DVDizzy Forum

In your opinion, what is Disney's last earnest fairytale Film? A fairytale film that doesn't wink at the audience for example?

It doesn't have to be animated.

Probably the little mermaid? Everything after had some level of fourth wall breaking, or modern winks.

Edit: actually it might have to be princess and the frog.

If really no winking at all, I'd say Beauty and the Beast? If just earnest, well, even Frozen was earnest overall.

"Beauty and the Beast" was probably the end of this era. I GUESS you could say that Belle being an avid reader of fairy-tales is some kind of wink at the audience, signaling that this girl knows she's in a fairy-tale, but it was later films that started having to bargain with audiences about the plot devices they were using. Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Frozen, all had their own unique threads of deconstruction and internal examination.

But if we are talking about the most recent fairy-tale that chooses to sidestep all that, I think I'd have to say Frozen II. That movie doesn't really indulge in any of the subversion that put the first Frozen movie on everyone's radar. I mean, I suppose you could argue that the second one sort of deconstructs the dead parent trope within fairy-tales, but that's a bit of a stretch, in my book.

I'm halfway wondering whether we aren't far off from seeing Disney trying to launch an "earnest fairy-tale," and promoting it as such, trying to earn back the goodwill lost during their 2010s self-aware Disney campaign.

The reason I find it hard to count frozen is because of how quirky anna was. It felt like it was trying to do the whole modern "look, see, I'm flawed and adorkable" thing that tangled started.

Imo, Beauty and the Beast.

Disney Duster wrote: ↑Sat Aug 02, 2025 3:48 pm If really no winking at all, I'd say Beauty and the Beast? If just earnest, well, even Frozen was earnest overall.

For some reason I thought you would say Cinderella (2015).

I suppose Frozen II. I thought Raya and Encanto were both earnest stories, too, but not based on any kind of fairy tale. True, there's also the remakes. I thought Snow White and TLM remakes--the two most recent fairy tale-based ones--were fairly earnest.

Wish's story never has many moments where the emotion is drawn to the surface. Which is odd since both the "I want" song as well as the moment where Magnifico destroys her mother's inner dream both should have been dramatic moments, but... The same with the battle at the very end. They just never really get any emotion stirred up, unfortunately.

Farerb wrote: ↑Sat Aug 02, 2025 9:01 pm

Disney Duster wrote: ↑Sat Aug 02, 2025 3:48 pm If really no winking at all, I'd say Beauty and the Beast? If just earnest, well, even Frozen was earnest overall.

For some reason I thought you would say Cinderella (2015).

I wasn't thinking of the live-actions. Thanks for the reminder. I change my answer to that one.

What a great example to bring up Frozen II. Now that I think about it, it`s remarkable how it tried to stay earnest and low-key and just tell a straight-forward fairy tale (despite how it had mythical elements incorporated in it). Considering how the first Frozen was trying so hard to reverse the fairy tale tropes, it`s remarkable how Frozen II was so earnest with it`s execution.

However, I`ll also have to bring up the live action version of Cinderella.

Yeah, even though the prompt did stipulate that we weren't limiting ourselves just to the animated canon, that is kind of where my mind went.

If we are including the live-action remakes, then Cinderella certainly counts. It's there in the design, the performances, the writing, etc.

Beauty and the Beast and Snow White both probably thought they were being earnest, but in execution they were both just atonal and messy. There's always been more to fairy-tales than just hyper-saturating the color scheme. And Beauty and the Beast especially was just so remarkably insecure about finding like socio-economic justification for there being like an enchanted castle in the middle of the woods.

I might also be inclined to count Little Mermaid. But even there, they couldn't help but over-rationalize certain plotpoints. (Seriously, whose idea was Ursula's little amnesia clause and what did they think they were gaining?)