| Summary: | 碩士 === 中國文化大學 === 英國語文學系 === 103 === Household-named fairy tales are the sugar-coated accomplice of female objectification. The animation industry of Walt Disney is the sheepskin-wolf executioner. Scrutinizing the female characters depicted and illustrated in traditional fairy tales, one would find that female objectification is the conspicuous and important presentation embodying the tilting power relationships between genders. Such objectification presents particularly in female dress codes, necessity of beauty, including the perfect shape of bodies, and marriage. However, in her picture books, Babette Cole attempts to break the stereotypical ideology and subvert people’s inflexible mindset with funny retold stories and humorous illustrations.
In this thesis, I intend to analyze the issue of female objectification. First, I approach how women’s bodies are molded via traditional dress codes from the historical perspectives. These dress codes are illustrated in traditional fairy tales and glorified by Disney. Moreover, Disney exaggerates the differences between male and female characters in body sizes, worsening the myth of smallness and largeness on female bodies as a result of the dress codes. Second, I examine the concept of beauty and the the-most-beautiful-girl-got-the-prize finale. Such finale is always concluded in fairy tales and impacts contemporary fad of cosmetic surgery and the way female artists perform themselves in the entertainment circle. Finally, I study how women have been objectified in marriage from the past to the present. These gender relations in marriage also brainwash female readers in the cliché fairy tales over and over again.
Based on Cole’s picture books, Princess Smartypants and Prince Cinders, and following Jacques Derrida’s thought of “différance” and Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray’s advocacy of female traits of openness, multiplicity, fluidity, flexibility, and possibility, this study posits that women could and should have the free will to decide not to dress themselves up for men’s gaze but for their own sake. They should also have the autonomy on timing their own marriage. This thesis concludes that both genders should spot and respect but not untruly amplify the differences between each other.
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