Once Upon a Time Was Disability: Disability in Fairy Tales from the Nineteenth Century to Disney

Disability has been a part of fairy tales from the beginning. The Western world and literature changed greatly in the nineteenth century, including how disability was used in fairy tales. In the twentieth century, Walt Disney started animating stories, some of which were fairy tales. This paper looks at the representations of disability in nineteenth-century fairy tales and the Disney versions of those same fairy tales to understand in what way disability was portrayed in the nineteenth century and within the Disney versions.