Upon a dream once more: beauty redacted in Disney's readapted classics

Craven, Allison

Abstract

[Extract] The dream of feminine beauty in Disney's classic animated feature films defines the heroines of Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and their prototype in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Icons of innocence, these portrayals of femininity offer embellishments on the historical source tales by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. From the late 1980s, as WDC entered its period of vast corporate expansion,1 a new range of fairy tales and heroines emerged. Feistier and apparently more in tune with this era's postfeminist culture, Belle of Beauty and the Beast, in particular, was received as a far more progressive heroine,2 or at least a change in the Disney "ideal."3 In the twenty-first century, Disney has again refreshed assumptions about its heroines, in some cases with parodic reworkings of earlier adaptations. These productions include Maleficent (2014), a backstory to Sleeping Beauty; a live-action production of Cinderella (2015) that readapts the earlier animated film; and a live-action version of Beauty and the Beast, currently in production.

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Debating Disney: pedagogical perspectives on commercial cinema

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978-1-4422-6608-7

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Rowman and Littlefield

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Lanham, MA, USA

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