Snow White: The Changing of Female Agency in American Film Adaptations
Written by Kathryn Riley
The original fairy tale “Little Snow White” or “Sneewittchen” as collected by the Grimm Brothers has slowly lost its plot and meaning and has transformed into a ”shell” of a tale, "shell" meaning an external structure or container. This “shell” made up mainly of a relationship between a stepmother and daughter, in terms of American film adaptations, is then filled by each film’s historical and current conceptions of female agency, along with the current role of women. The main female characters of the story, Snow White and the Queen, have had their motives and personalities changed with each film, forcing the plot and focus of the films Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mirror Mirror, and Snow White and the Huntsman to alter as Snow White and the Queen change.
Published by the Grimm Brothers in 1812 in their collection of fairy tales called Grimms’ Fairy Tales, “Little Snow White” is one of the most notable fairy tales with its main female character, Snow White, popularly remembered in society. Though its exact time of creation cannot be pinpointed, as the original authors of fairy tales are not often noted, it is generally agreed that “Little Snow White” has its origins in Germany. However, other countries, such as Scotland, have their own versions or stories similar to that of “Little Snow White”. For example, there is a Celtic tale called “Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree”. This story tells of a princess named Gold Tree who, like Snow White, faces the wrath of her mother, Silver Tree, due to her beauty. Though the story has quite a few differences from Grimms’, such as the mother asking a trout in a well who is most beautiful instead of a mirror as well as the queen being poisoned rather dancing herself to death while wearing burning iron shoes, the tales are incredibly similar.
In Disney’s adaptation of “Little Snow White”, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the film directly states it is based on the Grimm Brothers’ tale. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs opens with what looks like an ornate storybook, which sets up the story of Snow White and her jealous stepmother. This foreshadows the Queen’s persistent effort to kill Snow White. Similar to Grimms’ tale, Disney’s adaptation consists of five major events: the Huntsman being sent out to kill Snow White only to let her go, Snow White encountering the seven dwarfs, the Queen disguising herself as an old woman and attempting to kill Snow White, Snow White biting into a poison apple and falling into a deep and magical sleep, and the Prince breaking the spell at the end.
Though the plot and details (like there being seven dwarfs and Snow White’s “dead” body lying in a glass coffin) are the same, the smallest changes from story to film alter the characterization of Snow White. Hair still black, lips still red as blood, and skin still white as snow; her appearance, disregarding the age difference, remains the same. However, as Enikő Stringham points out, “the most important alterations are [sic] in the manner in which Snow White, herself, is presented” in Disney’s adaptation (30). In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White lives passively and depends on others to force her into action. The only things she does actively are the activities of a classic homemaker who enjoys singing. In contrast, in Grimms’ “Little Snow White”, she begs the Huntsman to spare her and let her hide in the woods to never be seen again. In Disney’s adaptation, it is the Huntsman who is yelling and begging her to run and to never allow the Queen to see her. In addition, Grimms’ Snow White actively finds the dwarfs’ cottage and bargains with the dwarfs to allow her to stay, while Disney’s Snow White relies on the woodland creatures to lead her to shelter and stays with the dwarfs, who allow her into their cottage because of her kind nature. Even though the dwarfs in Grimms’ version ask Snow White to do chores and activities associated with the classic homemaker, there is not nearly as much emphasis put on these “female duties” in the short story as there is in the Disney adaptation. In addition to her beauty, which she even seems conscious of by the she primps herself before interacting with the Prince or entering the dwarfs’ home, Disney’s Snow White’s identity is completely tied to her stereotypically feminine activities and her constant wishing for a Prince Charming. This in turn changes Grimm’s Snow White’s focus from not being murdered at the hands of the Queen to focusing on finding true love and acting like a good little mother.
Disney’s Queen, however, remains mostly true to the original. Proclaiming, “Snow White shall die . . . even if it costs me my very life” in Grimms’ “Little Snow White”, the Queen feels the same in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Grimm 197). Though the exact words were not said in Disney’s adaptation, the message and intentions are clearly the same, as evidenced by the way she continues to try to kill Snow White because she fears Snow White’s beauty. Snow White’s focus might have changed in the adaptation, but as Tracy Mollet notes, for the Queen, “the emphasis again falls on the bitterness at the core of the Queen’s jealousy” (117). Nonetheless, Mollet argues, by only including the Queen’s final attempt to kill Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney is “casting her as the scapegoat for all that happens to the princess” and ignoring Snow White’s stupidity and naivety of continually letting “strangers” into the cottage (116). That being said, Disney still found a way to romanticize and water-down the villain by taking out the vital part of her wanting to eat the organs retrieved by the Huntsman. While Disney’s Queen only wanted Snow White’s heart in a box, Grimms’ Queen ordered the Huntsman to bring her back the lung and liver of Snow White so she could consume the organs. Wanting to eat the organs of Snow White made Grimms’ Queen dark and vile, while in comparison, Disney’s Queen looked enervated.
The changes that Walt Disney makes to “Little Snow White” can be attributed to his reason for choosing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to be his first full-length motion picture. What became the “highest grossing film of 1938” started out as Walt Disney’s attempt to bring life and hope back to the American people (Mollet 109). The 1930s were a time of hardships for Americans with the crash of the stock market and the fall of the American economy. By giving Snow White a kind personality and the ability to wish, “Disney kept the dream of success alive” (Mollet 114). Moviegoers of the 1930s considered her to be a reflection of themselves. Snow White represented a hopeful American “in the rags to riches story of the American Dream” (Mollet 114). The Queen, on the other hand, represented “superficiality, greed, and individual ambition,” which held importance in the past 1920s but could no longer act as a focus since the American people needed to learn the true value of a dollar and make every penny last (Mollet 116). With this said, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was thoroughly a film for the 1930s. Even if it had good intentions in the 1930s, the modern viewer might have problems with Disney’s Snow White. Though some may argue that “an emphasis on domestic chores shows the importance of female roles in the traditional societies,” Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ actually removes power from the woman and traps her in the eternal role of homemaker (Stringham 32). This, however, is not the case for the “Little Snow White” adaptation, Mirror Mirror.
Starring Lily Collins as Snow White and Julia Roberts and the Queen, Mirror Mirror is one of two “Little Snow White” adaptations released in 2012. Mirror Mirror is the more light-hearted of the two, taking place in a bright and colorful world and is not afraid of sarcasm or making light of sexism. The story begins with the evil Queen addressing how she ended up as a Queen and a stepmother. Unlike Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mirror Mirror includes the passing of Snow White’s biological mother during childbirth, which is arguably an important plot point included in “Little Snow White”. Aside from the general group of characters, Snow White’s appearance, the Queen’s jealously over Snow White’s beauty and the mention of the death of Snow White’s mother are the only real consistencies from story to film. The plot of the film revolves around the Queen’s desperate need to stay beautiful, but in this adaptation, the Queen’s appearance can be modified through methods similar to Botox and other types of plastic surgery. The problem the Queen faces is a lack of money to fund her expensive beauty habits. Though the Queen’s jealousy over Snow White’s beauty is obvious, it is not until the Queen notices Snow White trying to overthrow her and take back her father’s kingdom that the Queen begins plotting to kill her. The film then continues with a jumbled mess of Snow White encountering the Prince and displaying mounds of sexual tension and learning how to fight so she can defeat the Queen. Overall, the focus of the film is the stepmother/stepdaughter conflict and Snow White’s fight for love.
Matured and feisty in Mirror Mirror, Snow White transforms into a strong and ready-to-fight kind of girl in this film adaptation. This Snow White is so far the oldest of the mentioned, being 18 years old, while Snow White in “Little Snow White” is seven and Disney’s Snow White is estimated to be around thirteen years old. However, Snow White continues to be compassionate and love sick, which contributes to Snow White’s relative likeability by rounding her out to be capable of both compassion and strength. By giving her moments of normalcy, like falling in love with the Prince, and moments of supreme physical strength, this Snow White turns into a character, which can be relatable but also seen as someone a viewer would want to strive to be like, similar to a superhero. The scene that best describes Snow White as a whole is her initial meeting with the Prince. Snow White finds him and another man tied up to a tree, and while making good-natured jokes, Snow White unties the men to only stand face to face with the Prince, which is when the sexual tension and obvious foreshadowing to a “happily ever after” begins. Mirror Mirror’s Snow White is vividly different from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ Snow White as she actively tries to plot against the Queen and rescue the kingdom, which the Queen had impoverished. Snow White also, like in the original story, asks the Huntsman to not kill her and bargains with the dwarfs to let her stay. Unlike the original, she asks the dwarfs to teach her the ways of a pseudo-medieval robber, as a stepping-stone to not only helping the kingdom and the dwarfs but also to defeat the Queen.
Speaking of the Queen, Mirror Mirror’s take on the character is flamboyant and self-obsessed in a way that is not depicted in “Little Snow White” or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Mirror Mirror’s Queen is a colorful cougar named Clementianna who has spent all of the kingdom’s money on beauty supplements and treatments. Similar to the Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Queen is shown to use magic, though in Mirror Mirror, the magic is said to come with a price. The most significant difference of the Queen from Grimms’ tale to Mirror Mirror, however, is her desire to kill Snow White because Snow White threatening her income of funds, the kingdom and its people’s gold. Also, unlike “Little Snow White”, there are not multiple instances of the Queen going directly after Snow White. Instead, the Queen lets Snow White be, as long as she still has her kingdom and money. At the end of the film, however, the weakened and aged Queen makes an appearance at Snow White and the Prince’s wedding where she offers Snow White the infamous apple. Thankfully, Snow White does not eat the apple and then, instead, gives it back to the Queen with a snarky, yet light-hearted joke about admitting defeat and the Queen, well, admits defeat without having to die. The ending, which is given to the Queen, sends out a message that older women need to accept their loss of social power due to losing their beauty and let prettier, younger women rein. This theme of older women losing their power, due to their age and the consequences that come along with ageing, proves to be one of the only things that connects Mirror Mirror with Snow White and the Huntsman.
Snow White and the Huntsman, also released in 2012, is a twisted and gritty retelling of “Little Snow White”. Like Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman shares little plot with the original tale and only uses basic plot elements to help guide the adaptation along. Compared to Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White and the Huntsman is a particularly serious movie with its dark elements and its broader focus of how men betray and sexualize women. This is shown by multiple events throughout the movie such as the Queen’s brother, who is in place of the traditional Huntsman, making advances on Snow White right before he tries to rip out her heart. The film plays out with an opening war between Snow White’s kingdom and a mysterious army that, unbeknownst to anyone, belongs to the future Queen. This turns out to only be a ploy for a woman repeatedly betrayed by men to marry the king, kill the king and then become the sole leader of the kingdom. The film then continues with the, once again, main conflict: Snow White versus the evil stepmother. After a giant massacre of practically the whole kingdom, the Queen locks Snow White in a room where she grows up and grows more hateful of the Queen over the years. The majority of the film transcribes Snow White’s post-escape traveling through the Dark Forest with the Huntsman, leading to the final confrontation between Snow White and the Queen. Because Snow White and the Huntsman gave both the Queen and Snow White purposes higher than vanity, the film became almost unrecognizable in comparison to the original tale by the Grimm Brothers. Even the poisoned apple that put Snow White into a deep, deep sleep seems so incredibly different.
Similar to Mirror Mirror’s Snow White, Snow White and the Huntsman’s Snow White proved strong and brave, more than willing to fight for her life. After spending years trapped in a cell by the Queen, she escapes at her first opportunity, attacking the brother in the process. While maneuvering around the Dark Forest, which looks to be bleeding and is causing her to hallucinate terrifying things, she encounters the Queen’s brother once again and the Huntsman. After the Huntsman turns on the brother, Snow White tries to escape from the grasps of the Huntsman, who had been hired by the Queen to capture her and return her from the Dark Forest. From the very beginning, Snow White is constantly fighting for her life. However, not only does she risk her life for herself, but for others as well. For instance, right after the initial conflict between the brother, the huntsman, and Snow White, a troll attacks Snow White and the Huntsman. Even though the Huntsman had originally attempting to capture her and bring her back to the Queen, Snow White still distracted the troll in an effort to save the Huntsman’s life. This Snow White, like the one portrayed in Mirror Mirror, lives actively and refuses to passively sit around and let the Queen kill her. However, unlike all of the previously mentioned Snow Whites, this Snow White does not even “choose” a man or rather, get married. Instead, the film ends with her killing the Queen without a wedding following or before the climax. This Snow White’s true focus was to stay alive and bring peace to her once beautiful kingdom, not fall in love and get married.
Of all of the Queens in the adaptations mentioned, Snow White and the Huntsman’s has to be the most terrifying yet heartbreaking. This Queen, Ravenna, stands out from every other evil stepmother as she has a real personality and a story that creates sympathy for her. Early on in the film, she speaks of how other men had married her for her beauty, to only toss her aside when she began to age. The Queen felt that “in a world where women are subjugated, she has power only as long as she has beauty” (Edelstein 1). Feeling the desperate need to stay authoritative and therefore beautiful, the Queen drains the life out of attractive, youthful girls. This made the Queen ruthless and genuinely terrifying for other women, as the Queen made these women targets because of their beauty. Though the Queen had no problem murdering an entire kingdom, the death of her own brother saddened her deeply. Along with the authentic pain and betrayal the Queen felt, the mourning of her brother served to humanize her and round her out to be more than a merciless killer obsessed with beauty.
Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman take the original Snow White and Queen from “Little Snow White” and give them the power and strength of the twenty-first century woman. Feminism being a huge social movement in the time period, this encouraged women to break away from the separate spheres of the 1800s that put woman outside of social matters and in the kitchen and left men to do whatever they pleased. With the help of feminist ideals, women are empowered and seeking to claim full ownership of their rights and bodies. In addition, “the rise of female-headed households in middle-class America might be construed as a sign of great independence and feminist progress” (Mohanty 69). Nonetheless, just having the characters like the Queen and Snow White in Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman is proof of how women are transforming and taking control of their lives. Though the two films “had very little in common except for the fact that both updated Snow White into a fierce Amazon more likely to pick up a sword than a mirror,” both showed an obvious connection to the twenty-first century (Maio 207). Although Mirror Mirror has its fair share of sexist and patriarchal moments, both films were inspired by the power that modern women possess, allowing them to do things like joining the military and holding positions in the House of Representatives.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mirror Mirror, and Snow White and the Huntsman each take Grimms’ “Little Snow White” and have made the classic tale their own. However, while Snow White and the Seven Dwarves simply romanticized the characters for a time when America needed hope, Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman changed the story completely for a post-feminist age. Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman draw focus off the beauty of the main women and, instead, put emphasis on what they are capable of doing. Due to this drastic change of focus, “Little Snow White” became only a loose basis for these modern retellings of an aged fairy tale. The original tale has morphed into a basic structure made up of a group of reoccurring characters, a need to be beautiful, an apple, and a struggle between a stepmother and daughter.
Published by the Grimm Brothers in 1812 in their collection of fairy tales called Grimms’ Fairy Tales, “Little Snow White” is one of the most notable fairy tales with its main female character, Snow White, popularly remembered in society. Though its exact time of creation cannot be pinpointed, as the original authors of fairy tales are not often noted, it is generally agreed that “Little Snow White” has its origins in Germany. However, other countries, such as Scotland, have their own versions or stories similar to that of “Little Snow White”. For example, there is a Celtic tale called “Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree”. This story tells of a princess named Gold Tree who, like Snow White, faces the wrath of her mother, Silver Tree, due to her beauty. Though the story has quite a few differences from Grimms’, such as the mother asking a trout in a well who is most beautiful instead of a mirror as well as the queen being poisoned rather dancing herself to death while wearing burning iron shoes, the tales are incredibly similar.
In Disney’s adaptation of “Little Snow White”, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the film directly states it is based on the Grimm Brothers’ tale. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs opens with what looks like an ornate storybook, which sets up the story of Snow White and her jealous stepmother. This foreshadows the Queen’s persistent effort to kill Snow White. Similar to Grimms’ tale, Disney’s adaptation consists of five major events: the Huntsman being sent out to kill Snow White only to let her go, Snow White encountering the seven dwarfs, the Queen disguising herself as an old woman and attempting to kill Snow White, Snow White biting into a poison apple and falling into a deep and magical sleep, and the Prince breaking the spell at the end.
Though the plot and details (like there being seven dwarfs and Snow White’s “dead” body lying in a glass coffin) are the same, the smallest changes from story to film alter the characterization of Snow White. Hair still black, lips still red as blood, and skin still white as snow; her appearance, disregarding the age difference, remains the same. However, as Enikő Stringham points out, “the most important alterations are [sic] in the manner in which Snow White, herself, is presented” in Disney’s adaptation (30). In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White lives passively and depends on others to force her into action. The only things she does actively are the activities of a classic homemaker who enjoys singing. In contrast, in Grimms’ “Little Snow White”, she begs the Huntsman to spare her and let her hide in the woods to never be seen again. In Disney’s adaptation, it is the Huntsman who is yelling and begging her to run and to never allow the Queen to see her. In addition, Grimms’ Snow White actively finds the dwarfs’ cottage and bargains with the dwarfs to allow her to stay, while Disney’s Snow White relies on the woodland creatures to lead her to shelter and stays with the dwarfs, who allow her into their cottage because of her kind nature. Even though the dwarfs in Grimms’ version ask Snow White to do chores and activities associated with the classic homemaker, there is not nearly as much emphasis put on these “female duties” in the short story as there is in the Disney adaptation. In addition to her beauty, which she even seems conscious of by the she primps herself before interacting with the Prince or entering the dwarfs’ home, Disney’s Snow White’s identity is completely tied to her stereotypically feminine activities and her constant wishing for a Prince Charming. This in turn changes Grimm’s Snow White’s focus from not being murdered at the hands of the Queen to focusing on finding true love and acting like a good little mother.
Disney’s Queen, however, remains mostly true to the original. Proclaiming, “Snow White shall die . . . even if it costs me my very life” in Grimms’ “Little Snow White”, the Queen feels the same in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Grimm 197). Though the exact words were not said in Disney’s adaptation, the message and intentions are clearly the same, as evidenced by the way she continues to try to kill Snow White because she fears Snow White’s beauty. Snow White’s focus might have changed in the adaptation, but as Tracy Mollet notes, for the Queen, “the emphasis again falls on the bitterness at the core of the Queen’s jealousy” (117). Nonetheless, Mollet argues, by only including the Queen’s final attempt to kill Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney is “casting her as the scapegoat for all that happens to the princess” and ignoring Snow White’s stupidity and naivety of continually letting “strangers” into the cottage (116). That being said, Disney still found a way to romanticize and water-down the villain by taking out the vital part of her wanting to eat the organs retrieved by the Huntsman. While Disney’s Queen only wanted Snow White’s heart in a box, Grimms’ Queen ordered the Huntsman to bring her back the lung and liver of Snow White so she could consume the organs. Wanting to eat the organs of Snow White made Grimms’ Queen dark and vile, while in comparison, Disney’s Queen looked enervated.
The changes that Walt Disney makes to “Little Snow White” can be attributed to his reason for choosing Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to be his first full-length motion picture. What became the “highest grossing film of 1938” started out as Walt Disney’s attempt to bring life and hope back to the American people (Mollet 109). The 1930s were a time of hardships for Americans with the crash of the stock market and the fall of the American economy. By giving Snow White a kind personality and the ability to wish, “Disney kept the dream of success alive” (Mollet 114). Moviegoers of the 1930s considered her to be a reflection of themselves. Snow White represented a hopeful American “in the rags to riches story of the American Dream” (Mollet 114). The Queen, on the other hand, represented “superficiality, greed, and individual ambition,” which held importance in the past 1920s but could no longer act as a focus since the American people needed to learn the true value of a dollar and make every penny last (Mollet 116). With this said, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was thoroughly a film for the 1930s. Even if it had good intentions in the 1930s, the modern viewer might have problems with Disney’s Snow White. Though some may argue that “an emphasis on domestic chores shows the importance of female roles in the traditional societies,” Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ actually removes power from the woman and traps her in the eternal role of homemaker (Stringham 32). This, however, is not the case for the “Little Snow White” adaptation, Mirror Mirror.
Starring Lily Collins as Snow White and Julia Roberts and the Queen, Mirror Mirror is one of two “Little Snow White” adaptations released in 2012. Mirror Mirror is the more light-hearted of the two, taking place in a bright and colorful world and is not afraid of sarcasm or making light of sexism. The story begins with the evil Queen addressing how she ended up as a Queen and a stepmother. Unlike Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mirror Mirror includes the passing of Snow White’s biological mother during childbirth, which is arguably an important plot point included in “Little Snow White”. Aside from the general group of characters, Snow White’s appearance, the Queen’s jealously over Snow White’s beauty and the mention of the death of Snow White’s mother are the only real consistencies from story to film. The plot of the film revolves around the Queen’s desperate need to stay beautiful, but in this adaptation, the Queen’s appearance can be modified through methods similar to Botox and other types of plastic surgery. The problem the Queen faces is a lack of money to fund her expensive beauty habits. Though the Queen’s jealousy over Snow White’s beauty is obvious, it is not until the Queen notices Snow White trying to overthrow her and take back her father’s kingdom that the Queen begins plotting to kill her. The film then continues with a jumbled mess of Snow White encountering the Prince and displaying mounds of sexual tension and learning how to fight so she can defeat the Queen. Overall, the focus of the film is the stepmother/stepdaughter conflict and Snow White’s fight for love.
Matured and feisty in Mirror Mirror, Snow White transforms into a strong and ready-to-fight kind of girl in this film adaptation. This Snow White is so far the oldest of the mentioned, being 18 years old, while Snow White in “Little Snow White” is seven and Disney’s Snow White is estimated to be around thirteen years old. However, Snow White continues to be compassionate and love sick, which contributes to Snow White’s relative likeability by rounding her out to be capable of both compassion and strength. By giving her moments of normalcy, like falling in love with the Prince, and moments of supreme physical strength, this Snow White turns into a character, which can be relatable but also seen as someone a viewer would want to strive to be like, similar to a superhero. The scene that best describes Snow White as a whole is her initial meeting with the Prince. Snow White finds him and another man tied up to a tree, and while making good-natured jokes, Snow White unties the men to only stand face to face with the Prince, which is when the sexual tension and obvious foreshadowing to a “happily ever after” begins. Mirror Mirror’s Snow White is vividly different from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ Snow White as she actively tries to plot against the Queen and rescue the kingdom, which the Queen had impoverished. Snow White also, like in the original story, asks the Huntsman to not kill her and bargains with the dwarfs to let her stay. Unlike the original, she asks the dwarfs to teach her the ways of a pseudo-medieval robber, as a stepping-stone to not only helping the kingdom and the dwarfs but also to defeat the Queen.
Speaking of the Queen, Mirror Mirror’s take on the character is flamboyant and self-obsessed in a way that is not depicted in “Little Snow White” or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Mirror Mirror’s Queen is a colorful cougar named Clementianna who has spent all of the kingdom’s money on beauty supplements and treatments. Similar to the Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Queen is shown to use magic, though in Mirror Mirror, the magic is said to come with a price. The most significant difference of the Queen from Grimms’ tale to Mirror Mirror, however, is her desire to kill Snow White because Snow White threatening her income of funds, the kingdom and its people’s gold. Also, unlike “Little Snow White”, there are not multiple instances of the Queen going directly after Snow White. Instead, the Queen lets Snow White be, as long as she still has her kingdom and money. At the end of the film, however, the weakened and aged Queen makes an appearance at Snow White and the Prince’s wedding where she offers Snow White the infamous apple. Thankfully, Snow White does not eat the apple and then, instead, gives it back to the Queen with a snarky, yet light-hearted joke about admitting defeat and the Queen, well, admits defeat without having to die. The ending, which is given to the Queen, sends out a message that older women need to accept their loss of social power due to losing their beauty and let prettier, younger women rein. This theme of older women losing their power, due to their age and the consequences that come along with ageing, proves to be one of the only things that connects Mirror Mirror with Snow White and the Huntsman.
Snow White and the Huntsman, also released in 2012, is a twisted and gritty retelling of “Little Snow White”. Like Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman shares little plot with the original tale and only uses basic plot elements to help guide the adaptation along. Compared to Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White and the Huntsman is a particularly serious movie with its dark elements and its broader focus of how men betray and sexualize women. This is shown by multiple events throughout the movie such as the Queen’s brother, who is in place of the traditional Huntsman, making advances on Snow White right before he tries to rip out her heart. The film plays out with an opening war between Snow White’s kingdom and a mysterious army that, unbeknownst to anyone, belongs to the future Queen. This turns out to only be a ploy for a woman repeatedly betrayed by men to marry the king, kill the king and then become the sole leader of the kingdom. The film then continues with the, once again, main conflict: Snow White versus the evil stepmother. After a giant massacre of practically the whole kingdom, the Queen locks Snow White in a room where she grows up and grows more hateful of the Queen over the years. The majority of the film transcribes Snow White’s post-escape traveling through the Dark Forest with the Huntsman, leading to the final confrontation between Snow White and the Queen. Because Snow White and the Huntsman gave both the Queen and Snow White purposes higher than vanity, the film became almost unrecognizable in comparison to the original tale by the Grimm Brothers. Even the poisoned apple that put Snow White into a deep, deep sleep seems so incredibly different.
Similar to Mirror Mirror’s Snow White, Snow White and the Huntsman’s Snow White proved strong and brave, more than willing to fight for her life. After spending years trapped in a cell by the Queen, she escapes at her first opportunity, attacking the brother in the process. While maneuvering around the Dark Forest, which looks to be bleeding and is causing her to hallucinate terrifying things, she encounters the Queen’s brother once again and the Huntsman. After the Huntsman turns on the brother, Snow White tries to escape from the grasps of the Huntsman, who had been hired by the Queen to capture her and return her from the Dark Forest. From the very beginning, Snow White is constantly fighting for her life. However, not only does she risk her life for herself, but for others as well. For instance, right after the initial conflict between the brother, the huntsman, and Snow White, a troll attacks Snow White and the Huntsman. Even though the Huntsman had originally attempting to capture her and bring her back to the Queen, Snow White still distracted the troll in an effort to save the Huntsman’s life. This Snow White, like the one portrayed in Mirror Mirror, lives actively and refuses to passively sit around and let the Queen kill her. However, unlike all of the previously mentioned Snow Whites, this Snow White does not even “choose” a man or rather, get married. Instead, the film ends with her killing the Queen without a wedding following or before the climax. This Snow White’s true focus was to stay alive and bring peace to her once beautiful kingdom, not fall in love and get married.
Of all of the Queens in the adaptations mentioned, Snow White and the Huntsman’s has to be the most terrifying yet heartbreaking. This Queen, Ravenna, stands out from every other evil stepmother as she has a real personality and a story that creates sympathy for her. Early on in the film, she speaks of how other men had married her for her beauty, to only toss her aside when she began to age. The Queen felt that “in a world where women are subjugated, she has power only as long as she has beauty” (Edelstein 1). Feeling the desperate need to stay authoritative and therefore beautiful, the Queen drains the life out of attractive, youthful girls. This made the Queen ruthless and genuinely terrifying for other women, as the Queen made these women targets because of their beauty. Though the Queen had no problem murdering an entire kingdom, the death of her own brother saddened her deeply. Along with the authentic pain and betrayal the Queen felt, the mourning of her brother served to humanize her and round her out to be more than a merciless killer obsessed with beauty.
Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman take the original Snow White and Queen from “Little Snow White” and give them the power and strength of the twenty-first century woman. Feminism being a huge social movement in the time period, this encouraged women to break away from the separate spheres of the 1800s that put woman outside of social matters and in the kitchen and left men to do whatever they pleased. With the help of feminist ideals, women are empowered and seeking to claim full ownership of their rights and bodies. In addition, “the rise of female-headed households in middle-class America might be construed as a sign of great independence and feminist progress” (Mohanty 69). Nonetheless, just having the characters like the Queen and Snow White in Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman is proof of how women are transforming and taking control of their lives. Though the two films “had very little in common except for the fact that both updated Snow White into a fierce Amazon more likely to pick up a sword than a mirror,” both showed an obvious connection to the twenty-first century (Maio 207). Although Mirror Mirror has its fair share of sexist and patriarchal moments, both films were inspired by the power that modern women possess, allowing them to do things like joining the military and holding positions in the House of Representatives.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mirror Mirror, and Snow White and the Huntsman each take Grimms’ “Little Snow White” and have made the classic tale their own. However, while Snow White and the Seven Dwarves simply romanticized the characters for a time when America needed hope, Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman changed the story completely for a post-feminist age. Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman draw focus off the beauty of the main women and, instead, put emphasis on what they are capable of doing. Due to this drastic change of focus, “Little Snow White” became only a loose basis for these modern retellings of an aged fairy tale. The original tale has morphed into a basic structure made up of a group of reoccurring characters, a need to be beautiful, an apple, and a struggle between a stepmother and daughter.
Bibliography
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David, Edelstein. "A Snow White As Bleak As It Is Grimm." Fresh Air (NPR) (2012): Points of View Reference Center. Web. 5 May 2014.
Grimm. “Snow White.” German Folk Tales. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. 192-199. Print.
Maio, Kathi. "Beauty Fades, But Fairy Tales Never Die." Fantasy & Science Fiction 123.3/4 (2012): 204-210. Literary Reference Center. Web. 5 May 2014.
Mirror Mirror. Dir. Tarsem Singh Dhandwar. Perf. Lily Collins, Julia Roberts, Armie Hammer. Relativity Media. 2012. Web.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Russo, Ann, and Torres, Lourdes. Third World Women and Political Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. Web. May 5, 2014
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Snow White and the Huntsman. Dir. Rupert Sanders. Perf. Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron. Universal Studios. 2012. Web.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Dir. William Cottrell. Perf. Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne. RKO Pictures. 1937. Web.
Stringham, Enikő. "Disney And The Butchering Of Snow White." Economics, Management & Financial Markets 6.2 (2011): 637-652. Business Source Complete. Web. 5 May 2014.
Ashliman, D.L. Snow White and Other Tales of Aarne-Thompson-Uther Type 709. Web. 29 April 2014.
David, Edelstein. "A Snow White As Bleak As It Is Grimm." Fresh Air (NPR) (2012): Points of View Reference Center. Web. 5 May 2014.
Grimm. “Snow White.” German Folk Tales. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. 192-199. Print.
Maio, Kathi. "Beauty Fades, But Fairy Tales Never Die." Fantasy & Science Fiction 123.3/4 (2012): 204-210. Literary Reference Center. Web. 5 May 2014.
Mirror Mirror. Dir. Tarsem Singh Dhandwar. Perf. Lily Collins, Julia Roberts, Armie Hammer. Relativity Media. 2012. Web.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Russo, Ann, and Torres, Lourdes. Third World Women and Political Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. Web. May 5, 2014
Mollet, Tracy. "With A Smile And A Song.." Marvels & Tales 27.1 (2013): 109-124. Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 5 May 2014.
Snow White and the Huntsman. Dir. Rupert Sanders. Perf. Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron. Universal Studios. 2012. Web.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Dir. William Cottrell. Perf. Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell, Lucille La Verne. RKO Pictures. 1937. Web.
Stringham, Enikő. "Disney And The Butchering Of Snow White." Economics, Management & Financial Markets 6.2 (2011): 637-652. Business Source Complete. Web. 5 May 2014.