Disney's Snow White

Disney's Snow White surprisingly stays fairly close to the Brothers Grimm source material. The main antagonist is still the step mother of Snow White, which definitely makes more logical sense than the biological mother. As well, the story arch remains generally the same, as no new characters are introduced, simply that their roles are made more significant. Other than the animals that assist and care for Snow White, a clear sign of “Disneyfication”, the main characters generally do stay the same.

However, there are some differences between the original text and Disney’s feature film, although they usually do not interfere with the main plot of the story. Mainly, the entire story is made less gruesome and gory. The Queen does not eat the remains of the pig thinking that it is Snow White’s remains like in the tale. The queen’s death also is offscreen and the viewer simply assumes that she was smashed by the large boulder she attempted to kill the dwarves with. This definitely appeals to a wider audience than having the queen dance in red hot iron shoes until she dies. Snow White also is limited to only one “death”, in this case caused by the apple. In the Disney version, Snow white only encounters the queen in disguise once and her “death” is mostly offscreen, with the viewer only seeing her arm fall to the ground. Again this is to maintain an appeal to a wide age range for the audience. Disney also improves the roles of the 7 Dwarves in the story. While giving each of them names makes them more identifiable in the story, Disney also focuses the majority of Snow White around her interactions and relationships with the Dwarves and the animals. This shifts the story away from its original setting, where the main two characters were Snow White and the Queen and the Dwarves merely served as background characters. The Prince also shows up more than just at the end. It serves to establish him as a character before he “saves the day” in the end; however, his entrance into the beginning and into the end of the movie still seems too abrupt to flow with the rest of the movie.

I did pick up something in the movie that I had never thought of while reading the story. At the end of the movie, Prince Charming suddenly shows up to pay his respects to Snow White’s casket. Eventually, his kiss (true love’s kiss), arises Snow White from her slumber and they eventually live happily ever after. However, the cinematography presents a new idea about this ending, one that is vastly more sinister. In the original tale, it is clear that all that needed to be done to save Snow White was remove the piece of poisoned apple that was lodged in her throat. This semi-plausible explanation coupled with the vengeful wedding scene at the end created a sense of finality in Snow White’s success. But, in the movie, the kiss to wake Snow White up does not present any sort of plausibility. Prince Charming also shows up to the vigil singing and seemingly in a better mood than someone who is going to see the casket of their lover. Finally, when Charming leads Snow White away on a white horse (the color is important), they head toward a golden kingdom in the sky. My theory, and one that is apparently alive on the internet as well, is that Prince Charming is some form of angel that has come to deliver Snow White from her physical body to heaven. The white horse and the heaven-like appearance of the kingdom align with this. As well, Snow White’s initial reaction of fear towards Charming in the beginning of the movie would make more sense.