Images of Fairy Tale Female Characters from Literary to Film Adaptations

Abstract

The objective of the study was to differentiate and prove that from the past century, the image portrayals of the Grimm Brothers’ select female characters in their short stories have changed in their film adaptations as the societies evolve to modern perception of women, most especially on their sexuality and sexual practices with the Feminist theory approach. The stories studied were (1) Beauty and the Beast (2) Cinderella (3) Hansel and Gretel (4) Little Red-cap and (5) Snow White. A qualitative design was used to analyze and presented the similarities and differences of the select fairy tale heroines’ physique, feats, and sexual values and practices. The comparison showed major differences in the images of the female characters in terms of age, skills, and sexual behaviors. In the text, the female characters were presented as innocent, young, gullible, dependent, and damsels in distress. While in the film, they were seen to be grown up women and perceived sexual values and behavior in a liberated manner. The influences in the text as mentioned from the life experiences of the Grimm Brothers, was based on their autobiographies. Furthermore, the films were products of Hollywood in the 21st century which also influenced the way the heroines and their image portrayals in the film were presented. Lastly, the study found that the empowerments of the female characters were emphasized in the film adaptations. Clearly, these changes in the women characters did not happen overtime they were a product of centuries of influences the revisions that were made by other authors significant like Walt Disney, retained the original images of these female characters. The mostly revised contents were the violent aspects of the stories due to its medieval influences. Keywords: Images, Female fairy tale characters, film adaptations