Snow White

Snow White
When you think of Snow White do you think of a raven haired girl singing to animals or a naive girl who falls for the same disguise three times? What do you imagine when you think about Prince Charming, was he a dashing prince riding in on his white horse giving out reviving kisses or is he a necrophilia who fell in love with a pretty corpse and wanted to take it to a secret corner of his castle? This fairy tale is particularly my favorite Disney version because it does not sway too much from the original. Snow White was Disney's first animated cartoon in 1937. This was the first color and animated movie in America. The Grimm fairy tale originated in Germany and was heard around many courts in Europe.

Disney’s Snow White is similar to the brothers Grimm in that there are seven dwarfs that live in a little house that Snow White finds when she fled the hunter. Snow White was running from the hunter because the evil queen sent him to kill her but he lets her go in both versions. The prince charming eventually comes to save the day even if it is intentional or not. There is the magic mirror that the evil step mother/witch has that tells her she is the most beautiful in the land until Snow White grows into her looks (she is about sixteen in the Disney movie but only eleven in the Grimm version). In both versions the wicked queen relentlessly tries to kill snow white until it ends up in her dying in one way or another.

The differences are that in the original fairy tale the queen wants the hunter to bring back Snow Whites liver and lungs; in the Disney version the queen wants her heart. The wicked queen in both version finds out snow white is still alive because her mirror tells her she is still not the fairest in the land and she goes after Snow White. In the Grimm version the wicked queen goes after Snow White three different times with the same costume but selling different deadly products. The evil queen is selling dress ribbons, a hair comb, and the famous poisonous apple that has one side red and one side white. This shows that Snow White is probably not very smart to have fallen for the same disguise three times. The famous apple in the Disney movie is fully red and the Grimm version the apple is half white and half red (the white side is poisonous). The Disney Snow White also meet her prince in the begining of the movie but in the Grimm there was no such meeting. Snow White seems to be really stupid in the Grimm version but pure of heart so it seems to save her in the end but the Disney version the only thing that saves her is the prince.

The endings of these stories are very different also. The Disney version has the evil queen come in one disguise and tricks snow white into eating the apple only one time and as the wicked queen is running away from the dwarfs she falls to her death. In the original the wicked queen runs and gets away safely to her castle. The prince is different in the ends both stories. In the original story the prince comes along and sees the seven dwarf’s morning snow white and his eyes come across a beautiful dead girl. I do not know if he fell in love with the dead corpse and wanted to somehow defile it or he just wanted to keep a shrine to snow white but it is rather strange and unsettling compared to the fairy tale ending of the Disney’s life breathing kiss. After the prince comes and kisses air into snow white in the Disney version they go off to live in his castle happily ever after. In the Grimm version the Prince starts to take snow white’s corpse back to his castle as a sudden jolt dislodges the apple from Snow White’s esophagus and she comes back to life. The prince takes her back to his castle and they start to have a wedding celebration. The wicked queen let the curiosity get the best of her when her mirror tells her that the new queen across the land is fair than her. She had to go see if this Queen was fairer than her, imagine her surprise when she saw that the new Queen was Snow White. When she arrives snow white immediately pointed her out to the prince. The prince brought heated metal shoes that the queen was ordered to dance in until she died.

I actually do like the Disney version of this fairy tale because it does not wonder far from the original version. I do realize that corpse love should not be shown to children and with good reason. I think it was quite acceptable for Disney to leave those few parts out of the cartoon.