Isla Fisher: Fairytales promote ‘negative stereotypes’ and ‘toxic masculinity’
Isla Fisher has said she hopes to encourage people to rethink the “negative stereotypes that go along with fairytales” and encourage them to consider the “toxic masculinity” often on display in male characters in children’s stories.
The Wedding Crashers actress, 44, stars in the new Disney film Godmothered, in which she plays a widowed single mother whose life is upended by a visit from a young, inexperienced fairy godmother-in-training.
Upon hearing that her chosen profession is facing extinction, the magical visitor decides to show the world that people still need fairy godmothers and is determined to give Fisher’s character a happiness makeover, however she learns they may be more to happiness than a handsome prince, a castle and elaborate gowns.
Discussing the way the movie, directed by Bridget Jones’s Diary filmmaker Sharon Maguire, dismisses the conventions of scores of older Disney fairytale films, Fisher told the PA news agency: “I think it’s completely important and about time.
“I’m really proud of Disney for making a movie like this and getting that message out.
“I really hope families sit down and watch it and rethink the pressures that we put ourselves under to conform to, and all the negative stereotypes that go along with fairy tales, whether it be princesses doing domestic chores to be good or waiting for a knight in shining armour or being kissed by a bloke when they’re unconscious and then falling in love.
“There’s a bunch of stuff that we don’t really think of, this toxic masculinity of a prince having to slay a dragon – he can’t be vulnerable either.
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