Misogynoir and Origins: Disney's Snow White, Toxic Speech, and the Fairy-Tale Public Sphere
Misogynoir and Origins: Disney's Snow White, Toxic Speech, and the Fairy-Tale Public Sphere

Summary/Abstract: Feminist scholar Allison Craven recently coined the term 'fairy-tale public sphere' to explore how characters, images, and concepts from traditional culture, popular children's literature, and wonder narratives come to play roles in civil discourse as referent, sign, trope, and/or invocation. When such representations enter mediated discourse, the fairy-tale public sphere transforms into a location for debates around race, gender, and other matters of serious import and acrimonious disagreement. It also becomes an arena where fairy-tale motifs and ideas form the grounds for types of speech that are damaging and harmful to minorities and to a democratic social fabric. In this article, the authors examine how racism, sexism, misogyny, and misogynoir operate through debates about the seemingly innocent topic of fairy tales and film. In their case study, dealing with Disney's recent live-action adaptation Snow White by Marc Webb (2025), online discussions manifest as toxic speech with serious consequences.

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