Queer(ed) fairy-tales of valor : Sapphic love in all-ages graphic narratives

Abstract

In this thesis, twenty-five selected fairy-tales from the first two Valor anthologies, featuring female protagonists, have been analysed using a multi-thematic methodology and an intersectional queer feminist lens. Framed in great part by Sara Ahmed‘s concepts of "disorientation" and "queer objects," this study foregrounds the Sapphic-Queer elements in these stories. In an effort to understand the narratives, the main themes were divided into three categories: Challenges & Transformation, Family & Community, and Romance & Sexuality. The main goal of this thesis has been to bring a queer feminist academic focus to the study of fairy-tales, in an effort to understand some of the recent graphic narrative trends that are emerging from independent creators/creatixes as a result of a social and cultural desire for stronger and more diverse female archetypes, as well as what José Esteban Muñoz would have called "hopeful queer aesthetics."