Critical Articles: “The Fairy Tale That Won’t Behave”?: Ageing and Gender in Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and Matthew Vaughn’s Film Adaptation by Matthew Crofts and Janine Hatter, Femspec Issue 16.1

Fairy stories, it seems, are growing up. Neil Gaiman’s novel Stardust (1999) and Matthew Vaughn’s 2007 film adaptation of the same name are just two examples of the form’s recent resurgence, particularly in film. Recent additions to the genre are distinctly different from those of the classical variety by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, because they have been up- dated for their (post)-modern readers; hence Tim Burton, Angela Carter and Neil Gaiman are renowned for their playing on classical conventions and twisting traditional storylines.