English version | Lado B: Who’s the fairest of them all?

17 May 2022
By Pureza Fleming

Fairy tale princesses are always the most beautiful. And the youngest, too. Real life imitates fiction and, despite successive efforts to change the narrative, beauty and youth remain the most faithful synonyms for success.

Fairy tale princesses are always the most beautiful. And the youngest, too. Real life imitates fiction and, despite successive efforts to change the narrative, beauty and youth remain the most faithful synonyms for success.

What do most of the princesses we know through Disney movies have in common? Beauty. Snow White and her “lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, skin white as snow.”; Belle, from Beauty and the Beast, beautiful as her name suggests, with her long brown hair, huge eyes, rosy cheeks, and sculpted figure; or Aurora, the protagonist in Sleeping Beauty, with her abundant blonde hair, translucent skin, and naturally red lips. Beauty, which according to the dictionary is translated as "perfection pleasing to the eye and captivating to the spirit," seems to be undeniably (and however subjective the interpretation of the word may be) the common link between all these princesses. A kind of Victoria's Secret fashion show, but in a childish and naive version. And if female beauty is unquestionably and incessantly emphasized in fairy tales, if the heroine is invariably described as always being "the most beautiful" in the whole kingdom and beyond, the same is not true for the villain who, in addition to her inner evil, almost always has the bonus of lacking physical attributes pleasing to the eye. In fairy tales, the bad guy is the ugly one on duty. Cinderella's Ugly Sisters are a prime example. Maleficent, the evil witch played by Angelina Jolie in the spin-off of Sleeping Beauty, is perhaps the exception to the rule. But it turns out that in this film Maleficent starts out being good and only then becomes evil - and because she was good, she was also beautiful. In 2003, researchers at Purdue University examined 168 tales by the Brothers Grimm and found that 94% of their tales recognized physical appearance, and the average references per story were 13.6% - in one, female beauty was referenced 114 times. In comparison, the number of references to male beauty was no more than 35 per story. "Fairy tales, which are still read by millions of American children today, make the case that it pays to be beautiful," concluded Liz Grauerholz, researcher and professor of sociology. "It's important to understand the messages our children receive about traditional gender roles, especially during a time when women are encouraged to be independent and rely more on their brains than their beauty."Research shows that most fairy tales that survived into the 20th century featured characters with young, beautiful princesses. "Fairy tales are important historically because they provide children with information about a particular period," added Lori Baker-Sperry, another researcher. She pointed out, "We do not discourage children from reading fairy tales, even with such stereotypes and lack of minority inclusion, but we strongly recommend interaction by parents or adults while children are reading or watching fairy tales." In addition to the issue surrounding the magnitude of beauty, the researchers felt that fairy tale messages about how appearance can label a person as good or bad could be harmful to children. For example, evil was associated with ugly in 17% of the stories. In many of the tales, ugly people were punished. Youth — or the lack of it — is another recurring theme in fairy tales. In most versions of Little Red Riding Hood, the elderly grandmother is eaten by the wolf. The child, the titular protagonist, is spared. Throughout traditional fairy tales, older women are portrayed sometimes as witches and sometimes as evil stepmothers. In What Fairy Tales Reveal About the Transformations in a Woman's Life (2006), author Joan Gould finds that the tales primarily address the issue of growing up. The princess starts out as a girl and emerges as a woman. The symbolism of the stories - rags turned into ball gowns, falling asleep and waking up with true love's kiss, apples offered by wicked old women - represents this transition in different ways. But each story portrays a young girl facing her womanhood.

 

Translated from the original on The Fairytale Issue, from Vogue Portugal, published May/June 2022.

Full stories and credits on the print issue.

Pureza Fleming By Pureza Fleming

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