Animation is an art form we are all very familiar with. We come across it often in our daily lives, from advertisements to video games to informational videos. Most notably we see it in films and television shows, especially those aimed towards younger audiences. A popular genre among media tailored towards these younger audiences is fairy tales, and as these audiences are more impressionable and mouldable than most, it’s important to look at what ideas and views of the world we present to them through the seemingly innocent media they consume.
Like many things, the way we tell fairy tales has changed and evolved over time, and one can assume the same has happened with the impact these stories have on those who watch them. The biggest name in animation, especially animated fairy tales, is Disney. And like all other forms of media and the other companies in the animated world, “Disney animation is not an innocent art form: nothing accidental or serendipitous occurs in animation” (Bell, 1995, 108). Everything is done and made with purpose, more so in animation than in other media, as each individual frame is carefully crafted in order to tell a story.
Through three chapters exploring a number of animated fairy tales, from Disney’s and Pixar’s animation studios, and some key aspects present in all of these films, this dissertation will evaluate and analyse how they have changed over the decades and why, and what impact these newer ways of storytelling are having over the more traditional approach. This dissertation will focus on the films that are part of the Disney Princess franchise, as all of these films are either based on fairy tales or have been told in a way that is very similar to how Disney tells their films that are based on fairy tales, and they are also the films that best fit the topics that are going to be explored. So films like The Emperor’s New Groove (Dindal, 2000) will not be included as, although they are based on fairy tales, they are not a part of the Disney Princess franchise. But films such as Pocahontas (Gabriel and Goldberg, 1995) and Mulan (Bancroft and Cook, 1998), which are loosely based on historical events or legends but told in the style of Disney’s fairy tale based films, and Brave (Chapman and Andrews, 2012), which isn’t a retelling of a classic fairy tale but was inspired by the works of authors like the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, will be included.
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