Description
Book SynopsisFeminism, masculinity and fairy tale figure within an extended analysis of Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), in light of the live-action remake, Beauty and the Beast (2017). The history of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast is compared with Disney's adaptation which centralises the figure of the Beast rather than the heroine, Belle. A flagship during a key period of Disney’s corporate expansion in the early 1990s, in the first section of the book, the production is situated with respect to gender histories in the corresponding period: the rise of post-feminism, and its implicit disavowal of feminism, the mythopoetic men’s movement and the crisis of masculinity. The following section canvasses views of masculinity in second wave feminism and the role of myth and fairy in key works of feminism. A critical discussion ensues of twenty-first century wonder cinema in which the influence of feminist ideas is seen to circulate within the pastiche treatments of fairy tales and enchantment.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Enchanted Rivals: Feminism, Fairy Tale and Wonder Cinema – Part 1: Retelling Beauty and the Beast in the 1990s – Fairy Tale Interrupted; or How Disney’s Beast became Beauty – Disney Business and the Rose Taboo – For the Boys: Remembering Cupid, and the Crisis of Masculinity – Redux Beauty and the Belles: Feminism and Femininity in Disneyland – Part 2: Arcade – The Croaking: Enchanted Heroines and Post-feminism – Patriarchy Dreaming: Imagining Masculinity in the Second Wave – Beauty and the Myth; or Goddesses and Father Giants – Facing the Sphinx, Leaving the Princess – Part 3: Aftermath, After Party; or the Return of the Unrepressed – Transformational: Pastiche and the Princess – Fairy Tales Alive: Reliving Wonder in Disney’s Live-Action Remakes – Calling All Princesses and Forest Warriors: Empowerment, Inheritance and Masculinity in Post-Feminist Wonder – Conclusion: (Not) Out of the Woods – Filmography – Works Cited – Acknowledgements – Notes
