Cultural Critique · Women & Media Smashing the Fairytales: How Hollywood Groomed Women to Submit Books to Empower Women and Girls
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Cultural Critique · Women & Media
Smashing the Fairytales:
How Hollywood Groomed Women to Submit
Books to Empower Women and Girls
Smashing the Fairytales is a feminist firestorm—a searing critique of the films that shaped women’s understanding of love, identity, and sacrifice over the last century. In this book, Lidia LoPinto examines some of the most iconic stories of our time and asks a difficult question: What did they teach us—and what did they cost us?
With sharp clarity, LoPinto explores how Hollywood—from classic Disney musicals to Oscar-winning dramas—has repeatedly framed suffering as love, silence as virtue, and beauty as obedience. These were not just films; they became cultural blueprints that shaped expectations about romance, gender roles, and self-worth.
Across decades of storytelling, women were encouraged to wait, to forgive, to fix, and to stay. Boundaries were replaced with ballrooms. Respect with transformation. Redemption was promised through romance—often at any cost.
This book goes beyond film critique to examine the psychological impact these narratives have had on generations of women and girls, and the myths they planted early in life.
Films and Narratives Explored
- Beauty and the Beast (1991 & 2023) — Submission framed as salvation
- Gaslight — The origin of the term and the weaponization of doubt
- The Lady Eve — Female brilliance punished for male insecurity
- Pretty Woman — The glamorization of commodified romance
- Legally Blonde — Intelligence filtered through prettiness
- The Graduate — Male aimlessness rewarded, female agency erased
- Cleopatra — Exoticized power and the cost of ambition
- Mildred Pierce — Motherhood as penance
- Rebecca — Love defined by control and invisibility
- Sabrina — Grooming and the glamorization of age gaps
- The Little Mermaid — Silence sold as empowerment
- And more
Written by a retired engineer and author now producing work at an accelerated pace, LoPinto offers a generational wake-up call. She pulls no punches—but leaves room for adults to enjoy these films with greater awareness.
This Book Is for You If You’ve Ever
- Felt uneasy watching a “romantic” scene everyone else celebrated
- Wondered why so many women are opting out of traditional romance narratives
- Felt that love came with the price of silence, compromise, or self-erasure
Smashing the Fairytales is not about canceling movies. It’s about unlearning the stories we grew up calling love.
Interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2025