Since I'm talking about the song, I figured it would be
good to include it.
“Fairytale” satirizes four fairytales in the first two verses. The song begins with Cinderella “sitting on her bedroom floor.” (Barielles) “Feminists have long been aware that the role of Cinderella, which patriarchy imposes on the imagination of young girls, is a destructive role because it equates femininity with submission, encouraging women to tolerate familial abuse, wait patiently to be rescued by a man, and view marriage as that only desirable reward for ‘right’ conduct.” (Tyson 88) In the story we hear as children, after enduring years of being treated poorly by her step-mother and step-sisters, Cinderella gets her happily ever after with a prince who swept her off her feet at a ball.
In Bareilles’s version, Cinderella is a house wife with “a crush on the guy at the liquor store cause Mr. Charming don’t come home anymore and she forgets why she came here.” Instead of living happily with the man who saved her, she is stuck with an absent husband who, one can assume, spends his time working rather than loving her. When one thinks about it, this is to be expected. She married a prince, the epitome of a man whose work is his life. She went into her marriage expecting the romantic man who saved her to last forever, but people change, especially people who get a big promotion and have to spend a lot more time in the office, or, in Mr. Charming’s case, throne. Now, Cinderella has come to the point where she can’t even remember wanting to have the life she does. After all, what’s the point of marrying a man you never see? It’s an ending for which she wasn’t prepared. She’s turned to drinking as a result and visits the liquor store enough to have developed feelings for the clerk, possibly because he’s the one who supplies the alcohol and therefore, escape.
The next “ever after” we hear is that of “Sleeping Beauty.” Sleeping Beauty does have a name, Aurora, but few people seem to actually remember it. When most people familiar with the story refer to Aurora, they merely call her “Sleeping Beauty,” which is probably why she’s not called by name in the song. The name “Sleeping Beauty” is in and of itself patriarchal. The use of the word “beauty” instead of the name of the character emphasizes that the heroine’s beauty is important. It also minimizes the importance of the character’s name, which minimizes the importance of the character as a person. In “Fairytale,” “Sleeping Beauty” is tired of the demands her prince continually makes of her. The high point of Sleeping Beauty is when her prince kills a dragon, the story’s typical “bad girl,” and rushes to the tower to kiss Aurora and wake her up. “This ending implies that the proper patriarchal young woman is sexually dormant until “awakened” by the man who claims her.” (Tyson, 89)
Whether the demands of Aurora’s prince are sexual or not is left undetermined. One could interpret the line about how he “keeps her from dreaming” (Barielles) as he keeps her from sleeping and therefore, from having actual dreams. This is supported by the line in which she says, “None for you dear prince, I’m tired today.” (Barielles) In this context, the phrase “none for you” has a connotation that implies the person saying it is talking about sex as American culture uses many similar phrases to talk about sexual encounters or lack thereof. Some examples are “get some” or “not getting any.” However, it is possible that, in addition, the “dreaming” that she is talking about is dreaming in the sense of wanting or hoping for something. This is especially likely when one considers that the full line says, “I’d rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming.” (Barielles) In “Sleeping Beauty,” Aurora is supposed to spend eternity sleeping after pricking her finger. This is depicted as a terrible destiny. However, in the song, she would prefer it to living a life stripped of dreaming, wanting, hoping.
Snow White’s depiction in “Fairytale” is possibly the most satirical. As I mentioned in a previous post, one of Snow White’s most important factors is her purity. However, in “Fairytale,” Snow White is certainly not pure. Somehow, she is back with the dwarfs. Perhaps in this version her prince never came. Maybe she’s divorced. Either way, she is now stuck looking after a bunch of men rather than being married to one. Her lack of purity shows itself after the dwarfs go to bed when she “calls up a friend/ Says will you meet me at midnight?” (Barielles)
On the surface, the idea of calling someone to relax with after a hard day of washing dishes and watching after “seven itty-bitty men” (Barielles) can be innocent. However, when one takes the culture in which Sara Bareilles is writing into account, it is definitely in no way innocent. In current American culture, if one person calls another in the middle of the night to meet, it is generally assumed that it’s a meeting of a sexual nature. The use of the word “friend” emphasizes that this person is not a spouse or even significant other. This person, presumably a man, is merely a friend with whom Snow occasionally meets to have sex. This is about as far from the patriarchal view of pure as a girl can get. Bareilles has taken Snow White from virgin to whore. What’s more, it seems as though her actions as a “whore” are the thing that keeps Snow White from complete boredom with her life, which completely opposes patriarchal ideology.
The last fairytale Barielles chose to address is “Rapunzel.” Rapunzel was locked in a tower and never allowed to cut her hair, since climbing it was the only way for her witch of a foster mother to get to her. She was, once again, saved by a prince, and once again, in Sara Barielles’s version, she wishes she wasn’t. In talking about her hair, she reveals she “would have cut it [her]self if [she] knew men could climb hair.” (Barielles) Before she was rescued, all she wanted was to get away from her tower. She wanted to be free from that one room, her prison, but now she’s so tired of the life she’s ended up with that she wants to “find another tower somewhere and keep away from the windows.” (Barielles) She got freedom, but doesn’t seem to feel any freer.
The first two verses are a rebellion through satire, but the last part of the song is far more outright. In the third line of the third verse, Barielles says to “go and tell your white night that he’s handsome in hindsight. [She doesn’t] want the next best thing.” Through most of the song, the chorus calls out the typical fairytale ending as temporary. “You’re so worried ‘bout the maiden though you know she’s only waiting on the next best thing.” (Barielles) This says that, once, the ending that the girl or princess has now was the best, but it isn’t anymore. Now, she’s just waiting for the next “best thing” that she can find. However, in the last verse and chorus the phrase “next best thing” holds different meaning. In the last part of the song, the phrase “next best thing” doesn’t mean “next” as in one best thing following another. It means second. She is tired of settling and has decided to find the real “best thing,” implying that the “happily ever after” prescribed by society was never best at all. She takes a stand in the last two lines of the third verse. In fact, the lines hold images of the narrator of the song literally breaking barriers. She “hold[s her] head down and [she] break[s those] walls round [her],” saying she “can’t take no more of [their] fairytale love.” (Barielles) By including this image, Barielles is telling women that they need to break out of the prisons, towers, or houses they’re being kept in, whether literal or metaphorical. She persists with the idea that it’s time to change expectations in the last chorus of the song.
The last chorus has two added lines between the phrases “you know she’s only waiting” and “the next best thing.” The first of the added lines, “spent her whole life being graded on the sanctity of patience and a dumb appreciation,” (Barielles) outlines the unfairness of the “virgin” expectation. Women everywhere are judged by their purity, how nurturing or submissive they are, but, as the lyrics continue, “the story needs some mending and a better happy ending cause [she doesn’t] want the next best thing.” (Barielles) These lines support the stance that she takes in the second half of the third verse. The narrator of the song is sick of accepting what some man is willing to allow her. Moreover, she’s ready to break out of the stereotype and change the meaning of “happily ever after,” but she needs others’ help. The song wouldn’t have been written if she didn’t.
The only way that women will ever come close to true equality is to challenge the patriarchy, together. In Barielles’s fairytale endings, the women are real, not forced into the “good girl” image of the patriarchy. “Patriarchy continually exerts forces that undermine women’s self-confidence and assertiveness, then points to the absence of these qualities as proof that women are naturally, and therefore correctly, self-effacing and submissive.” (Tyson 86-87) Women have learned to defy the forces of patriarchal and take control of their confidence and, in most cases, their bodies. The idea is spreading that it’s okay for a woman to want for herself, to search for sources of pleasure not just procreation. These days, the ideal “good girl” is rare, and that is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s rather good.
Sources:
"Fairy Tale" by Sara Barielles
Critical Theory Today: A Friendly User's Guide by Lois Tyson
Pictures from Disney's Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Tangled
