engleski

Following Her (Father’s) Dreams: The Disneyfication of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “The Frog King”

Over the decades, Walt Disney Animation Studios have become well-known for adapting various types of texts for the big screen, particularly children’s novels and fairy tales. However, regardless of the nature of the source materials and the cultural, historical, and social context in which they originated, their animated adaptations tend to follow the same basic pattern, largely predicated on fairy tales. The films created through this specific process of adaptation – often referred to as Disneyfication – may be described as a mixture of fairy tales, romance, and Broadway musicals, complete with comedic side-kicks and happy endings. The present paper aims to examine the process of Disneyfication by means of a close and comparative reading of Disney’s 49th animated feature film The Princess and the Frog (2009) and its source materials: E.D. Baker’s children’s fantasy novel The Frog Princess (2002), and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s fairy tale “The Frog King” (1857). Although Baker’s novel is cited as the inspiration for the film, the paper argues that The Princess and the Frog relies much more heavily on the Grimmsʼ fairy tale, from which it borrows (and significantly alters) themes (such as the importance of keeping one’s promises and finding a suitable romantic partner), motifs (bargaining, false promises), and character traits. Acknowledging that the process of adaptation can never be a straightforward reproduction of a given story in a different medium, the paper will focus on concrete strategies employed to modify the Grimmsʼ fairy tale (and, to a lesser extent, Baker’s novel) and fit it into the recognizable Disney mould.

adaptation, animation, Disneyfication, fairy tale, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, “The Frog King, ” The Frog Princess, The Princess and the Frog, Walt Disney Animation Studios

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