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Snow White: What Everyone Gets Wrong

This is my very first post in my “What Everyone Gets Wrong about [insert Disney movie]” series.  Though some facts are sprinkled into this post for context, most of this is an opinion. Nothing in this text is meant to be insulting or offensive. Thank you.

To start off here is some background for those of us who need a refresher:

This was the world's first full-length animated feature

It was released in 1937

The film is only 1.5 hours long

4.5 years of work went into making it

The film was completed 2.5 weeks before its premiere

Now that we know the basic facts, let’s talk about the things that everyone gets wrong/ that tick me off.

Number 1: Necrophilia

Now, I get that memes are supposed to be funny, but the random corpse thing just doesn’t make sense. Firstly, she’s in a coma, not dead. Secondly, this kiss isn’t sexual in nature; its a goodbye. He really liked her (as seen in the first few minutes of the movie) and now she’s gone. She’s a fourteen-year-old that left too soon. It's sad with no sexual motivations involved. That said, a person can interpret this however they want. Which brings me to my third point: the timing of the film. As I stated earlier, this film was completed 2.5 weeks before it’s premiere. There was a huge time (and budget) crunch for this film. In the Brothers Grimm telling of this story (which Walt Disney decided to base this film on), Snow White awakens from the apple-induced coma when the dwarfs are carrying her coffin to the prince’s castle so she can be buried in the family crypt for whatever reason, and a dwarf trips, causing the apple piece that had been stuck in her throat to dislodge and fly out of her mouth, allowing her to wake up without the kiss. Having such little time and budget, I doubt the animators could have put what would have equaled an extra half hour (the coffin carrying and wedding where the evil queen would dance to her death) of animation for the film. That’s not even including the cursed corset or poisoned comb that were taken out of the story. Not to mention each frame was hand drawn, making even the smallest scene a time-consuming piece of work. Who wants to draw all the extra stuff involved to take the coffin to a castle somewhere far off? It’s much easier to draw a kiss and be done with it. Why else do you think they cut out a bunch of animation backstory by including the written story in the middle of the film (as seen below)?

Number 2: She’s Not Feminist Enough/ All She Does is Cook and Clean

What the actual heck is it with this argument? I get that we want our children to be strong, independent people who realize there is more to life than being with a man/woman/significant other, but why should strength and independence only mean going into the workforce? My dad lost his job, so he was a stay-at-home dad with me and my little sister for a couple years. It was awesome! Not to mention his value as a human being didn’t diminish every time he touched a mop or dusted. He taught his children how to keep a home tidy and guess what? I didn’t have to pay anyone to do my laundry when I got to college. I was a better-adjusted adult because I knew how to keep a home, and I was healthy to boot because I know how to cook. 

Feminism is about the equality of the sexes, so its really easy to bash Snow White because she cooks and cleans and takes on traditional gender roles. But the thing everyone seems to forget is the fact that this movie was made during the Great Depression and premiered two years before World War II. As large as the Disney empire has become, there is no way it could have possibly seen the future and made a film that was more in line with today’s feminism standards. 

Furthermore, this movie is set in 16th century (1500s) Germany and made in 1937. It’s history. As in, an amazing, revolutionary work of art that changed film forever. Yes, it is very traditional in its approach to what Snow White does/ doesn’t do, but she’s a fourteen-year-old fugitive in 16th century Germany! She doesn’t have a lot of options. Keeping house in exchange for food and shelter is not a bad choice considering the only other option is prostituting herself. Also, the way she takes charge of the house is pretty awesome. She doesn’t take any sh*t from the dwarfs (as seen by her “go outside and wash” speech). She may only be fourteen, but she’s managing things like she’s the next CEO of Disney.

History aside, it seems like all the parents I meet that don’t like/ don’t show the film only do so because they don’t want to encourage gender roles. I get it, but telling kids that cleaning and cooking aren’t useful or that you can’t be strong and independent if you like/subscribe to traditional gender roles is kinda backward. Afterall, isn’t feminism about the right to choose? If I want to be a stay-at-home mom and my sister wants to be the next Steve Jobs, aren’t we both entitled to go for it?

Number 3: Saved By a Man

This is just a continuation of my above point. Snow White is fourteen. The prince (who is credited as ‘The Prince’ because Snow White and the Dwarfs are the only characters with names) is only seventeen. Now in Europe in 1500, a girl as young as twelve could get married no problem. Most girls did. Or they became nuns. All of that doesn’t really matter when your audience is Americans in 1937. What matters is that a studio just completed the first, full-length entirely cel-animated feature. When Walt Disney started this project, he wanted to focus on the dwarfs. He gave them names and personalities. By the end of the film, however, the focus had turned to the relationship between Snow White and her stepmother. All really good things. That said, the plot changed a bit from the start to the finish. The original storyboard was much more comical and very different from the storyline we know today. With all these changes, it makes sense that the one element that stayed the same through production was the happy ending where Snow White and her prince marry. It’s a classic ending, and there is no reason that true love shouldn’t win out in the end. Of course, the true love argument becomes problematic considering they’ve only met once before the coma, but considering the film is only an hour and twenty-eight minutes, I think we can forgive the quick progression of their relationship. 

Also, it’s not so much Snow White’s beauty that makes the queen jealous, it's her youth. Snow White is young and growing into her body whereas the queen is aging. But that’s a whole discussion for theorists that I don’t want to get into.

In conclusion, Snow White is a classic film that doesn’t deserve to be hated on as much as it is. Because of its success, it paved the way for many of my childhood favorites, and I am thankful for that. She may not wield a sword and shield, but Snow White is still a bada** princess who teaches the value in being kind and making the best of a terrible situation. I for one think that those are still relevant lessons no matter what time period you are watching it in.

This has been a rant. Thank you.