Skip to main content

Fixed Fairytales

 By Ankita Bhargava


Some of you may know that in the early 2010's there was a huge boom in stories that featured classic fairy tales (like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, etc.) but with a twist. For example, Cinder, a sci-fi book loosely based on Cinderella, was published in 2012. The School For Good and Evil, about children of famous fairy tales, 2013.  Land of Stories, about children who get transported to a land where fairy tale characters live through a book. Sisters Grimm, about two sisters who keep a town full of amnesiac fairy tale characters safe from the world. Heartless, a prequel to Alice in Wonderland, focusing on the Queen of Hearts, published in 2016. Of course, this trend didn't only affect books; some people might remember Disney's Descendants, about the children of Disney characters (many of whom are retellings of  classic fairy tales themselves). In 2014, the movie Into the Woods was released, also by Disney, based on the Broadway musical, which features famous fairy tale characters interacting with each other as they perform quests. 

I'm not really sure what started such a huge boom of similar stories, but I suspect that the book Cinder, and the rest of that series made the idea become really popular, because I can't find any popular books with a similar premise from before it was published in 2012. It could also be the film Alice in Wonderland, a darker, live action version of the classic story, which was released in 2010 and was the fifth highest grossing film of all time while it was in theaters, and inspired Disney to release similar films, such as Maleficent, a dark fantasy film focusing on, you guessed it, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, released in 2014, which also made a lot of money. 

All in all, this was a very interesting trend that lasted for a surprisingly long time. However, I think that people are beginning to grow tired of this trope, and so fewer and fewer pieces of media are using it, until the day where it becomes popular again.






Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_(2010_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walt_Disney_Studios_films_(2010%E2%80%932019)

Comments

  1. ShreeyaMay 5, 2021 at 12:57 PM

    This is an interesting observation, and as I look back at what I was reading during that time period, I can completely see the trend. I agree with your thoughts on why it started. I feel like it's a 'thing' in the writing industry to try and become the next big "Insert Popular Book Name", but the way people try to do that is by practically rewriting the exact novel with a change in writing style and a slightly different plot, which causes a wave of very similar novels to rush into the market. Overall, a really interesting blog post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Faisal A.May 5, 2021 at 12:57 PM

    I hadn't realized that these films were sort of like an adaptation of the original Disney movies, especially the movie Maleficent. It was also interesting that you mentioned at the end that movies could become not popular, then, after a while, they get famous again. Nice job!

    ReplyDelete
  3. LisaMay 12, 2021 at 1:16 PM

    This was a really cool post. I've read/watched many of the things you listed, and I never took the time to notice the trend that so many of the things I was entertaining myself with were all based on fairytales. It's really interesting that so many books/movies were able to be successful when they were all based on the very similar concepts. All in all, great job!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anna WilliamsMay 13, 2021 at 5:40 PM

    Fractured fairy tales is one of my favorite genres! I think there's something so cool about taking something that's meant for kids and twisting it up a lot until it's kind of scary. (That sounded really creepy of me, haha.) It's evident that you did a lot of research for this post. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  5. MaddieMay 15, 2021 at 1:33 PM

    Oh my when I was younger I LOVED the movie Descendants ahahha. I think it's so interesting how you decided to make a post on this, because I didn't realize that this "trend" sort of started with Cinder, then got really popular and now it has died down more. I think it's cool how you highlighted the process and journey of these fairytale related books and movies. This post gave me a really interesting perspective on this topic!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Miranda BurgosMay 18, 2021 at 2:34 PM

    I used to love fairytale adaptations (still do in a lot of cases)! One of my favorite shows (it was also a book series) in elementary school was Ever After High, also about the children of fairytale characters in a high school but pre-Descendants and in my opinion, much better.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why are villains ugly?

By Rose Benjamin In books and movies, antagonists/villains are often portrayed as hideous beast-like people. Of course, there are exceptions, but writers usually tend to make their villain's appearance match their behavior. This may be to add to the reader/viewer's perception of the antagonist as a villain, having less empathy towards them. Many antagonists are already generally bad people, however, so it shouldn't be necessary to have them look weird. I think it is more likely that villains' appearance is designed to scare a reader or viewer, creating a more immersive experience. Different stories have different reasons and backstories for their villain's appearance. One book published in 2004, The Legend of Holly Claus by Brittney Ryan, tells a story about Santa Claus having a daughter, which then awakens an evil warlock deep below the Earth. This warlock has been sealed inside a prison for a very long time, so it makes sense that he would be ugly. However, the n...
5 comments
Read more

The School for Good and Evil Book Review

  By Ankita Bhargava (Spoilers for the first two chapters of The School for Good and Evil) The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani   revolves around two girls named Sophie and Agatha. They live in a small town, where every four years, two children are kidnapped by the School Master. Those children (one good, one evil) later show up in storybooks that mysteriously arrive in the village, after being taken to twin schools of good and evil. Sophie's dream is to be a Good princess, while Agatha is the perfect candidate for and Evil witch. However, when they are finally taken to the school, Sophie is taken to the School for Evil, while Agatha is taken to the School for Good.  I really liked this book because of the way that it immediately introduces the character's personalities, their flaws and their relationships with other characters. In the first page, we learn that Sophie wants to marry a prince and that she is a little conceited. It also introduces Agatha as her po...
1 comment
Read more

Why Do Writers Use Pen Names?

By Andrea Li Pen names, also known as a pseudonym, literary double, or nom de plume, are made-up names adopted by an author that they use on their works in place of their real name.  A simple Google search reveals that a surprising amount of well-known authors use pen names, including J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Lewis Carroll, and Dr. Seuss. Daisy Meadows, from the childhood-favorite and never-ending Rainbow Magic series, is disappointingly a collective pen name for the four different authors that wrote the books (it was too perfect to be true). Then for the opposite effect, you hear the name Rainbow Rowell and are inversely betrayed to hear that Rainbow Rowell, is in fact her real name. The next time you are wondering why famous people all have cool names, the answer is that they might not!  Pen names may seem like a surface level change and simply for aesthetic purposes, but pen names have existed for centuries and have historical significance. In earlier times, when women w...
9 comments
Read more