Methodology
I started thinking about an appropriate topic for my Field Report months ago. I considered the world of Punk culture in Chicago. Then I decided I knew too much already about this so I considered perhaps skateboard culture. At least this way I could learn something that I wasn't familiar with firsthand. But still, I have had a significant amount of exposure to skateboarding so I kept searching. I considered the already approved topics and looked specifically at folklore in fairy tales. I have been a fan of Disney movies since I was little, and other than considering which princess I wished to be like most, I never gave them a second thought. Once I began to think about them, I came up with some conclusions that make my view of Disney, and of fairy tales in general, less than magical.

I concluded that my premise would be that indeed fairy tales are rich with folklore considering their timelessness, oral tradition, and mythical stories full of common themes. However, these motifs go beyond merely romance, adventure, and evil. Included in this list should be the unrealistic standards for female beauty, female dependence on males for identity, female submission, and the idea that women need to be somehow saved by a heroic man.

This research is not intended to prove that fairy tales are themselves evil or dissuade readers from ever watching another Disney re-make. It will instead hopefully encourage viewers to watch with a more critical eye, and in recognizing both the positive and negative folkloric characteristics of the films, change the concept of a fairy tale as a little girl's dream, to what it really is; a fictitious story intended for the entertainment and amusement of children.

Description
I focused on two of the most popular and classic fairy tales; Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. In each story, traditional folkloric characteristics are present as well as the aforementioned sexist ideas.

In the classic tale of Sleeping Beauty, Princess Aurora is born into the royal family and before anything else, she is bestowed the gift of beauty. This is a prime example of the unrealistic standards for female beauty. Aurora has "lips as red as the red red rose," fair skin, blue eyes, long blonde hair, and an impossibly thin figure. This concept seems to be a universal concept for what beauty is among Disney movies and it sends the message that only about 1% of the world's population is beautiful.

In addition to this false concept of beauty, is a dependence on males for the female identity. Aurora is in the woods for 16 years depicted as either cleaning or picking berries for the duration of her time there. Her real life won't begin until she returns home and meets Prince Philip, to whom she is betrothed. She doesn't even assume her real name until this new life begins. The poor peasant, Rose, will become Princess Aurora upon meeting and marrying her prince.

Additionally is the idea of female submission. Aurora doesn't want to marry a prince. She wants to marry the man she met earlier in the forest. Luckily for her, this man turns out to be a prince and is therefore acceptable for her to marry. Should this man be a mere commoner, she would have to fulfill her role as a woman and a princess and marry whoever her father, and the kingdom as a whole, finds acceptable.

Finally, it is time for Aurora to be saved. She lies in the tower, asleep until her prince can save her. He fights evil with his bare hands to save his love. Once he climbs the tower, he kisses her and in doing so, brings her to life. Aurora would have died without his kiss. Literally Aurora is alive once again. Metaphorically she is alive for the first time. Present day application: We are all, as women, merely waiting around for a man to "save" us from ordinary life and once he has found us, our lives will really begin. In other words, we will "die" if we never find a husband.

Another Disney classic, Cinderella, contains the same sexist motifs. Cinderella is a thin, blonde hair, blue eyed girl who manages to look beautiful and together despite spending her days dressed in rags, cleaning the house and spending an incessant amount of time in and around the fireplace. Fairy tales really are magical.

Cinderella, like Sleeping Beauty, demonstrates the female need for a man to form her identity. The story begins by talking about what a wonderful father Cinderella had and how he treated her like a princess. Once he died she took on the form of a servant. And then once she met her prince, she transformed once again, back to a princess.

The idea of female submission in this story is less evident in others, although this may be on account of there only being one main, male character in the film. Still, the idea is present. Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters are not the submissive type. Her stepmother manages to raise three girls on her own and is therefore showing independence. It is no surprise that she is the villain of the story while the submissive Cinderella is the lovable, hardworking victim.

This is not to worry though, because Cinderella is saved by her prince. He searches the whole kingdom for her, fights his way through the aggressive and overbearing stepmother and stepsisters, and eventually slips the glass slipper onto Cinderella's un-calloused and size 4 foot. Thus, they begin living happily ever after.

Analysis
The sexist themes present in both Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella have significant connections to some reading I've done over the past few weeks. One of these is that of Joseph Campbell. The fairy tales can be classified as examples of folklore because they follow the sequence of events outlined in his book, Hero with a Thousand Faces. There is the classic pattern of the departure, quest, and finally return. In these cases it is the departure from what each princess was born into (Sleeping beauty's time in the woods and Cinderella's time as a servant after her father's death). Their quest begins once they meet their princes. Aurora discovers she is a princess, she pricks her finger, and waits for her prince to rescue her. Cinderella waits for her prince to find her as well after she's made her grand exit from the ball. Then finally the princesses return to the lives they were intended to lead, with their princes at their side, they begin living happily ever after.

The connections I made to the new, sexist motifs are largely based on Julia T. Wood's book, Gendered Lives. She speaks specifically about the Disney classic, The Little Mermaid. "The mermaid quite literally gives up her identity as a mermaid in order to become acceptable to her human lover" (307). She goes on to criticize the female dependence on males in both The Lion King and Pocahontas. "Disney's Lion King featured female lions that depended on a male lion to save them, and the heroine of Pocahontas was portrayed as a beautiful, sexy maiden, not the brave young Native American girl she actually was" (307). These observations influenced my own analysis of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.

Reflection
I would have liked to have more sources to draw insight from, however, my search began on the internet and I was having a surprisingly significant amount of trouble finding any sources on the topic. I thought the concept of sexism in fairy tales was more widely published, but I was mistaken.

I would also have liked to analyze more films outside the Disney arena. This idea is present in many Hollywood productions, including those of modern day. Women are still being saved, although not quite so literally as the characters in Disney films. It would be interesting to see how filmmaking and its characters have evolved over time and what kind of progress we are making.

Overall though, I enjoyed looking at these two movies from another, more critical, perspective. There are a lot of hidden connotations that I wasn't previously aware of. Once I started taking notice, they became ubiquitous. I look forward to the day when a woman holds the door for a man, an aggressive and confident woman is not made out to be the villain, and a man awaits his princess charming.

References
Campbell, Joseph. 1961. "Departure," Chapter 1 in Hero with a Thousand Faces, first published 1949, 49-95. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Cinderella. Walt Disney, 1950.

Green, Philip. Cracks in Hollywood ideology and Gender in Hollywood. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.

Sleeping Beauty. Walt Disney, 1959.

<< back to Folklore in Movies