Dr. Jack Zipes, an internationally recognized expert on fairy tale literature and film, will give a lecture titled “De-Disneyfying the Fairy-Tale Film” on Wednesday, Nov. 17. The lecture, free and open to the public, will be presented from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in O’Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium.
The contemporary view of fairy tales has been shaped and standardized by the Disney Corp. so efficiently that the notion of happiness continues to be filtered through its distorted lens. Despite the domination of the Disney fairy-tale film, however, there have always been competing films that offer an alternative vision of fairy tales and social life.
In this lecture, Zipes will show clips from unusual films that interpret fairy tales in innovative relevant ways, providing a distinct alternative to “Disneyfication.”
Zipes, professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, has published 25 books, including Beauties, Beasts and Enchantment: Classic French Fairy Tales (1989); Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales (1979); and Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England (1986).