Fairy Tales Forever After: Expanding the Canon, Creative Disruption, and Unconscious Upcycling

Abstract: This essay juxtaposes the self-conscious iconoclasm of writers like Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood with the unconscious upcycling of fairy tales in films like Alex Garland’s Ex Machina and Jordan Peele’s Get Out . In the vast recycling project that provides new ways of making meaning out of the old, there is no sense in turning proprietary and insisting on acknowledging source material drawn from collective cultural capital. Still, it is important to acknowledge that a storytelling craft once deployed by women for the sake of passing on wisdom in the service of survival continues to flourish and to find its way into a culture that also continues to dismiss fairy tales as entertainment for the young.