Snow White Movie - Essay Example

?Introduction Snow White was the Disney Studio’s first feature length animation. Thus, it is useful to compare this cartoon to later cartoons, in that the spectrum of movies which came out of the studio represents an evolution of sorts. There are many similarities between this first animated effort and later ones, namely that the villain is a memorable female and the dynamic is one of female power. There are also differences, in that the heroine in this effort is passive, a bit stupid and disloyal. This is in contrast to later heroines, in particular Belle from Beauty and the Beast. These are just a few of the similarities and differences between the early efforts put forth by Disney and the later ones. This paper will examine these similarities and differences, as well as many more. Discussion The imagery surrounding Snow White is considerably different than the imagery surrounding princesses in later Disney incarnations. The first, considerable difference between this animated feature and later features, such as The Little Mermaid is that the animals are less anthromorphized in this feature than in later ones, and the inanimate objects do not come to life, as they do in later features. For instance, in this feature, the animals do not talk. Thus, there is no talking, singing crab like in The Little Mermaid, and the dishes do not come to life and sing, such as in Beauty and the Beast. This aspect gave the movie a bit less of a fantasy quality than later movies, and lent a slightly more believable air to the proceedings. The story could have possibly happened in real life, except that the animals would not be as accommodating as they were in the feature, and, of course, the magic practiced by the Evil Queen would not be possible. But, since the animals and inanimate objects stay mute, the cartoon is not as much in the realm of the fantastic as the later Disney efforts. Because the animals did not talk, nor did the inanimate objects, the feature also seemed to be missing much of the humor which marked the later efforts. Some of the funnier characters in Disney films were the different animals that populate the worlds – such as the crows in Dumbo and Thomas O’Malley Scat Cat friends in The Aristocats. Another aspect to these characters, specifically the crows in Dumbo and O’Malley’s friends in The Aristocats is that these characters were unmistakably based upon African-Americans. The crab in The Little Mermaid was unmistakably Hispanic. In this way, the later features were able to subtly introduce characters of color, even though the main characters were white, or, as in the case of The Aristocats and Dumbo, animals who are based upon Caucasians. Snow White did not have any characters whom were indisputably based upon different ethnicities, as could have been the case had the animators decided to inject a few animal characters into the story, therefore the story is considerably less multi-cultural then later efforts by the studio. Another curious aspect of the story was the way that the dwarfs were introduced and handled. When the dwarfs were first seen in the diamond mine, and in their trek to their home, they were indistinguishable from one another, for the most part. The exceptions to this were Doc, who was set apart by the fact that he wore glasses; Dopey, who was set apart because he was bald and had no facial hair; and Grumpy, who was well-defined from the beginning as a grump, therefore he stood out. The others did not embody their respective names – Happy, Sneezy, Bashful and Sleepy. It would have been more effective if the viewer could have more of an introduction to these dwarfs to show exactly why and how they got their name. For instance, if Sneezy would have been sneezing in the mine and on the way home, he would have been more easily distinguished from the others. If Happy would have been seen doing a “happy dance,” then he would have been better defined. If Bashful would have been turning red early on, the viewer would have known who he was. And, if Sleepy would have been taking a nap in the mine and the others had to wake him up, this would have brought earlier definition to his character. As it was, many of the dwarfs did not embody their names until Snow White actually meets them, and then, one by one, on cue, each dwarf finally demonstrates how he got his particular name. Snow White herself is the very antithesis of later heroines for a variety of reasons. For one, she does not have a relationship with her father, at least not one that was shown on the screen. In fact, Snow White was not seen interacting with any biological parent at all. This is different than the heroines in later efforts, such as Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Pocahontas, as all of these features show the relationship between the protagonist and her father, yet do not show the relationship between the protagonist and her mother (Tanner et al. 2003). Interestingly enough, the above movies show a warm, loving relationship between child and parent, especially Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, as the father is depicted as kindly and wise. This is in clear contrast to Snow White, as the princess is clearly hated by the woman in her life, her stepmother, and apparently not protected by the man in her life, her father, who presumably is still alive somewhere. Thus, Snow White sets the tone for later misogynistic efforts by Walt Disney, in that the evil antagonist is generally a woman who is close to the princess, while the father is saintly and kind. Beauty and the Beast’s evil is perpetrated by a woman who put a spell on a handsome prince, making him into the titular beast. Cinderella, like Snow White, has an evil stepmother and no protective father. A Sea Witch, Ursula, is the antagonist in The Little Mermaid. An evil witch, Maleficent, puts a spell on Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. And, of course, the infamous Cruella De Vil is the evil-doer in 101 Dalmatians. The antagonists in Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, 101 Dalmatians, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid are mentioned because these are all antagonists who are famous and a part of the public consciousness and pop culture itself. And they are all women. Granted, there have been male antagonists, too, along the way – Scar in The Lion King, the butler in The Aristocats, Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, just to name a few. However, the ones we remember are all women. Thus, the cartoons take on a decidedly misogynistic quality, where tangential women are portrayed as scheming, evil shrews, while the tangential men are benevolent and heroic. Such is the case in Snow White. Excluding Snow White herself, and The Evil Queen, the characters in the story are all white men and all heroic and kind. Even Grumpy, who, in his unguarded moments, showed a touching affinity for the princess, even if the actual face he showed to the princess was his grumpy persona. The dwarfs are the pseudo-fathers in this scenario, as poor Snow White apparently does not have a father, or at least a father who cares for her. And the dwarfs all fit the benevolent, kind, if a bit bumbling, stereotype of the father or father figure which permeates the later efforts by Disney, including The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. And the prince, although extremely one-dimensional, also fits the heroic and kind archetype. By contrast, the women in this tale suffer. The evil queen’s shortcomings are obvious, of course – she is vain, insecure and murderous. However, Snow White herself does not exactly come off as a heroine should. She trespasses on the dwarf’s property, than takes their beds, relegating them to sleeping in bathtubs and the like. Both minor crimes in the scheme of things, but her actions of breaking in and entering the dwelling of the dwarfs caused potential problems, and the dwarfs understandably were wary over having an intruder in the house. Her bigger crime, however, is that of stupidity. The evil queen disguises herself as a witch, and she is the most stereotypical witch imaginable – complete with long nose, wart, big evil eyes, hunch back and white, stringy hair. Yet Snow White takes the apple from the old hag and bites into it, all the while knowing that her step-mother wants to kill her, and presumably knowing that the step-mother is a mistress of the dark arts. And, if she did not know that her step-mother dabbled in dark magic, she should have, because the dwarfs told her that the queen was a witch who knew magic. The fact that Snow White ate the apple from this strange person shows that the girl is just not all that bright. This sets her apart from later heroines, especially Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Belle is shown to be a girl of the world, or at least a girl who wants to be of the world, and, although she is generous and a bit naive, she is not stupid. She has a backbone and a strength of character. She knows how to stand up for herself and for the people for whom she cares, especially her father and the beast. Belle is a proactive heroine, not content to simply wait for her prince to come. She is also independent, as she falls in love with a beast, not knowing that the beast is really a prince in disguise. This is an act that would be frowned upon by society, to say the least, yet Belle does not care. The beast is somebody who cares for her, was kind to her and saved her life, and she was able to see past the gruff exterior into the heart of the man below the surface. By contrast, Snow White is a passive girl who does believe in true love and is content to passively wait for her prince to come. Of course, the prince does come, at the very beginning of the story, and, of course, the prince finds her. She does not do anything proactive to find her prince, nor does she seem the type of girl who would be willing to look past a gruff exterior, as with Belle. The prince is handsome, stereotypically so, and gallant, and is there to take her on his white horse and save her. Because that is the kind of girl that she is – the kind who wants to be saved and rescued, and she would bite into a poison apple to make this happen. The prince’s rescue at the end of the story leads into what is perhaps the most galling part of Snow White’s personality, and one that again sets her apart from Belle. And that is a decided lack of gratitude for the seven men who took her in and essentially saved her life. Remember, Snow White trespassed on their property, and they did not have to keep her – they could have thrown her out. They decided to keep her, however, as she showed motherly qualities, including the outstanding ability to cook and clean, and the rough-around-the-edges dwarfs were in dire need of a feminine touch. Yet, the girl shows absolutely no sense of gratitude for the dwarfs at the end of the tale. The dwarfs kept vigil by her tomb for a period of months, weeping. Then, the prince comes literally riding in on a white horse, kisses her, she wakes up, joins the prince and leaves the dwarfs there in the forest without so much as a thank you for all they did for her. This shows a lack of loyalty and gratitude. By contrast, Belle never forgot her loyalty to her father, and this was not diminished by her love for the handsome prince at the end. Thus, the women in the film were flawed in their way. The queen was, of course, more flawed, as she was downright evil. Yet Snow White was also flawed, in that she showed a lack of intelligence, a lack of loyalty and gratitude, and a lack of common sense, in that common sense would dictate that one should not break into a house and take a nap. Thus, this tale established the misogyny which permeated later efforts, in a subtle and not-so-subtle way. The heroine is content to live with dwarfs, but only until the prince shows up, then she presumably never sees the dwarfs again. The antagonist is a murderous witch. Yet the men are heroic and kind and show no obvious flaws, save for Grumpy, whose main flaw is that he does not want to show how much he really cares for the girl. Of course, there might be another reason for the dynamic between the Evil Queen and Snow White, other than the premise that the movie was subtly misogynistic. And this is that the central focus of the film is that of female power (Rozario, 2004). The dynamic is there because the alternative, male power, might be too harsh for audiences to accept. If the villain was a male, it would bring to mind not just patriarchy, but images of darker themes, such as male domination. Also, there would be an element of sexualization if the antagonist was a male, as was the case with Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Gaston with Belle in Beauty and the Beast, two of the few Disney films which featured a male villain with a female protagonist. However, when there is a female villain and a female protagonist, the connotations are not as dark. People think of “catfights” and like when they view conflicts between two women; people think of domestic violence, male chauvinism and male domination when they view conflicts between a man and a woman. Therefore, the dynamic between a female villain and a female heroine is probably one that the audiences would more readily accept, thus this becomes an alternative explanation for the dynamic which forms the focus of this film. There is also another explanation for the characterization of Snow White as a passive, not-to-bright heroine, and that is that she was a product of her times. Snow White was released in the 1930s, before the women’s liberation movement took hold, and before women really entered the workplace. This was even before World War II, which is a time when women entered the workplace to assist with the war effort. This was a much different time then the age that produced Belle and, later, Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and other contemporary heroines. At the time when Snow White came out, women knew their place, and that place was at home, tending to the children and the husband. A girl in Snow White’s position would have had little choice but to dance around and sing about her prince coming someday, because a girl like Snow White would be dependent upon that prince for her care. Indeed, it would have been a major anachronism if she was characterized as anything but a passive princess. The audiences in the late 1930s would have no doubt been taken aback to see a cartoon princess acting like Belle – liberated, confident, proactive and smart. The docile, reactive, none-too-bright Snow White therefore was tailored to the audience of the times. Her character reflected how society viewed the place of the woman. This is reinforced by the role that Snow White took in the dwarf household – that of the loving mother who cooks, cleans and nurtures. This is what women did, and Snow White was no different in this respect. Another major difference between this cartoon and the later ones is its use of humor. There is actually little actual humor in the film, aside from the pratfalls of the dwarfs. There were few, if any, laugh-out-loud moments and no laugh-out-loud dialogue to speak of. Rather, the movie revolved around a gentler tale than a caustic one, which made the entire affair seem rather one-dimensional. Part of the reason for this is, as stated above, the animals did not talk. Part of it was undoubtedly the times, in that the later humor in the later movies, which appeals to adults, probably would not have been acceptable in the 1930s. Part of it was probably due to the fact that this was the very first full-length cartoon, so there was a lot of trial and error to the project. Conclusion There are many central differences between Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and later efforts by the Disney studio. There are also many similarities. One of the similarities is that, across the spectrum of movies, the female antagonists have been the ones who have been famous and have stood out. Everybody knows Cruelle De Vil. Everybody knows the evil stepmother in Cindrella. Everybody knows the Evil Queen in Snow White. Most people remember Ursula in The Little Mermaid. However, the male antagonists over the years have not been as memorable or as vivid, with the possible exception of Scar in The Lion King. One of the differences, however, is the way that the heroine is portrayed. The most vivid difference is between Snow White, the first animated Disney full-length feature and Belle, a recent heroine and star of Beauty and the Beast. Whereas Belle is multi-dimensional, loyal, independent, intelligent, and not content to idly sit by and wait for a prince to come. Belle wants to see the world, and she wants to be educated. There is no discernible need exhibited by Belle to be rescued by anybody. In contrast, Snow White is passively waiting for her prince to come, which makes her chores so much easier, and, when the prince does show up, Snow White exhibits an appalling lack of loyalty to the men who befriended her and essentially saved her life. Another major difference is that the animals do not talk, and the inanimate objects do not come to life. Thus, the film has less of a fantasy quality than the later efforts, and also less humor. Another upshot of this decision is that the cast of Snow White is, well, white. There are no ethnic characters, which could have been the case if some of the animals were brought to life. Because of this, the feature has less diversity than later efforts. Thus, the film shows subtle evidence of both sexism and racism, which could be a product of the times or could be a product of the studio itself. Sources Used Rozario, R. (2004) The princess and the magic kingdom: Beyond nostalgia, the function of the Disney princess. Women’s Studies in Communication, 27.1: 34-59. Tanner, L., Haddock, S., Schindler-Zimmerman, T. & Lund, L. (2003) Images of couples and families in Disney feature-length animated films. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 31: 355-375. Read More