Emotionally Ever After: A Qualitative Analysis of Socio-Emotional Spaces Inhabited by Female Fairy Tale Characters and their Cinematic Adaptations

Fairy tales are endearing and hold a powerful attraction for a wide audience, from the very young to the very old. Classic fairy tales such as Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White continue to resurface and be reinterpreted in multiple art-forms in popular culture in television shows, theatre productions, movies, internet memes, video games, and more. For this dissertation, I analyzed the socio-emotional spaces inhabited by white female protagonists, and to a lesser extent supporting characters and antagonists, from two texts, Cinderella and The Little Mermaid, as well as several cinematic adaptations. Additionally, I investigated the role of gender and spectacle in fairy tale sites of cultural importance, including several Walt Disney theme parks and sites across Europe, specifically within Denmark and Germany. As there were rarely female characters with complex characteristics beyond good or bad in fairy tale source material, I expanded upon traditionally static gender roles in my creative output of a screenplay where the female protagonists deal with a myriad of challenging situations where they do not always respond in the most effective manner, thereby adding depth to their character.