This book charts the complex history of the relationship between the Disney fairy tale and the American Dream, demonstrating the ways in which the Disney fairy tale has been reconstructed and renegotiated alongside, and in response to important changes within American society. In all of its fairy tales of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Walt Disney studios works to sell its audiences the national myth of the United States at any one historical moment. With analyses of films and television programmes such as The Little Mermaid (1989), Frozen (2013), Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Once Upon a Time (2011-2018), Mollet argues that by giving its fairy tale protagonists characteristics associated with ‘good’ Americans, and even by situating their fairy tales within America itself, Disney constructs a vision of America as a utopian space.
Author(s): Tracey L. Mollet
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 181
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…
Disney and the Promise of Happily Ever After
Disney, the American Dream and the 1930s
National Myths and Fairy Tales
Disney’s Fairy Tale Narratives
Structure, Periodisation and Outline
America as Disney Fairy Tale
References
Chapter 2: The Classic Era (1937–1959)
Depression Culture
New Deal Exclusivity
Women and Post-war American Culture
Masculinity and the Home
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Cinderella (1950)
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: The Renaissance Era (1989–1991)
Neoliberalism and Its Impact
Gender and Popular Culture in the Neoliberal Era
Team Disney
The American Fairy Tale
The Little Mermaid (1989)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: The Revisionist Era (2007–2018)
9/11, New York and America
Post-9/11 Fairy Tale Narratives
Shrek (2001), Shrek 2 (2002) and the Rise of Postmodernism
Enchanted (2007)
Once Upon a Time (2011–2018)
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: The Renewal Era (2009–2013)
Hurricane Katrina and the Crash of 2008
The Election of Barack Obama
Third Wave Feminism and LGBTQ Rights
The Post-Eisner Era
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Tangled (2010)
Frozen (2013)
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: The Reboot Era (2014–2017)
Nostalgia and Twenty-First-Century America
Disney’s Fairy Tale Universe
Disney’s Reboot Culture
Fairy Tales for Adults
Maleficent (2014)
Cinderella (2015)
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: And They Lived Happily Ever After … in America
The Transformation of the Disney Fairy Tale
American Attributes
The Disney Fairy Tale: Context and Adaptation
Fairy Tale America
References
Index
