Although fairy tales certainly reflect shared cultural norms and values, I believe that each iteration of a fairy tale is updated according to shared cultural norms and values of the time. “Beauty and the Beast” is used as a prime example of this, becoming more inclusive and egalitarian in Linda Woolverton’s take on the 1756 version by Jeanne-Marie LePrince deBeamont, and even moreso in the version released in 2017.
Most classic fairy tales are told through the male gaze and reflect how little autonomy and opportunity women had at the time. Disney retellings have begun to give women more agency, with some recent female protagonists navigating stories not centered upon love and marriage at all. Elsa, of frozen, is faced with the consequences of her own terrifying powers, and it is only through the love of her sister that she learns to control them. This resonated quite a bit with me, as I felt it a metaphor for mental illness. In Brave, Merida actively scorns traditional gender roles and marriage before she finds herself healing her relationship with her mother.
I never used to enjoy or relate to Disney’s princesses and their focus on romance, largely because female protagonists lacked any agency and needed rescuing by a man. However, I found Frozen so touching that I immediately bought a copy for my younger sister, and our relationship became much stronger for it. Even moreso with my mother and Brave. We saw it in theaters together with no prior knowledge and, by the end, we were in tears in each other’s arms.