The story of snow white has existed for hundreds of years and in each iteration, there has been a variety of dwarfs. 1912 featured the like of Blake, Flick, and Glick while Mr. Magoo’s little snow white contained the dwarfs Axelrod, Bartholomew, and Coriolis. But no other story has a character like Dopey. Why doesn’t Dopey speak? Can he just not speak? Is the selective mute? Or is there some other deeper reasons? Today I am going to explain a theory why Dopey doesn’t speak. It gets much deeper in pursuit of that question.
You know Dopey was originally supposed to speak like all the other dwarves in all the other iterations of snow white. Disney even considered hiring Mel Blanc the voice of famous warn brother characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck but he was eventually removed as the rumor goes because Disney couldn’t identify a suitable voice for Dopey and found it much easier to make him a mute. Although he never says a word in the 1937 Disney classic. Dopey cannot be a mute due to physical limits of his voice because his vocal cords definitely work, but how do we know this? Well when Dopey crept into his bedroom and saw snow white under the sheet, he full-on screamed. So dopey can make vocal sounds meaning he does have the potential to speak. We actually learn the I in fact intelligent enough to produce articulating thoughts.