The film, Ever After is an adaptation of the Brother’s Grimm fairy tale adaptation, “Aschenputtle.” This film reflects a feminist attitude on the traditional view of the “damsel in distress” character which is present in the Grimm’s adaptation. Unlike Aschenputtle from the Grimm’s tale, the protagonist from the film, whose name is Danielle, does not hold true to the stereotype that all women should be well mannered and well behaved at all times. Additionally, Danielle is a more independent character with a stronger voice, as opposed to Aschenputtle who really does not speak up for herself. Lastly, the Prince’s focus is not solely based on looks in the film; he cares about brains as well, where as the Prince in Aschenputtle cares far more …show more content…
Aschenputtle is referred to always acting “pious and good,” which suggests the idea that ladies must be on their best behavior at all times; they must always put on a proper act. As seen in this example, it is obvious that Danielle does not feel the need to be perfect all of the time, where as Aschenputtle has this “perfect persona” in which she must uphold to in order to be accepted. Another unladylike situation is when Danielle throws apples at Prince Henry before she actually realizes he is the Prince. She is under the impression that a random thief is stealing one of her Father’s horses, therefore; she feels that she should stand up in the name of her deceased father. She whips a plentiful amount of apples and scolds the Prince very highly up until she realizes who he is. She then bows down at his presence and states that if she knows she should be put to death. In this particular example, she does stand up for herself, yet she does back down to the Prince because he is of a higher social class and power. Even though there are many instances where she is an independent and outspoken woman, this is one of the few times where she falters in the presence of a man. Yet another instance where it is evident that Danielle is not particularly “feminine,” is when the Queen says that Danielle possesses “masculine
In the article, “What's Wrong With Cinderella?”, mother and author Peggy Orenstein expresses utter concern for the increasing rise of the princess culture. From a personal stance (mother, feminist, and gender advocate) Orenstein forms valid assertions about the expansion of the princess image, and how it has influenced younger girls, including her three-year old daughters’. Moreover she displays negative impacts for the influential princess image and its capacity to affect the lives of younger girls in the future years, yet fails to acknowledge a personal stance. While correlating the princess culture into a larger context that singles out relevant points of gender awareness/equality, she degrades the princes culture, and
Disney’s Cinderella demonstrates that, whatever the intention of its makers, modern day fairy tales function in our society as hidden instructions for morals and behaviors that we give children. On the surface, it seems to be a simple story about a young woman whose wishes come true. However, the story also reflects cultural expectations of women’s behaviors and goals and defines expectations of “goodness” for women. Power belongs to men in “Cinderella”, and it is depicted as a female ambition and goal. The storyline describes the rise of the submissive haracter to becoming a Princess; she is portrayed as a passive character who waits for the Prince to come for her. While waiting for her Prince Charming she also bears the mistreatment from her stepmother and stepsisters. While masculine power is taken for granted in the figure of the Prince, becoming his wife is the only way women have to share this power. The
I chose to analyze the movie “The Princess and the Frog” since I knew how sexist Disney princess movies in the past, such as Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, have been, but also the interesting twists that try to hide sexism in the more modern tales. “The Princess and The Frog” really is a classic Disney love story. Tiana is a woman in New Orleans who dreams of one day running her own popular restaurant along the Mississippi River. Prince Naveen travels to New Orleans with the sole purpose of marrying a rich woman to reclaim his part of his family's fortune. His greed is his downfall when he seeks the services of Dr. Facilier, a voodoo man who turns him into a frog and turns his servant, Lawrence, into the prince. In a chance meeting at a masquerade ball, Tiana and frog Naveen meet. Naveen promises to pay for Tiana's restaurant if she would kiss him to turn him back into a human. Tiana relents, kisses him, and then is also turned into a frog. It is a race against time for them to find a way to turn themselves back into humans.
Society can learn a lot from Cinderella-like movies such as Maid in Manhattan. However, what society learns from these fairy tales is not always that Cinderella meets a prince and lives happily-ever-after. In the movie Maid in Manhattan, directed by Wayne Wang, a hotel maid meets a wealthy politician and lives a Cinderella-like tale after wearing a wealthy guest’s designer outfit. Most people focus on the obvious love story between the maid and the politician. Many overlook the psychological plight of Cinderella herself. In these tales Cinderella loses her mother and often her father too. This has a tremendous effect on the young girl’s self-worth. However, other complex relationships are also revealed, including the mother/daughter relationship. Similarly, the text “Cinderella: Not So Morally Superior,” by Elisabeth Panttaja, discusses the influences of Cinderella’s mother. These sources are worth exploring because they demonstrate how a woman’s self-worth is shaped by her relationship with her mother.
Adults realize that despite Cinderella’s charismatic traits, Cinderella’s behaviour in Perrault’s tale is not acceptable for today’s modern western woman.
Walt Disney over the years has impacted the lives of millions of children with his animated films. His Disney movies have evolved in the last years and have moved from the traditional damsel in distress theme. Specifically, the classic movie Cinderella gives the wrong idea about what it is to be a woman for young girls. The movie portrays a young woman facing emotional, mental, and physical abuse by her evil stepmother and later falls in love with a charming prince. However, if viewers take a closer look, Disney’s anti feminist message is firmly emphasized. The story of Cinderella is sexist due to it’s lesson to girls that beauty and submission will award them a rich bachelor. This is seen through Cinderella’s submissive behavior, Prince
This quotes proves Lady Macbeth is an example of the gender role reversal because she is a woman, yet she is able take initiative and control over her
A "woman is dainty, neither wears dresses or fusses with her hair; they are masculine and imposing. Even their physical appearance belies strength and action, and they deftly navigate, embrace, and wield all that belongs to the male hero's world. (Bro, 2016, p64) How this has been represented in during the game of thrones when she is telling the story about how she used to call Brienne the beauty. Judith Butler illustrates masculinity in Bro (2016), “The way that ideas about traditional masculinity are linked to the idea of the hero. As Judith Butler concludes in Gender Trouble, biological sex and gender are not tied together, and gender is not binary—one is not either man or woman (Bro, 2016, p 58).
In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth , Macbeth’s wife, is a very tragic character. She plays a very masculine role, even more masculine than the main male role: “She so dominates the scenes in which
The men in “Cinderella” also value women for their beauty. The prince has a ball for all the maidens in the land to find his future wife, which “amounts to a beauty contest” (Lieberman 386) for a new trophy wife. While some argue that Cinderella’s rebellion of going against her stepmother’s instructions of staying home shows that the story has feminist qualities, the prince weakens her achievement when he chooses her only because of her beauty as “girls win the prize if they are the fairest of them all” (Lieberman 385). Her need for independence is transformed into the prince’s need for a pretty wife, making her again an object in her family. Once integrated into the prince’s family, Cinderella goes from the maid of her family to the smiling porcelain doll next to the prince as the “first job of a fairy tale princess is to be beautiful” (Röhrich 110). This gives the impression that the only way
on a male trait so she can bury her brother at peace, while Lady Macbeth shows male traits,
This Women’s Day advertisement inspires Women to become the person they dream of being. Alluding to the timeless fairy tale “The Frog Prince” with a toy frog wearing a crown, the ad plays on youthful innocence. The classically magical tale recounts the events of a girl who is not suited for royalty becoming a princess, which a majority of American and British women were exposed to in their youth. Therefore, the frog is a happy reference to a time period that every woman has had or will have where they relate to the girl in the story and feel capable of becoming a “princess”. Because fairy tales never follow the “prince” or “princess” in the story after becoming such the responsibilities and life is left to the interpretation of the reader. This promotes imagination in children and may nostalgically remind Women of the previous ambitious of their childhood.
Once upon a time in a land not so far away, the society of man created the idea that it was a woman’s job to conform to the ideologies generated in fairy tales. From women depending on their prince charmings all the way to romanticized sexual abuse and lack of consent, stories like Cinderella and Snow White radiate sexism within an array of scenes of the stories and films. Not only does this affect the way that men view women, but it has had a relatively negative effect on the ways that many women view themselves. Many fairy tales have made their way into mainstream culture, and today many young girls and boys grow up hearing and seeing the subliminal messages in fairy tales. As more and more fairy tales make their way onto the big screen, it can be seen that all princesses seem to share a common feature other than their crowns and lack of self worth without a man by their side; their tiny waists. In recent years during the 21st century more and more people in the media have been calling out fairy tales for their anti-feminist attitudes with sexism, body standards as well as societal comments about women being dependent on men.
I would argue, however, that Lady Macbeth's "unsex me here" speech tends to deconstruct gender categories, unfixing the rigid cultural distinctions as well as attributes which define male and female” (Chamberlain 79).
Fairy tales are full of tropes and stereotypes that exist from story to story, one of the main ones being the “happily ever after” ending. Most fairy tales, especially the traditional Perrault or Grimm versions, fall prey to this trope where the main goal is for the princess to find her prince, get married, and live happily ever after. Many critics, particularly feminist critics, find this trope to be problematic because of the extreme emphasis placed on marriage as women’s main, if not only, objective in life. Karen Rowe, for example, states in her essay “Feminism and Fairy Tales”, that “fairy tales perpetuate the patriarchal status quo by making female subordination seem a romantically desirable, indeed an inescapable fate” (342). In other words, Rowe relates the “romanticizations of marriage” portrayed in fairy tales with promotions of “passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice” expected of women in their everyday lives (342). However, it can be dangerous to assume that every fairy tale conforms to the singular promotion of marriage as women’s only option. While early fairy tales such as “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty” tend to glorify the romantic ideal of marriage, and in turn female subordination, contemporary tales and adaptations such as Brave and Frozen, are working to give women a more powerful position.