Cripting the Classics: Disabled Women Reclaim The Ugly Duckling and Rapunzel

Abstract

Disability Studies questions cultural ideas that treat disability as a problem or defect that needs to be fixed. Crip theory builds on this approach by challenging able-bodied norms and understanding disability as an identity and a source of agency rather than limitation. This paper explores how disabled women retell The Ugly Duckling and Rapunzel in And They Lived… Ever After: Disabled Women Retell Fairy Tales, and how these retellings reshape familiar fairy tales into stories of empowerment. The Ugly Duckling becomes a story about resilience and belonging instead of shame. In contrast, Rapunzel is reimagined as an active character who turns confinement into a path toward self-discovery and connection with others. Drawing on Alison Kafer’s ideas about the politics of disability, the paper argues that these retellings challenge ableist and gendered assumptions and create new ways of imagining agency, community, and transformation.