Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Farewell to Charms: Looking Back from Once Upon A Time’s Final Season

After stretching on for seven years, 155 episodes, and roughly 9% of our database entries, Once Upon A Time finally bade viewers farewell this year. Jennifer Morrison, who plays Emma Swan, jumped ship at the end of season six,though not before marrying longtime-lover Captain Hook and giving CaptainSwan fans some closure. Without Emma as the main character, OUAT screenwriters had to restructure the show. The solution? Age up Emma’s son, Henry, and send him on adventures of his own. Writers …

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Feminist Empowerment in “Beauty and the Beast:” An Analysis of Beauty’s Feminist Qualities from 1740 to 2017

We’re pleased to have Abby Elkins brings us the guest post this week from Dr. Rudy’s Applied English class from Winter 2017. Please enjoy! Apart from the fairy tale tradition’s classic damsels in distress, shines Belle, or “the Beauty,” from the story of “Beauty and the Beast.” Critics have argued that the story of “Beauty and the Beast” follows the traditional captivity narrative of a female succumbing to a stronger male character, however I argue that Belle’s choice to sacrifice herself …

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Do Blondes Really Have More Agency?: A Cinderella Case Study

The following is a guest post written by Hannah Earl, a freshman in the English Department. This was a final writing assignment for Dr. Rudy’s Late Summer Honors course entitled Agency, Media, and “Tale As Old As Time,” then was workshopped with the FTTV team for publication on the blog. We hope you enjoy! Blonde hair, blue eyes, a blue dress – these words describe millions of girls all over the world. This description also typically calls to mind the …

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Cinderella’s Sidekicks and their Choices, or Lack Thereof

When Cinderella is adapted into other mediums, especially when these adaptations are intended for children or families, the animals barely in the original tale become sidekicks with a lot more screen-time. So what happens when you take a plot point and turn it into a character? You give it the ability to make choices within the story — you give it agency. Betty Boop’s Poor Cinderella is, for my purposes, the first time these animals are given any characterization. And …

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The Folklore of Folklore Conferences

There was a moment during the Western States Folklore Society 75th annual meeting last month where I realized how specific and special folklore studies scholars are. I was attending this conference, like my peers Ariel Peterson and Lauren Redding, for the first time under the guidance of Professor Jill Rudy. We three students came prepared to present research about our various areas of fairy tale scholarship, but that was only represented a fraction of the time we spent at the conference. It was during the …

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BYU Humanities Center Blog Crosspost: Folklore, Mentoring, and the Work of Art

The following post was originally published on the BYU Humanities Center blog. The post was written by Professor Jill Rudy, a Faculty Fellow for the Center. As a folklorist, I recognize this year’s Humanities Center theme, The Work of Art, resonates with issues of memorable and mundane learning. Is art something we must travel to see and to admire? Is it unique, costly, and rare? Does it exist simply for its own sake? Can art be part of the everyday? …

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BYU American Studies Crosspost

The following post was originally published on the BYU American Studies blog. Dr Jill Rudy, the leader of our research team at fairytales.byu.edu, was interviewed by Olivia Nelson about the origins of Rudy’s book “Channeling Wonder,” trends in modern fairytales, and advice for aspiring scholars. Enjoy! ——————————————————————————————————————————– Channeling Wonder: Jill Rudy by Olivia Nelson Once Upon a Time… In recent years it seems like we can’t turn on the Television without seeing fairytales written into the media. Dr. Jill Rudy, Associate Professor of …

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Weight-Watching Fairy Tales

A new year means a new weight-loss goal, right? Many of us make resolutions to lose weight or get in shape because we know we’ll feel better when our bodies are functioning properly. We make plans to transform our bodies into a calorie-consuming furnace. With three fruits and two vegetables in our tummies, we hope to win money for our “Before” and “After” pictures in the next six weeks. Some of our favorite fairy tales sponsor programs to help us …

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Dramaturg Digest: Just A Little Change, Small To Say The Least

This edited post was originally published in full on The 4th Wall, a blog about dramaturgy run by the BYU Department of Theatre and Media Arts. We’ve partnered with the cast and crew of an upcoming BYU musical production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast to examine the history behind this classic fairy tale and it’s depictions ranging from the Broadway stage to the television in your living room. In this blog we’ll show the overlap between our data from television history and BYU dramaturg …

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Dramaturg Digest: Tale As Old As Time

This edited post was originally published in full on The 4th Wall, a blog about dramaturgy run by the BYU Department of Theatre and Media Arts. We’ve partnered with the cast and crew of an upcoming BYU musical production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast to examine the history behind this classic fairy tale and it’s depictions ranging from the Broadway stage to the television in your living room. In this blog we’ll show the overlap between our data from television history and BYU …

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