Pixies in Film and Literature

Pixies Portrayed in Film

Unarguable the most famous Pixie was Tinker Bell, but was she really a pixie? In the Disney film, Peter Pan, Tinker Bell is referred to several times as a Pixie and she leaves behind trails of “pixie dust”. There is much evidence in the film to suggest Tinker Bell is in fact a Pixie. However here is a little known fact about Tinker Bell. In J.M. Barrie’s original play Tinker Bell is actually a fairy and the pixie dust is only ever referred to as “fairy dust” in the play. In his 1902 novel, The Little White Bird, in which he introduced the mythos of Peter Pan and the fairies, he wrote, of the fairies that lived in the Home Tree, a towering tree located in the heart of Pixie Hollow in Never Land. Many of the fairy characters portrayed in Barrie’s work are young females, but older male characters are also included. The males are sometimes referred to as "sparrow men", though the term "fairies" are used to refer to both female and male characters. Walt Disney evidently reworked many of Barrie’s ideas in making them his own. However why Tinkerbell was changed from a Fairy to a Pixie is not known, but I suppose Walt Disney can be given credit for bringing Pixies into motion pictures and thus into the realm of the mainstream.

In the 2001 Nickelodeon television show created by Butch Harman, it is the fairy’s who are portrayed as the good guys, while pixies are targeted as drab, dull and boring versions of fairies. Unlike the fun loving fairies the pixies are all business and instead of carrying wands they carry cell phones The Head Pixie (H.P. for short), and the other male pixies are all voiced by Ben Stein. The female pixies are seldom seen throughout the show, this is in reference to them being as small as pixels.

Pixies In Modern Literature

Pixies and fairies are common in books of fantasy and the legend of pixies has been passed on throughout generations, often these mythical creatures are featured in modern fantasy literature.

In Michael Buckley's The Sisters Grimm series, pixies are described as small orange-glowing creatures that resemble fireflies and are controlled by fairies such as by the use of a small wooden flute. It seems to be a reoccurring theme that pixies are simply further down the pecking order than fairies. There almost seems to be fairy discrimination of pixies throughout literature

Throughout literature there are many interpretations of what pixies are. In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Gilderoy Lockhart releases a cage of pixies into the classroom in an effort to teach the students how to defeat them in his Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Rowling's version of pixies are described as trouble making, rambunctious, glowing bright electric blue and stand about 8 inches tall.

In Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series, pixies are driven underground by humans because of the trouble they have caused on earth; namely causing pollution. Opal Koboi is the megalomaniac, genius pixie of Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception. Colfer describes the characteristics of pixies thoroughly and in great detail. He describes pixies as having abnormally childish features and larger heads than other types of Fairies. The larger heads of the Pixies leave their brains susceptible to head blows and this makes them easy to knock out. Also because of their thin cranial mass they are prone to migraines, unpredictable behavior which can be compared to that of a human with schizophrenia. Colfer’s character, Opal Koboi is a perfect example of such a menacing pixie.