ABSTRACT

Feminism and fairy tale circulate in numerous forms in postmodern media culture. Transformation is posed as an initial lens to consider how the media environment resembles some enchanted state since its historical transition from broadcast to digital systems and the upsurge in production of fairy tales, notably in the form of feature films and long-arc television series, that has accompanied it. This trend has drawn an abundance of feminist critical attention, especially to the perceived influences of feminism in the productions. The second-wave feminist theory of spectatorship remains highly relevant to these critical practices, inflected by third-wave approaches to media subjectivities. Greater scrutiny of the production cultures and political economy of contemporary media industries, including Walt Disney Studios, is called for, and the task is imagined as a fantastical power struggle between feminists and media giants. Among the titles discussed are: Maleficent (2014), Beauty and the Beast (1991; 2017), MTV Girl Code (2014), Cinderella (1950; 2015), Red Riding Hood (2011), The Princess and the Frog (2009), Enchanted (2007), Ever After (1998), The Jungle Book (2016), Pan (2015), and Gigantic (2018).