Detectives and bail bonds “persons” as fairy tale hero/ines: A feminist antimilitarist analysis of Grimm and Once Upon a Time

Abstract

In this article, I explore the re/writing of gendered scripts in the television programs Grimm and Once Upon a Time. Using a framework of feminist antimilitarism, I examine how these programs, as modern retellings of fairy tales, interconnect with each other and with societal performances of masculinities and femininities. I argue that gender, violence, and militarism are represented in complex ways that variously position ideas of good and evil, protected and protector, masculinity and femininity through the programs’ characterizations of heroic hunters and saviours who are also estranged mothers and sons.