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Just as the title asks, do you believe that there are any modern fairy tales? Or are we stuck in a constant re-telling of the classics?
And for the third and final questions: how would you distinguish between a fairy tale and just a story?
I would argue that if we do have modern fairy tales, they are the ones about Tom Sawyer, the stories of Frances Hodgson Burnett [A Little Princess, The Secret Garden], etc. But again, it is more of a judgment call on considering the above fairy-tales or stories whereas history has taken away that ambiguity regarding Cinderella, Snow White, and the Little Match Girl.
I think to be a fairy tale, it has to have a quality that makes people want to tell it over and over which usually means it possesses certain universal themes that everyone can relate to. ie: Cinderella is a downtrodden girl who surmounts oppression to become something special. Everyone wants to be a Cinderella. There are hundreds of versions of this story throughout folklore and popular culture. The same with Beauty and the Beast. Hell, Pride and Prejudice can be seen as a version of Beauty and the Beast.
The other thing is that fairy tales tend to be morality tales. They have a moral, there's a purpose to the story, something to be taught.
Perhaps stories such as A Little Princess, Oliver Twist, etc. can achieve fairy tale status by their universal themes, by the morals they teach, by the way that other stories imitate them, but are they in turn imitating the fairy tales that came before?
In truth, every tale has been told. There is no such thing as a completely original story.
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The other thing is that fairy tales tend to be morality tales. They have a moral, there's a purpose to the story, something to be taught.
Perhaps stories such as A Little Princess, Oliver Twist, etc. can achieve fairy tale status by their universal themes, by the morals they teach, by the way that other stories imitate them, but are they in turn imitating the fairy tales that came before?
In truth, every tale has been told. There is no such thing as a completely original story.