We live in an ever-changing world where our morals, values, views, rights, etc. constantly shift as we strive for equality.
And although this is something we can be more aware of in our writing as we move forward, what about those already in circulation? Those that have been around for centuries and we grew up reading (or watching as many were turned into Disney classics).
I spoke to author and researcher Anne Beall PhD about her two books, Cinderella Didn’t Live Happily Ever After and Only Prince Charming Gets to Break the Rules, where she and her team analysed hundreds of folk tales and fairy tales from around the world to discover patterns, tropes and trends, as well as who gets to break the rules and the punishments and rewards they endure for doing so.
Hi Anne, why don’t you start by telling me what your books are about?
These books are an analysis of the hidden messages in fairy tales. In Cinderella Didn’t Live Happily Ever After, we analysed Grimm’s fairy tales for things like who has power, who’s good and who’s evil, and who marries up and why. We found some really interesting patterns, such as that men typically have more power in fairy tales than women and that powerful men are generally good, whereas powerful women tend to be evil. And it’s typically the good, powerful men who defeat the evil, powerful women.
For Only Prince Charming Gets to Break the Rules, we analysed books from all around the world, not just the Grimm’s fairy tales, to see who tends to get punished and who gets rewarded for breaking the rules.
Fascinating. So, how did you end up analysing fairy tales?
I tend to go where my interests lead me, and I’d had a really bad day at work and was just looking for an escape, so I started reading fairy tales. Everyone has these on their bookshelves; they’re fun, and they remind you of your childhood. When I started reading them, I thought, I’m kind of noticing some things here that I didn’t really think about too much before. I think I should analyse them with more rigour.
We took the Grimm’s fairy tales, coded each tale on many different things, and did a statistical analysis of the differences in the data.
The reason why I say Cinderella doesn’t live happily ever after is that, generally, we found the least powerful women tended to be the ones that married royalty, so there’s a power imbalance. But more importantly, we found that queens were typically the saddest characters in books: they cried the most, they’re often punished by their husbands, or their mother-in-law would go after them and try to get them out of the position they’ve been given.
During the 2020 presidential election, I became interested in who follows the rules and who doesn’t, and what fairy tales have to say about it. So, usually, something sparks my interest, I feel a passion and I go towards it.
How relevant do you think these views are now? Some of these stories were written many centuries ago and a lot of our perspectives have changed.
That’s what a lot of people say. We’re analysing something from maybe the eighteenth or nineteenth century, so should we really care about what they say? The fact is that we should care because, if we look at receipts from the movie industry, the traditional Cinderella tale does better than any reworked version. Amazon did one where she was an entrepreneur who wanted to start a dress business, but it flopped. However, most fairy tales adhere to the original story, though some of the Grimm stuff is a little dark and has some weird stuff going on. But the general story is largely the same: a very poor person, usually a woman, is victimised, tries to find true love and is typically saved by a male character.
Now, some fairy tales have veered away from that; Frozen is a good example, but that didn’t do as well as Cinderella. The oldest fairy tales do the best. You can see that in book sales, the traditional tales are the ones that still sell the most.
OK, so as you’ve just mentioned with Frozen, modern fairy tales are steering away from these patterns. Therefore, I wonder if when families read these older tales to their children whether they might explain the differences to their children or if the children themselves might already perceive the story differently today.
I’ve learned that many of us love fairy tales, and we often use them in our writing. Many authors say, ‘Oh, I didn’t realise I was actually reproducing that storyline in some ways, and some of these tropes are in my own writing.’ There is nothing wrong with that, but what I think is important is that these stories are everywhere. Cinderella has 1500 versions across all cultures. It is a marvellous story that has stood the test of time and speaks to what some women feel, which is downtrodden, and the idea of marriage saving them and providing them with a different lifestyle is wonderful. But I think you’re right, some families will read it to their child and say this is one way to live and dream, though there are other options for improving your life: you can get educated, you can stand up for yourself and not put up with bad behaviour, and you can find solutions to the problems in that household. You may not need to be saved by someone else.
So, yes, I think we can interpret them, enjoy them and also say, ‘Yeah, that’s one option, among many.’
What do you think authors can do now so that they don’t continue going down those familiar tropes?
I think something we authors struggle with is that traditional fairy tales are very alluring because they’re so recognisable and so much a part of our culture. And they’re so present that we don’t see them in our own writing.
When we analysed who broke the rules in fairy tales and folk tales around the world, we found that male characters broke the rules more than female characters, and they tended to be rewarded or not punished. Female characters tended to be severely punished. That is an interesting finding that mirrors actual life: women break the rules less than men. Women followed COVID protocols more than men, women speed less than men, and women have fewer fatal car crashes than men. And interestingly, rule-following is related to income. If you’re a child who tends to break the rules, you’re actually more likely to have a higher income later in life.
So, when it comes to writing our novels, we want to watch that we don’t fall into these kinds of patterns. If we find we only have powerful, evil women and only powerful, good men, maybe we need to walk away and think about inserting other characters. It might not always work, but it’s something we need to think about because we’re influencing culture here. We need to assess whether our female characters are always following the rules. Maybe we want a female rule-breaker or someone who’s rebellious. I think these are the things I would ask authors to think about when they review their work.
And what do you think about the context of some of these stories in terms of when they were written?
Yes, you’re right; some stories belong in certain contexts. I mean, we hope that modern stories are less demeaning, but they might not be as enlightening as we might like. We hope things are slowly changing. I know I shudder to look at some of the books my parents gave me when I was a child. They wouldn’t publish them today, thank goodness.
Thanks, Anne. This has been really insightful.
Thank you for your interest. It’s been lovely talking to you.
Author info
Anne Beall is a self-published author of several non-fiction books. Her first book, Strategic Market Research, was published in 2008 and was written to distribute to potential clients to give herself some legitimacy. However, it currently has 125 reviews and sells 2–3 copies a day on Amazon. It’s used in colleges and universities and is in its fourth edition. Her newest book is part of a trilogy (The Embracing Series) called Embracing Calm: Meditation Journeys for Inner Peace and is also available in audio and Kindle format.
You can view her website here: annebeall.com
Her books are available to purchase through Amazon and many other booksellers.
Please note: the views expressed in this blog post are those of Anne Beall and not those of Hayley Rushbrook or Proofreading by Hayley.
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