Gender Roles in Reconstructed Fairy Tales: Interstellar Cinderella

In classic fairy tales, which function as powerful cultural narratives, it is gender that determines the lifestyles and activities of the characters; while heroic male characters are more active and mostly described as fighters or rescuers, females are more passive ones who are generally beautiful victims dependent on males. However, these stereotypes are no longer prevailing because the presuppositions of readership have changed over time in parallel with the changes in societal and cultural values all over the world in this new era. As a result of these changes, it has become inevitable to reconstruct existing fairy tales to eliminate gender stereotypes and to meet the presuppositions and requirements of new-generation readership. Deborah Underwood reconstructs the famous fairy tale Cinderella in the futuristic Interstellar Cinderella, where she exchanges gender roles by generating responses against the classic patriarchal order. Drawing on feminist fairy-tale criticism and gender theory, this study critically examines the changing gender roles in the reconstruction of the fairy tales. Grounded in the feminist analyses of Lieberman, Dworkin, and Beauvoir, the study situates traditional fairy tales as the analytical foundation against which the contemporary retelling is read. Through close textual and visual analysis, the article aims to explore how Interstellar Cinderella reconstructs traditional Cinderella motifs to challenge gender stereotypes surrounding beauty, passivity, and marriage.