FTTV
The first of four case study posts about my presentation for Western States Folklore Society’s Annual Meeting in April 2018. Introduced here, the presentation was titled Princess and the Letter P: Fairy Tales and Edutainment in Preschool Television. The other case studies can be found here. Sesame Street started in 1969 as one of the most …
Continue reading “Edutainment Strategies: Sesame Street’s Story Book Community School”
My last big project was about fairy tale mashup episodes in children’s television, and took a large-scale data approach. In choosing a new research topic, I remained interested in the phenomenon that, currently, fairy tales are marketed as “kid stuff.” If marketers want adults to watch their content, they usually sell it as either “gritty” …
Continue reading “Preschool Edutainment and Fairy Tales: The Groundwork”
Our 4th annual Unbirthday Tea Party brought in a wide variety of Alice fans and fairy tale fans alike. Everyone knows that our research team is mad about fairy tales, and we wanted to share that passion by discussing the portrayal of madness in Alice in Wonderland adaptations across time. As the audience enjoyed tea …
Continue reading “Unbirthday Tea Party: “We’re All Mad Here” Event Recap”
Five years before Prince Harry proposed, Meghan Markle was already a fairy tale princess. The American actress, best known for her role as Rachel Zane on the legal drama Suits, guest starred as Sleeping Beauty in a 2012 episode of the crime drama Castle. In the episode “Once Upon A Crime,” (season 4, episode 17), …
Continue reading “Prince Harry to Marry Former Sleeping Beauty”
Just as Scheherazade spun tales for the king that kept his interest for 1001 nights, so do the shows we watch spin tales that entrance and delight us until we’ve binge-watched our way through an entire series. From the oldest listed fairy tale based television program in our database, a Disney Animated Short on Cinderella …
Continue reading “From the Page to the Screen: Why We Study Fairy Tales on Television”
Written by Erica Smith, one of our new team members! The traditional fairy tales which Once Upon A Time adapts often cast women in the role of damsel-in-distress. Since Once Upon A Time is structured around empowering the adult woman, Henry, a male child, steps in whenever the story calls for a “damsel” character. Targeted …
The final guest post from Dr. Rudy’s 394r Applied English class is from Shana Pickett. We hope you enjoy this one and the others that preceded it! Mysterious murders, man-eating monsters, and magic spells. Damsels in distress, demons, and dashing dudes. It’s a guns-blazing, hair-raising, monster-slaying good time. What’s not to love about CW’s Supernatural? …
Continue reading “The Brothers Winchester: Supernatural as a Modern American Fairy Tale Collection”
Sarah Thompson brings us the guest post this week from the Winter 2017 Applied English class. Enjoy! The CW’s critical darling, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, was recently renewed for a third season despite being the least viewed network television show two years in a row. The program follows a tradition of fairy tale-esque musical programs, like Once …
Continue reading “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: The Fairy Tale Inspired Show You Should Be Watching”
Once more, here is a guest post from Dr Rudy’s 394r Applied English class, this time from Cortlyn Mckay. In contrast to many fairy tale adaptations being made today, the TV show Once Upon a Time begins with the happily ever after: the pilot episode opens with Prince Charming kissing Snow White, awakening her …
Continue reading “Once Upon a Time and the Fairy Tale Stereotype”
This guest post is by Monica Allen of the Winter 2017 394r class. We all love fairy tales, whether they be old or new, and one fairy tale that is fairly easy to find within TV is Alice in Wonderland, which is especially prominent in Japanese anime. It appears in single episodes and “omakes” (extra …
