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”
Of all of children’s TV, my favorite show is Arthur, the adventures of that beloved, perpetually-eight-years-old aardvark and all of his friends and family that has been on the air since the year I was born, making it the second-longest running animated series in history. A season 5 episode of Arthur entitled “Just Desserts” (link …
Come join us for a run-through of our panel we are preparing to present at Western States Folklore Society conference in LA next month. We are so excited to present all of our hard work and would love feedback as we prepare to present at the conference. Our panel is titled Fantastic Realities of Fairy-Tale TV …
Continue reading “Fairy Tale Group Accepted to Present at Western States Folklore Society”
Two weeks ago, the FTTV team had the opportunity to attend DHU3, the Digital Humanities Utah conference. A quick trip up to Logan (even through the snow storm) was worth it to get to the conference generously hosted by Utah State University on February 23-24. It served as a great chance to meet people working …
On the final day of the Western States Folklore Society conference, while waiting for Dr Rudy’s presentation to begin, I had a brief conversation with Dr. Tok Thompson of the University of Southern California. After introducing myself and answering affirmatively that this was my first time at a conference, he said “Oh, be careful, they’re …
Continue reading “One Fairy Tale Girl’s Experience at a Very Serious Academic Folklore Conference”
On April 7-9, 2016, the FTTV Project Participants traveled from Provo, Utah to Berkeley, California to present their panel at the Western States Folklore Society Conference. Ariel Peterson was first up with her analysis of fairy godmothers that usually appear as fat fairies (whether in actual body type or symbolized by a round dress). Lauren Redding showed …
Continue reading “Fat Fairies, Mash-Ups, and Advertisements: the Hypnotic Effect of TV Fairy Tales”
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”
All of the fairy tale references in television in this database are categorized by a number from the Aarne Thomspon Uther index. This is an extensive list of mostly European fairy tales. Categorizing tales using these numbers was essential for the software that would show us the prevalence of specific tale types, but it also presented …
Cinderella came out this week: in anticipation of this, there has been a pitched war between the bloggers and movie critics who say it represents a dangerous return to 1950s assumptions about womanhood and female desirability or that it’s a refreshingly straightforward reminder of belief in kindness and achieving impossible dreams. I haven’t seen the movie yet, so …
Continue reading “Fairy Tales: Why the Glass Slipper Fits More than One Foot”
