Institutional Artifact Project: Damaging Disney Narratives

    Can you think back to when you were a child and you used to dream of being a princess? They seemed to have the perfect life, they were pretty, lived in a big castle, and more than that a handsome prince always swooped in to save them. Like many young girls I grew up wanting to be a princess for those exact reasons. Disney made it look so glamorous, who wouldn’t want to be one? It wasn’t until I got older that I realized that those movies, those stories, were not really what they seemed to be. There were subtle messages of matricide, beastiality, cannibalism, and an unhealthy expectation on women. It is unfortunate to look back on once beloved movies and now feel disgusted. For this paper I will examine one of the first Disney princesses, Snow White, and what her image and story does to push the narrative of dim yet pretty women, maternal resentment, gender roles, and coded language.

     The story of Snow White starts off very sweet. She is a happy child loved by both parents. From an infant her beauty is praised. She has skin so pale it’s compared to porcelain and lips so red they are compared to roses. While Snow White is a child her mother falls ill and dies. Her father, who is a king, remarries. The stepmother has a magic mirror that she asks the same question to every day, “Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all.” The mirror always says that she is. One day when Snow White reaches ‘maturity’ the stepmother asks the question again but this time the mirror says that Snow White is the fairest. This enrages the stepmother, who by this point in the story has been nicknamed the wicked stepmother.. The mirror has told her if she eats Snow Whites heart she will be the most beautiful woman in the land. Engulfed in anger the wicked stepmother decides she will have Snow White killed. She hires a huntsman to kill Snow White. The huntsman feels bad for Snow white and is taken with her beauty so he lets her go. He kills an animal and gives the stepmother its heart. Snow White is now wandering through the woods looking for safety. She stumbles upon a house that she thinks is empty and decides to make herself at home. Soon after she arrives seven dwarfs, whose home she’s in return. They are upset but let her live with them in exchange for her cooking and cleaning. The wicked stepmother soon realizes that snow white is alive and decides to kill her herself. She makes three attempts to kill snow white. The first time snow white is saved by the dwarves. The last time they were too late. Snow White ate the poison apple her step mother gave her and she stopped breathing. The dwarves are sad. They put snow white in a glass coffin. At her funeral service a handsome price comes by. He has never met Snow White but even in death he finds her beautiful. He gives her a kiss. She wakes up and they ride off into the sunset happily ever after together.

       I wanted to tell most of the story to give context. From a very young age Snow White was sexualized. In the movie, even though her dress  covers

 her, her hips are still very prominent. Her skin is smooth, her lips are pouty, and her eyes are doe-like. Throughout the movie various characters, even animals, are so taken with her beauty that they follow her round. A theme that is very prominent in Disney movies is that there is an evil stepmother. The matriarch figure is always the bad guy and needs to be dethroned by the younger, more beautiful princess. It pushed the narrative that when women reach a certain age they become angry and have outlived their usefulness. There is also the theme of the male savior and princesses being too dim to not know what was good for them. Even though Snow White knew her life was in danger and that her step mother wanted to kill her, she kept opening the door for her. She kept inviting the danger inside and the men had to step in and protect her. Snow White is shown to be very naive, however, that doesn’t matter because she is so darn pretty. Even after death the men didn’t want her beauty to go to waste so they put her on display. Then again another male savior came in and made all her problems go away with one kiss.

      One of the videos we watched this semester “Shrinking Women” spoke about women losing their sense of self in relation towards men. “You (she says referring to her brother) have been taught to grow out, I have been taught to grown in.” That quote is a perfect mete fore for the story of Snow White. Her entire life because she was a woman she was confined while the men around her, whether it was the huntsman, the dwarves or Prince Charming, made decisions for her and held all the power. And along with telling women their place in the world this story also perpetuates unhealthy narratives for me. ‘Prince Charming’ doesn’t even have a real name, he is rooted in his good looks and duty to just save a damsel in destress. Snow White’s father is absent thought the story only appearing when he marries the wicked step mother so he wouldn’t have to raise Snow White. And the dwarves, they are hard working men not very bright or handsome but they work themselves ragged to provide.  These gender roles are what we are taught define us. They my be subliminal in the movie but they carry over into our real lives. I get angry watching this movie now. I find it to be very destructive to the psyche of young girls and boys. This movie puts gender in a very structured box. It tells that a woman’s place is at home taking care of the chores and that a man’s place is out working and that a mans is to be out working or to be a woman’s savior. It devalues the older women in our lives and suggests that a woman’s value lies solely in her beauty. I find solace in the fact that this move was mad in 1937 and there has been much princess evolution since then. It is unfortunate that many generations had this type of princess to look up and aspire too.