Disney is a Gendered World: how a Little Mermaid becomes a Sirenetta

Children’s literature is a breeding ground for translation and adaptation; this is demonstrated by the great amount of animated movies inspired by children’s books, where characters coming from literary fairy tales often reappear changed in their multimodal versions. The article aims at analysing the intersemiotic translation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Marmaid from literature to the screen, focusing in particular on the process of Disneyfication the literary fairy tale underwent in order to become a blockbuster. Moreover, the article draws attention to the process of dubbing dialogues and songs in the Italian La Sirenetta showing how it perpetuates sterotyping gender roles.