Once upon a time they all lived happily ever after – Really?

Drama facilitator Joanna Parkes suggests ways teachers can use Drama to challenge the stereotypes that are often present in traditional stories or fairytales. These stereotypes are based upon traditional gender roles that have changed and evolved since the tales were first written. She has written resource notes for Teachers linked to the Ark’s production of Far Away From Me which can be downloaded for free.

Fairytales have been childhood staples for generations and many of the most common stories appear in similar versions in countries all around the world. Children still enjoy these magical tales and they still have a positive role to play for today’s children. Most fairytales revolve around the ‘Good versus Evil’ battle, where the good mostly find ways to overpower the bad and emerge victorious. This can help children confront their fears and face up to dangers in the real world.

However some of the themes in these stories reflect attitudes prevalent at the time when they were written. The messages conveyed by these tales can play a powerful role in shaping children’s perspectives about themselves and others - messages around how males and females are “supposed” to behave and interact, reinforcing traditional ideals of femininity such as beauty, innocence and passivity and depicting the qualities of courage and fearlessness as attributes that are exclusively masculine.

The stereotypes we encounter in fairytales include the passive Princess who waits to be saved by the brave and handsome Prince, the wicked stepmother who is jealous of and out to harm her stepchildren. Underpinning all this is the concept of beauty being equated with goodness and evil being linked to ugliness. The Princess or Damsel’s beauty is innately linked to being good and kind. The reverse then is also true: wicked and evil characters are usually described as being ugly such as the Witches and Ugly Sisters.This link between beauty and goodness is particularly pernicious today when there is such pressure on women and girls to conform to a standardised version of beauty. Many girls are starting to get obsessed with their image from a young age so if this issue can be examined and discussed in relation to fairytales, girls can possibly start to question and challenge these messages.

Fairytales have been re-told over time in many different ways through books, films, plays and animations and some of the more recent adaptations (such as Frozen and Shrek) have chosen to reverse these stereotypes. Sometimes when a fairytale is being re-imagined the writer may decide to stay quite close to the original story but make changes within the story structure. In other re-workings of classic tales the fairytale might be the starting point but the story structure takes a new direction. This would describe the Ark’s current production of Far Away From Me by Amy Conroy, who takes The Princess and the Pea as her starting point but then follows a different, unexpected path and creates an innovative and original story.

To complement this production, The Ark commissioned Joanna to create the outlines of two drama lessons which suggest ways to explore and challenge some of the stereotypes in classic fairytales and then create new, more updated versions. In the First Session, the class explore the characters and storylines as they are described in the traditional fairytales. In Session Two they look to challenge or reverse some of these portrayals and create their own version. You can download these drama session plans for free

Joanna Parkes is a Freelance Drama Facilitator working in Primary Schools and 3rd Level Teacher Training Colleges. She co-wrote the popular teachers drama resource books – the Step By Step Educational Drama series (published by NAYD). She currently lives in Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary. For more information see: about.me/joanna.parkes.