‘Evil Isn't Born, It's Made’: Redefining the Fairy Tale Villain for Contemporary Television Storytelling

Abstract

Most fairy tale narratives have a hero, a damsel in distress and the ever-present opposing villain. The villains, or antagonists, share several commonalities across the various narratives as well as one over-arching trait of evil. However, as television viewers have become more intuitive, and demand for more sophisticated narratives have increased, contemporary portrayals of villains, as in the television series Once Upon a Time (Horowitz & Kitsis, 2011–2018), have shifted away from presenting villains as one-dimensional and restricted characters.

Instead, the construct of evil is depicted as a multifaceted and evolutionary trait of the character. Whereas previously evil was the fundamental core of the character it is now presented as a fluid concept. This chapter investigates how the construct of evil, and therefore the villain, has been redefined through a contemporary television narrative.

Citation

Le Clue, N. (2022), "‘Evil Isn't Born, It's Made’: Redefining the Fairy Tale Villain for Contemporary Television Storytelling", Le Clue, N. and Vermaak-Griessel, J. (Ed.) Gender and Female Villains in 21st Century Fairy Tale Narratives (Emerald Studies in Popular Culture and Gender), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 157-173. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-564-720221013