Once upon a time beyond Disney. Contemporary fairy-tale films for children

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Published: Jul 1, 2009
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/icw.18084
Keywords:
fairy-tale films Disney Henson Duvall Davenport
Jack Zipes
University of Minnesota
Abstract
This article explores how Walt Disney pioneered animation, experimenting with fairy tale adaptations for the cinema in the 1920's, demonstrating how animation and film expanded the fairy-tale genre in the age of mechanical reproduction. After establishing the fairy-tale film as an art form with Snow White in 1937, he turned to their commodification and marketing, reproduced in every film produced until his death and subsequently by the Disney Corporation. Numerous USA filmmakers sought to go beyond Disney's tendencies to elitism, sexism and racism e.g. Jim Henson, Shelly Duvall, Tom Davenport, focusing on furthering the autonomy of young viewers and stimulating their creative and critical faculties through fairytale films. By making children aware of artifice in the construction of their personal social reality, such filmmakers believed children may be helped to perceive meaningful and pleasurable alternatives in their lives. Through cinematic adaptations of fairy tales reality can be displayed as artificiality so that children can gain a sense of assembling and reassembling the frames of their lives for themselves.
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