Sophia Garthe ’27

WUJUR (2025) | Cite this work

Abstract

Few characters are as synonymous with The Walt Disney Company as Mickey Mouse; however, Tinker Bell comes strategically close. Introduced in 1904 through J. M. Barrie’s stage play Peter Pan, and later featured in his 1911 novel Peter and Wendy, the character has since evolved into a distinctly Disney entity. Tinker Bell’s debut in Disney’s animated film Peter Pan (1953) marked her transformation into a marketing tool designed to associate wonder and magic with Disney’s core values. Over time, Tinker Bell and a cohort of other Neverland fairies were expanded into their own franchise, the Disney Fairies. This paper analyzes how Disney, as a media conglomerate, has asserted cultural ownership over the originally licensed character through in-house literary publications, animated films, and the online video game Pixie Hollow. I argue that these media platforms facilitated a comprehensive rebranding of Tinker Bell and the Neverland Fairies, redefining their identities around the Disney Fairies franchise rather than J. M. Barrie’s original Peter Pan.

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Citation (APA)

Garthe, S. (2025). From Barrie to branding: The rewriting of Tinker Bell in the Disney Fairies franchise. WUJUR, 2(1), 58–62.

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Sophia, Garthe. Washington University in St. Louis.
Corresponding Author. Send correspondence to garthe@wustl.edu.

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