Skin as White as Snow:
An analysis of Disney’s Snow White
In most cases, children who have access to media from a young age, grow up with the goals of becoming a princess, superhero or characters that you truly only find in the movies. Disney, a multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate, is one of the most prominent companies to blame for these unrealistic ideals. Rather than marketing products, they are focusing children’s attention, from ages as young as two, on certain ideologies that many would claim they would not want their children to be watching; however a lot of the time they are unaware of the negative messages hidden within these films. Snow White has been part of the princess cannon for quite some time. Not only has it been a story passed on for several generations, but it has influenced several little girls to become more aware of their appearances, relationships and behavior. As much as we would like to believe that Snow White was the angelic figure she is portrayed to be in the film, several examples have proved the film to be quite harmful.
To begin, one of the most reoccurring and quite obvious problems with Disney movies is their feminist portrayal of women. Since 1937, Disney has developed a reputation for making the main characters of every animation young, beautiful and in search of their “prince charming”. Snow White is depicted as having several of these characteristics and more; as she is loved by all creatures, admired for her beauty and the perfect house wife for seven little men. Although she was raised in a palace, as a princess, Snow White oddly knows how to clean, cook and take care of others. Throughout the film, we see the princess take care of the seven dwarves through a very feminist point of view. As the seven little men are shown as sloppy, dirty, with no sense of personal hygiene, the addition of a women in their lives seems to change that. Snow White soon begins to cook, clean and take care of the little dwarves as a motherly figure in their lives. In relation to advertisements during that era, the princesses too were depicted in this stay-at-home mom sort of way. Women are always the ones who clean, cook and take care of the house; in fact, in the movie the little dwarves actually tell Snow White to stay at home, watch over the house and don’t answer the door for anyone. Allowing children to watch these old Disney princess movies can influence how they grow up to act as women in society.
With little to no ambition of their own, these female figures are already perfect, with not much to work for. They sing great, they look great and for some reason, even in the hardest times, they seem to find a way to be happy. The only thing missing in their lives is the “perfect” man. Although it’s bad enough to put such a great amount of importance on finding a man; the women characters are depicted in a way that not only makes them incapable of making it on their own, but in need of rescue from a man. In the case of Snow White, she is put into an “eternal sleep” by a poisoned apple and can only be awakened by a “true loves kiss”. Sooner then later, prince charming is seen waking Snow White up from her “eternal” rest, even though the characters haven’t spoken before their first kiss. Disney uses this play on imagery in order to send a hidden message regarding man being a heroic icon, while women will always be the ones in distress.
Although Snow White spends most of her time taking care and getting to know the seven dwarves, she is not able to fall in love with anyone less then a prince. This could have a lot to say about issues of social class and one’s appearance being the most important aspects of a relationship. Each one of the seven dwarves seems to represent a personality trait. For example Grumpy is named after his ill-tempered behavior, while Bashful is named after his shy personality. Even though their are seven little dwarves, each representing a specific type of personality in the form of a man, Snow White is only able to fall in love with a man who has an attractive appearance, who is named “Prince”; despite the fact that she knows nothing about his personality. Is this Disney’s way of saying, love has nothing to do with personality? In the first production of Snow White, which took place on Broadway in 1912, the little dwarves were actually given the names: “Blick, Flick, Glick, Plick, Snick, Whick, and Quee.” (Thomas, 2015) So it was, in fact, the doings of Disney, who renamed the characters after certain personality traits.
Other than the fact that Disney has erased the importance of one’s personality, when it comes to getting into a relationship, they also put great importance on sexuality. Although the two characters hardly know each other, they still kiss and the kiss is the determining factor to the characters “true love”. If the prince would have kissed Snow White and she hadn’t woken up, he would not have been her true love, but she did wake up. Therefore, Disney is also teaching kids that a kiss or form of physical contact can determine if your relationship is real love or not. This can be very dangerous to children, as they could grow up looking for love in all the wrong forms.
Besides their feminist qualities, the female characters also seem to have an obsessive interest in appearance. One of the most obvious examples can be seen when Snow White’s evil step mother speaks to a mirror and recites the words “mirror, mirror on the wall, whose the fairest of them all?”. When finding out that she is not the most beautiful and her step daughter is in fact “the fairest”, she conspires to have her killed. First of all, when looking at the step mothers appearance you will see a young, beautiful, fit woman. However, because she is not “the fairest” she is no longer satisfied with her youthful appearance. Rather then sending child viewers the message that ‘everyone is beautiful in a different way’, they put a label on what beauty looks like and in this case it’s named Snow White. With “skin as white as snow”, they are not only relating a certain skin color to Beauty, but in some ways stereotyping people with darker skin to a form of racism common during that era. At the time, several soap ads were released to the public claiming to “wash the darkest blots away”. So not only was Disney teaching kids to look like Snow White, talk to mirrors and obsess over their appearance, but also that darker skin is not beautiful.
In addition, When Snow Whites step mother sends her huntsman to kill Snow White, it is out of jealousy regarding her appearance. When the huntsman lets her get away, the Wicked step mother sets out to poison her, herself. The poison itself may represent the step mother’s jealousy; however, Disney is still teaching kids that it is okay to lie and hurt someone who bothers you. Another negative idea the evil step mother represents, is that growing old is the equivalent to growing ugly. When building her disguise for fooling Snow White into eating a poisoned apple, she uses a potion to make her old and scary. The animals are even shown hiding from her in fear of her disturbing appearance. Rather than changing herself into another young character she becomes old. It is not certain whether Disney is trying to scare the children into not growing up; although, that wouldn’t be too hard to believe as they created the movie Peter Pan, which teaches kids to never grow up and instead run away to Neverland.
Although the movie uses a lot of the female figures to represent ideas regarding ones appearance, the male figures also play a large roll in showing how important appearance is in the movie. For example, the seven dwarves are short, bald headed men for a reason. They are cast into the forest to live amongst the animals, to show how, because of the way they look they are not accepted by society. Although Snow White seems to accept them open heartedly, she also cannot fall in love with any of them, but rather babies them for their short height. Although they are men, that go to work and live on their own, she still babies them, being a common stereotype midgets still face today. She herself, being the sweet hearted princess she is, cannot fall in love with anyone who isn’t equally attractive, if not more attractive than her. Which goes to show how important appearance is in the movie. The prince only seems to appear once towards the end of the film, looks at Snow White and decides that she is such a sleeping beauty, he just had to kiss her. Appearance plays a large and dangerous roll in the film as it stereotypes non white colored skin as non beautiful and short men as unacceptable.
Overall, the movie carries several harmful ideas ranging from racist stereotypes, attractiveness and even sexuality. Although it seems like a harmless fairytale, it is quite the opposite. It is movies as such that hold the power to place certain ideologies in developing children’s minds. Although the kids do not know it at the time, they will grow to recognize it, as all the ideas can still be related to modern day. The ideas are not obvious and are not easy to find without looking, but thats exactly what Disney wants. It’s the simple things like changing the characters names, or talking to a mirror that cause bigger problems in what is considered to be our social norms. Media has the power to break and to make things happen. For this reason, it is important to consider what children are watching these days. After all, they are the future.
References:
Thomas, S. (2015, December 21). The names of the Seven Dwarfs. Retrieved April 21, 2018, from https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/12/21/names-of-the-seven-dwarfs/
