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Articles

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2016)

It’s Good to be ‘Bad’: Exploring the Re-Negotiation of Female Virtue and Happiness in Once Upon A Time

Submitted
September 11, 2016
Published
2016-09-26

Abstract

Links between the performance of gender roles and happiness dominate in traditional fairy-tale narratives, which have provided Western societies with models of gender identification for decades (Zipes 1999). However, amongst rising critique of the genre’s narrow rules of gender production, the trend towards the dissolution of such ‘myths’, “exhausted narrative and … ideologies†(Bacchilega 1997, p. 50) is evident. This paper grounds the discussion about contemporary femininity in a discourse analysis of Once Upon A Time (ABC 2011-present), which, as a postmodern fairy tale, seeks to challenge traditional canons. Unpacking the narrative journey of Regina, this paper seeks to explore the ways in which the show both reproduces and subverts traditional views on femininity, and its links to happiness. Drawing on fairy-tale scholarship, gender studies and theories of postmodernism this paper demonstrates how the show highlights the tensions around femininity in a postmodern society, providing a more human female character.

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