts for understanding the most recent of Disney's adaptations of the Cinderella story in Kenneth Branagh's 2015 live-action film by comparing its construction of agency with that of the 1950 text.Keywords: Cinderella, Disney, adaptation, Branagh, Perrault, Zipes, Bacchilega While scholars agree that 'Cinderella' is the most widely known and best loved of all fairy tales, the difference between the number of variant written texts they estimate is astonishing. Saxby (1979) mentions the figure 600, De Vos and Altmann (1999) 'more than 700', and Heiner (2012) says there are 'well over 1000 with a conservative estimate of over twice that…recorded.' The range itself -particularly that cited by Heiner -is instructive.How few of the tropes can be present for a narrative to be recognised as a variant of 'Cinderella'? Limiting his estimate to the medium of film, Zipes (2016, 361) agrees that 'Cinderella' is the most popular of fairy tales and refers to 'over 130' film adaptations. How broadly he interprets 'film' is not clear, but the 'over' presumably suggests that the number would increase significantly if it included short television and internet parodies and narratives where Cinderella tropes were present but not explicit, for example in 'reality' television shows such as 'The Bachelor' and 'Married at First Sight'. Why, then, would Walt Disney

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Section: Soletras -Revista Domentioning

confidence: 99%

‘“Be the One that Rescues You”: Contexts for the Construction of Agency in Kenneth Branagh’s “Cinderella”’

Macleod¹

2017

SOL

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Metamorphosis: The Dynamics of Symbolism in European Fairy Tales (review)

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

‘“Be the One that Rescues You”: Contexts for the Construction of Agency in Kenneth Branagh’s “Cinderella”’

‘“Be the One that Rescues You”: Contexts for the Construction of Agency in Kenneth Branagh’s “Cinderella”’

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