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glitter_n_goreBecause one retrospective at a time just isn't enough, I'm also taking a look at the Disney Princess movies. ALL the Disney Princess movies, in chronological order, over an undisclosed period of time. I've also started posting reviews for some of the Star Wars books over at the library, so the first of those is here. I want this journal to be more active and do at least two or three posts a month. I know that's not super-active, but I'm learning.
Anyway!
The reason I'm doing the Disney Princess thing is I want to take a closer look at some of the criticisms and assumptions I've seen floating around out there about what sort of fantasy role models and heroes we have for young girls. So the obvious choice is to look at the fantasy role models I had as a young girl, and what they look like to me now that I'm older. My main questions/talking points are: Who is the main character and what values do they embody? & Is romance/marriage the driving plot or the goal?
Since this is the first post in the retrospective, I'm starting at the beginning.
Q: What's black and white and red all over?
A: Snow White. Also Goth chicks. Surprisingly, these two things aren't unrelated.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first of the Disney Princesses, and the first feature-length animated film ever made. This isn't one of the movies I watched over and over as a kid, and the parts I remembered before rewatching it mostly involved the Queen and how frighteningly relentless she is. I'm glad the live action reboot didn't forget that, and managed to make the Queen even more awesome. Snow White, on the other hand, is both the least interesting character and the most fascinating archetype of all the Princesses. Today, I'm focusing on how we went from this:
To this:
Let's talk about the Brothers Grimm. Way back in the 1800s, a pair of brothers travelled the European countryside collecting folk tales and writing them down for publication. No two townships could agree on some of the finer details, so Jakob and Wilhelm put their own spin on things, creating a moralistic point of view and putting out some of the stories we now call fairy tales. One of the details on which they used their artistic license was the relationship between various family members. See, they had this idea of motherhood being sacred, so any cruel or evil mothers wound up rewritten as step-mothers. Sometimes the Grimms even invented a whole tragic backstory for the biological mother to drive this point home.
Snow White is one of these stories. In the original version of the tale, the Queen is Snow White's mother, and their rivalry is creepily sexual in nature--beauty is a metaphor for sexual maturity, and the mirror is the voice of the absent father figure comparing the two of them, which is what leads to the Queen wanting Snow White dead. Then there's the virgin/whore dichotomy of Snow White being young and inexperienced and therefore a paragon of incorruptible pure pureness, whereas the Queen is older, more experienced and therefore evil and must be displaced. All versions have the Queen's evil being a known thing in-universe--everyone's terrified of her and knows she's a witch who can cast evil magic on them if they piss her off. She's still one of the most legitimately scary villains in Disney's entire animated canon. The Disney film is a touch less gruesome than the Grimm's version--after the huntsman brings back what the Queen *thinks* is Snow White's heart (he lets her go and kills a wild boar instead), she eats it in the fairy tale--but only a touch, and Snow White was always kind of stupid too live.
This brings me to my big question: Who is our Princess? Well, she's nurturing, a friend to all animals (they don't talk here--unusual for a Disney film, although she seems to understand them), and I kind of like that she offers to keep house for the dwarfs in exchange for them letting her hide out there, as opposed to them asking her to do it for them like in the fairy tale. Her main motivation is the same both before and after the Queen tries to kill her: finding her true love. And to not die, I guess, but that's it. Y'know how I was talking in my Star Wars recap about establishing character moments? The Disney Princesses have establishing character *songs.* And so we get "Someday My Prince Will Come." Keep in mind this happens after she's been banished from her home and threatened with death. That should be traumatizing, but it doesn't shift her motivation an inch. She doesn't even express fear when the Queen shows up with her poisoned apple. She's too boringly perfect to hold your attention for long, which is why the "camera" is focused on the Queen.
And yet, Snow White has been a Gothic fashion icon for, like, decades. That image--the porcelain skin, jet-black hair, and red mouth--is so striking it's stayed popular as recently as the YouTube era in some of my favorite music videos. Like this one:
And this one:
And most obviously in this one:
Amy Lee is channeling Red Riding Hood more than Snow White, with the wolves and all (another metaphor for sexual maturity, by the way), but there is that one moment when the guy bites an apple, so it's pretty clear where the imagery's coming from. Sometimes the red lips get reimagined as rosy cheeks or bloodshot eyes, but it's still basically the same. It's telling that her lips are described as the color of blood, as opposed to roses or cherries or something else a little less sinister. Neil Gaiman even went as far as to rewrite Snow White as a vampire in his short story, "Snow, Glass, Apples." Basically, Snow White is a study in contrasts: the color palette of an evil temptress, superimposed over the body and mannerisms of an innocent girl. It's a weirdly alluring combination that never seems to go out of style.
Speaking of which, you know who else loves that black-white-red-all-over color scheme? YA heroines.
Yeah, casting Kristen Stewart as the Princess for the live action reboot was both problematic and kind of inspired at the same time. The apple on the book cover with the whole forbidden fruit/temptation thing is so obvious I'm not even going to get into it. Although it is interesting that the Queen's the one who "tempts" Snow White, rather than her actual love interest. This is made explicit in the 2012 movie, in which Queen Ravenna (played SPECTACULARLY by Charlize Theron) disguises herself as Snow White's rival love interest (the one not played by Chris Hemsworth), and even kisses her, before getting her to take the apple.
However, Snow White's motivation in the movie has nothing to do with romance. She has more in common with Simba in The Lion King, out to take her rightful place on the throne after this interloper barged in and ruined everything. It's not a bad idea as a plot thread, and could've worked fine if they had deviated even more from the fairy tale. Like, not giving her the whole friend-to-all-animals thing, or the incorruptible pure pureness thing. She's set up as a foil to Queen Ravenna, who is a black magician using her powers for personal gain. The most logical choice would've been to give Snow White a background in white magic, or at least a battle training montage or something, so that we'd have some reason beyond "the prophecy said so" for how she's able to defeat Ravenna in the end. There is a short scene where the Huntsman shows her this one finishing move, but mostly she wins because she's so good and perfect. She gives what's supposed to be a rousing speech before the battle in the end, but it rings false because the character hasn't really learned anything. There's an extended director's cut with a little more meat on it, but Snow White is still a flimsy character who is very hard to take seriously as a match for Ravenna.
We don't even get closure on whether she and the Huntsman get together in the end, which wasn't a huge plot point for her, but it sure is for him. In fact, the Huntsman is the only character in this movie with an arc. He starts out cynical, drinking way too much, heartbroken because of his wife dying off-screen somewhere, and gets dragged into the plot against his will. He doesn't have any stakes in the story until Ravenna says she can bring his dead wife back. Then he finds Snow White, and changes sides very quickly. Partly because he finds out the Queen was lying, but he's slowly starting to fall for the Princess as well. The love story's not that convincing--and I blame the sloppy writing for that, not Kristen Stewart, for what it's worth--but they spend enough time together that they have something resembling a relationship, and he learns enough about the "prophecy" thing to start regaining some hope for the future. And I appreciate that they turned the love interest into an actual character, with his own motivation and goals, as opposed to a blank slate with like three lines. There is a love triangle thrown in, but frankly when Chris Hemsworth is one of your choices, the other guy has no chance. Plus they both kiss her after she eats the apple, and only one of them brings her back to life, so there.
Final question: Is the romance the driving plot? In both the Disney version and the 2012 movie, no. It's a constant underlying theme, but the real story here is the rivalry between Snow White and the Queen. The love interest--whether it's the Prince or the Huntsman--is a peripheral character who serves a purpose, but takes a back seat to both heroine and villainess.
Agree? Disagree? Have something else to add? Tell me in the comments!
Next time: Cinderella (1950)
Anyway!
The reason I'm doing the Disney Princess thing is I want to take a closer look at some of the criticisms and assumptions I've seen floating around out there about what sort of fantasy role models and heroes we have for young girls. So the obvious choice is to look at the fantasy role models I had as a young girl, and what they look like to me now that I'm older. My main questions/talking points are: Who is the main character and what values do they embody? & Is romance/marriage the driving plot or the goal?
Since this is the first post in the retrospective, I'm starting at the beginning.
Q: What's black and white and red all over?
A: Snow White. Also Goth chicks. Surprisingly, these two things aren't unrelated.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first of the Disney Princesses, and the first feature-length animated film ever made. This isn't one of the movies I watched over and over as a kid, and the parts I remembered before rewatching it mostly involved the Queen and how frighteningly relentless she is. I'm glad the live action reboot didn't forget that, and managed to make the Queen even more awesome. Snow White, on the other hand, is both the least interesting character and the most fascinating archetype of all the Princesses. Today, I'm focusing on how we went from this:
To this:
Let's talk about the Brothers Grimm. Way back in the 1800s, a pair of brothers travelled the European countryside collecting folk tales and writing them down for publication. No two townships could agree on some of the finer details, so Jakob and Wilhelm put their own spin on things, creating a moralistic point of view and putting out some of the stories we now call fairy tales. One of the details on which they used their artistic license was the relationship between various family members. See, they had this idea of motherhood being sacred, so any cruel or evil mothers wound up rewritten as step-mothers. Sometimes the Grimms even invented a whole tragic backstory for the biological mother to drive this point home.
Snow White is one of these stories. In the original version of the tale, the Queen is Snow White's mother, and their rivalry is creepily sexual in nature--beauty is a metaphor for sexual maturity, and the mirror is the voice of the absent father figure comparing the two of them, which is what leads to the Queen wanting Snow White dead. Then there's the virgin/whore dichotomy of Snow White being young and inexperienced and therefore a paragon of incorruptible pure pureness, whereas the Queen is older, more experienced and therefore evil and must be displaced. All versions have the Queen's evil being a known thing in-universe--everyone's terrified of her and knows she's a witch who can cast evil magic on them if they piss her off. She's still one of the most legitimately scary villains in Disney's entire animated canon. The Disney film is a touch less gruesome than the Grimm's version--after the huntsman brings back what the Queen *thinks* is Snow White's heart (he lets her go and kills a wild boar instead), she eats it in the fairy tale--but only a touch, and Snow White was always kind of stupid too live.
This brings me to my big question: Who is our Princess? Well, she's nurturing, a friend to all animals (they don't talk here--unusual for a Disney film, although she seems to understand them), and I kind of like that she offers to keep house for the dwarfs in exchange for them letting her hide out there, as opposed to them asking her to do it for them like in the fairy tale. Her main motivation is the same both before and after the Queen tries to kill her: finding her true love. And to not die, I guess, but that's it. Y'know how I was talking in my Star Wars recap about establishing character moments? The Disney Princesses have establishing character *songs.* And so we get "Someday My Prince Will Come." Keep in mind this happens after she's been banished from her home and threatened with death. That should be traumatizing, but it doesn't shift her motivation an inch. She doesn't even express fear when the Queen shows up with her poisoned apple. She's too boringly perfect to hold your attention for long, which is why the "camera" is focused on the Queen.
And yet, Snow White has been a Gothic fashion icon for, like, decades. That image--the porcelain skin, jet-black hair, and red mouth--is so striking it's stayed popular as recently as the YouTube era in some of my favorite music videos. Like this one:
And this one:
And most obviously in this one:
Amy Lee is channeling Red Riding Hood more than Snow White, with the wolves and all (another metaphor for sexual maturity, by the way), but there is that one moment when the guy bites an apple, so it's pretty clear where the imagery's coming from. Sometimes the red lips get reimagined as rosy cheeks or bloodshot eyes, but it's still basically the same. It's telling that her lips are described as the color of blood, as opposed to roses or cherries or something else a little less sinister. Neil Gaiman even went as far as to rewrite Snow White as a vampire in his short story, "Snow, Glass, Apples." Basically, Snow White is a study in contrasts: the color palette of an evil temptress, superimposed over the body and mannerisms of an innocent girl. It's a weirdly alluring combination that never seems to go out of style.
Speaking of which, you know who else loves that black-white-red-all-over color scheme? YA heroines.
Yeah, casting Kristen Stewart as the Princess for the live action reboot was both problematic and kind of inspired at the same time. The apple on the book cover with the whole forbidden fruit/temptation thing is so obvious I'm not even going to get into it. Although it is interesting that the Queen's the one who "tempts" Snow White, rather than her actual love interest. This is made explicit in the 2012 movie, in which Queen Ravenna (played SPECTACULARLY by Charlize Theron) disguises herself as Snow White's rival love interest (the one not played by Chris Hemsworth), and even kisses her, before getting her to take the apple.
However, Snow White's motivation in the movie has nothing to do with romance. She has more in common with Simba in The Lion King, out to take her rightful place on the throne after this interloper barged in and ruined everything. It's not a bad idea as a plot thread, and could've worked fine if they had deviated even more from the fairy tale. Like, not giving her the whole friend-to-all-animals thing, or the incorruptible pure pureness thing. She's set up as a foil to Queen Ravenna, who is a black magician using her powers for personal gain. The most logical choice would've been to give Snow White a background in white magic, or at least a battle training montage or something, so that we'd have some reason beyond "the prophecy said so" for how she's able to defeat Ravenna in the end. There is a short scene where the Huntsman shows her this one finishing move, but mostly she wins because she's so good and perfect. She gives what's supposed to be a rousing speech before the battle in the end, but it rings false because the character hasn't really learned anything. There's an extended director's cut with a little more meat on it, but Snow White is still a flimsy character who is very hard to take seriously as a match for Ravenna.
We don't even get closure on whether she and the Huntsman get together in the end, which wasn't a huge plot point for her, but it sure is for him. In fact, the Huntsman is the only character in this movie with an arc. He starts out cynical, drinking way too much, heartbroken because of his wife dying off-screen somewhere, and gets dragged into the plot against his will. He doesn't have any stakes in the story until Ravenna says she can bring his dead wife back. Then he finds Snow White, and changes sides very quickly. Partly because he finds out the Queen was lying, but he's slowly starting to fall for the Princess as well. The love story's not that convincing--and I blame the sloppy writing for that, not Kristen Stewart, for what it's worth--but they spend enough time together that they have something resembling a relationship, and he learns enough about the "prophecy" thing to start regaining some hope for the future. And I appreciate that they turned the love interest into an actual character, with his own motivation and goals, as opposed to a blank slate with like three lines. There is a love triangle thrown in, but frankly when Chris Hemsworth is one of your choices, the other guy has no chance. Plus they both kiss her after she eats the apple, and only one of them brings her back to life, so there.
Final question: Is the romance the driving plot? In both the Disney version and the 2012 movie, no. It's a constant underlying theme, but the real story here is the rivalry between Snow White and the Queen. The love interest--whether it's the Prince or the Huntsman--is a peripheral character who serves a purpose, but takes a back seat to both heroine and villainess.
Agree? Disagree? Have something else to add? Tell me in the comments!
Next time: Cinderella (1950)