A Cultural History of the Disney Fairy Tale: Once Upon an American Dream

by Tracey L. Mollet

Overview

This book charts the complex history of the relationship between the Disney fairy tale and the American Dream, demonstrating the ways in which the Disney fairy tale has been reconstructed and renegotiated alongside, and in response to important changes within American society. In all of its fairy tales of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Walt Disney studios works to sell its audiences the national myth of the United States at any one historical moment. With analyses of films and television programmes such as The Little Mermaid (1989), Frozen (2013), Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Once Upon a Time (2011-2018), Mollet argues that by giving its fairy tale protagonists characteristics associated with ‘good’ Americans, and even by situating their fairy tales within America itself, Disney constructs a vision of America as a utopian space.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030501518
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	11/22/2020
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	181
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr Tracey L Mollet is a Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research interests include Disney and Warner Brothers’ animation, American cultural history and nostalgia in contemporary American television. She has published widely on Disney animation and American popular culture and is the author of Cartoons in Hard Times: Disney and Warner Brothers in Depression and War 1932-1945 (2017).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction: Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.- Chapter 2: The Classic Era : 1937-1959.- Chapter 3: The Renaissance Era: 1989-1999.- Chapter 4: The Renewal Era: 2009-2013.- Chapter 5: The Reboot Era 2014-2017.- Chapter 6: Conclusion