Once Upon A Time: A Contemporary Fairytale

Fairytales have always been one of my favorite types of stories.  Anything can happen in a fairytale—a frog could really be a prince, an apple, one of the healthiest fruits, could be poisonous, a grandma could be eaten by a wolf and live to tell the tale, and glass slippers could actually be comfortable to dance in.  Several months ago I came across a TV series on Netflix that takes the phrase “anything can happen” to a whole new level.   After the first episode of ABC’s Once Upon a Time it became clear this show was not going to depict fairytales how they were told to me as a child.  The creators of Once Upon A Time retold fairytales like no other storyteller has, and in so doing, has told one of the greatest contemporary tales. 

I once had a college professor tell my advanced creative writing class, “Every story has already been told.  All you have to do is write it better.”  Arguably, Once Upon a Time has reinvented some of the best contemporary fairytales.  Every story in Once Upon a Time has been told, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Cinderella, Rumplestiltskin, and so on.  Twisting these stories, Once Upon a Time sheds new light on fairy tales, and keeps viewers guessing what will happen next. 

The main story woven throughout the episodes is Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  Instead of the innocent princess we meet in Disney’s version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Once Upon a Time introduces us to a new version of this classic character.   Snow White is portrayed like today’s Tiana from Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, or Rapunzel from Disney’s Tangled.  She isn’t the sweet, innocent girl we meet in most Snow White stories.  Once Upon a Time’s Snow White is pure and kind, but she’s also brave, fearless, and a bandit at one point in her life.  The Evil Queen, Regina from Snow White, is mean, ruthless, and literally tears people’s hearts out.  However, unlike the original telling of Snow White, she changes.  Regina vanquishes the Wicked Witch, saving Snow White’s baby; she also helps defeat Peter Pan, who is one of the most evil characters on the show.  Once Upon a Time modernizes the princess and makes the evil queen a rounded character. 

The fact that the show twists the stories, and at times leaves them unrecognizable from the version we knew is not unique.  The Broadway play Wicked portrays the Wicked Witch of the West as a good person who very few people understand.  Donna Jo Napoli takes fairytales and myths, and puts her own flavor into them. Napoli’s Beast, is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Likewise Breathe is a retelling of The Pied Piper. The 2012 movie Mirror, Mirror depicted the Snow White story, with Snow White turning into a bandit, learning swordsmanship, with a spirit to take her kingdom back.  The evil queen, in this version, is more developed than most stories of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

What makes Once Upon a Time a more interesting story than other retold fairytales, including Mirror, Mirror, is the fact that, as mentioned before, it melds different fairytales together.  For example, when Snow White is on the run from The Evil Queen, she bumps into Little Red Riding Hood.  Together, these two friends, along with Granny, “conquer” the wolf, who wreaks havoc on the village.  The Evil Queen meets Tinker Bell who tries to help her realize she can still have a happy ending.  In doing this Once Upon a Time puts a unique spice into the fairytales so viewers can’t predict which character will show up next, or who will fall in love with whom.  Rumplestiltskin is actually the beast Belle falls in love with, The Evil Queen is also Ursula, and who would have guessed The Evil Queen would fall in love with Robin Hood?     

The combined fact that Once Upon a Time twists and melds fairytales together is something that has rarely been done before, and has never had so much popularity.  This could possibly be a breakthrough in the way traditional fairytales are told.  Or this could be a onetime thing, which will never be replicated to this scale again.  I am excited to find out what Once Upon a Time throws at us in the upcoming Season 4 starting this Sunday.