The fairy tale police department: hybridity, the transnational television fairy tale, and cultural forms

Fairy tales are perennially criticised for their cruelty, deceit, violence, and perversions of sex and power. Since these are also habitual preoccupations of crime stories, it is not surprising that hybrid fairy tale detective narratives are among current re-mediations of fairy tales. This essay focuses on the Australian children’s animated television series, The Fairy Tale Police Department (Yoram Gross-EM.TV 2001). Drawing on theories of genre and intermedialty, we examine how the hybrid features of the series – including the pleasures and politics of its doubled generic and media codes – succeed and fail as strategies to promote the values of cultural democracy.