 "Photo: John Lucas")
Once upon a Friday, fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes said feminist writers are crafting new tales to replace traditional children's bedtime stories.
Jack Zipes presented his talk, "And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After: The Feminist Fairy Tale and Its Consequences" in the Winship Drama Building.
The feminist movement made its way into fairy tale writing between 1979 and 1983, Zipes said. He said that during this period, male and female writers began an important dialogue about what constituted a fairy tale. As a reaction to sexist, racist and classist leanings of canonical tales, feminist writers began to subvert the older stories and create new ones, Zipes said.
"It's a great mode in which you can really deal with complex social and political problems," he said.
Suzan Zeder, a professor in the department of theatre and dance, said she arranged for Zipes' talk to coincide with the opening of the theatre and dance production "Ashes, Ashes."
"Ashes, Ashes" is the first fairy tale written by an ex-student ever staged by the department, Zeder said. It is being staged throughout the month of November at the B. Iden Payne Theatre in the Winship building.
The play, written by Eve Tulbert, deals with the effects of industrial pollution on younger generations, according to the College of Fine Arts Web site.
"We wanted very much to be able to establish a kind of critical and scholarly look at the subject, at the same time that we're presenting a very new and exciting play," Zeder said.
Zipes said that women are still continuing the trend of subverting traditional fairy tales and are also conceiving new ideas. He said influences can be seen in blockbuster animated movies like the "Shrek" trilogy or "Happily N'ever After."
"The better writers of fairy tales - whether they're men or women - are trying to cope with the fact that our notions, our stereotypes of men and women fail us and they're lies, they're illusions and so on," he said. "But they don't want to abandon the work of the fairy tale or the fantasy."
Zipes said he is optimistic about younger generations taking up the cause.
"I think that the younger generation wants new stories, new fairy tales and wants to sort of deal with issues through fairy tales," Zipes said.
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