Disneyification
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White
Cinderella
Rapunzel
In Sleeping Beauty the Disney film, the structure of the Grimm's fairy tale actually stays relatively the same. The only things that change are the 12 wise women being turned into 3 over-comical fairies, the princess being raised by them in the forest rather than her father destroying all spinning wheels, the 100 year sleep being turned into a few days at most, and the prince being known to the princess rather than being someone from 100 years later. The part about the prince makes perfect sense - the ideas of marriage change with the times, and arranged marriages are no longer the norm. The princess being raised in a cottage makes no sense...the parents wanted a child so bad only to ship her away. The wise women turning into fairies definitely takes away from the religious significance of the women as apostles as well. Not to mention, in this clip, we see the fairies reduced to mindless argument that actually ends up putting the girl in danger because of their mindlessness.
In this clip to the left, one sees the meeting between Snow White and Prince Charming in the Disney film. This in itself is an alteration from the Grimm's story - Snow never met the prince until he woke her from her sleep. Here Disney gives more depth to the characters, as arranged marriages are no longer the norm. Snow is also older than seven in the movie, another move to make the tale more socially acceptable. The dwarves are given silly names and turned into comical figures, where in the tale they had none and were actually quite serious, coming to Snow's rescue more than once. (O'Neill) Like most other Disney movies Snow White is filled with animated animals and trees, which many people find takes away from the message of the story. The religious significance of the tale is lessened - The prince doesn't save her because he is a Christ figure, but because he met her before and the queen doesn't visit Snow three times, but only once, with the apple. Some critics believe that the film actually adhered to the Grimm version, only "deviating to depict popular American culture in the areas of romance, comedy, and politics" (Wright 98). Instead of lips as red as blood, the Disney version's lips were as red as a rose - taking away the significance of the blood in the coming of age sequence. Despite taking away from some of the religious elements, the film does add some of its own - the animals are all in pairs, alluding to Noah's ark. (Wright 104) Snow White in the casket was a perfect church scene as well. (Murphy 4) Notice too that doves are still apparent within the film.
"In Cinderella (1950) Disney frosted the plot by adding a carriage that turns into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight.” (O'Neill) He does more than this actually. There are little animals wearing clothes and helping Cinderella out - the helping part is consistent with the fairy tale, but not the clothes. In this clip Cinderella is getting up from bed, which is not the ashes on the hearth, from whence her name came. She's singing, and hopeful, while the girl in the Grimm's version cried at her mother's grave at least once a day, watering it with her tears. There is only one night at the ball in this version, not three, and the stepsisters are ugly on the inside and the out. They do not cut off parts of their feet in the end, nor are their eyes pecked out by doves - the violence is omitted, for good reason at least. But Cinderella does not go to her mother's grave at all, and it is a fairy godmother who heps her get to the ball, not divine influence. The religious influences that Wilhelm Grimm so carefully put in are mostly stripped out in Disney's version of Cinderella and replaced with clothed animals and random bursts of song.
In this clip to the left, we see the time in the Disney movie Tangled when Rapunzel meets Flynn, her 'prince'. This movie is nothing like the Grimm version. Flynn is a robber, Rapunzel a stolen princess who is much more self-assertive then her Grimm fairy tale self who was seduced by the prince the first time he came to her tower. Although still containing a message, it is no longer a morality tale like the Grimm version - like most Disney films its full of comic animals and singing more than it is religion. (White 57) To give it a break though, Christianity isn't really as prominent in today's culture as it was in the Grimm's time, so it makes sense for the film to have less religious references. One of the things that changes as well, is that instead of Rapunzel's tears healing the prince's sight, she actually brings him back to life - which according to some, completely misused the resurrection principle. (White 58) But, personally, I think enough people get resurrected in fairy tales that it really doesn't make much of a difference. In Disney's version Rapunzel’s hair is also magical, which to be honest makes sense for hair long enough and strong enough to pull a woman into a tower.
The main question here is whether Disney's adaptations of the Grimm fairy tales changed their structure and overall, their religious significance. What I found is that in many ways, the versiosn kept the key elements that made it the story that is is, but at the same time, it did lose important underlying messages when incorporated into the disney versions. “Every folktale Disney adapts...is sacrificed to the "gimmick" of animation” (Rollin 91), some people think, and I don't entirely disagree. I think that in adapting these fairy tales some of the Christian elements in them were definitely lost, but in today's society I also believe that they won't be missed by many.