Week 1: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

It has only been about a year since I last tried to watch Snow White as it was required viewing for my Grimm's Fairy Tales class. At the time I was watching it with my then-girlfriend, but we had checked the DVD from the library, which only allowed us to borrow the movie for about an hour (it was due back before the Media Center closed), so we obviously did not make it all the way through. It was a surprising experience on a couple of levels. First, the condition of the movie was fantastic, I must say--obviously a credit to the digital restoration--it was crazy to imagine that this was the first-ever full-length animated film and a 75 year-old one at that. Snow White was released in 1937. Secondly, I couldn't believe how far the portrayal of women in movies, Disney ones at that, had evolved. Snow White is truly a damsel in distress complete with screeching and being swept off her feet.

On a side note, my Grimm's Fairy Tales course was far less awesome than it sounds. My professor didn't even know that the ABC series Once Upon a Time existed, which if I'm being honest with myself was at least fifty percent of the reason I took the course. She did, however, introduce me to Robert Coover's short story "The Dead Queen," which is an imagined sequel told through the eyes of Prince Charming. Do yourself a favor and read it, it's amazing.

Getting back to my most recent viewing, though, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed Snow White for what it was and perhaps more. Yes, I could have easily gotten caught up in its completely anti-feminist ways, but I never would have made it past the third scene. It's a product of it's time and it represents out-dated ideals. Unlike us, it can't change, so that's that.

The biggest thing that I took away from the viewing was just how much it took me back to my childhood. My mind has always had a way of recalling particular memories of my past when I watch old movies or listen to old songs. For example, listening to any song from The Killers' Hot Fuss reminds me of late December evenings spent playing X-Men Legends and learning how to drive my brother's Jetta (it was manual transmission and let's say I didn't have a knack for it). Snow White I learned reminds me of being five or six and spending time with my cousins at my grandmother's house. Perhaps I watched Snow White a lot over there or I am just reminded of the rubber figurines she used to have for us to play with. Whatever the case, it brought me back to a place of innocence and youth.

Going through the film, I was reminded just how much I used to love (and still do) the "Whistle While You Work" sequence, because for some reason watching forest animals clean up a house was madly entertaining. I recall being most fond of the parts when the deer and rabbit are sweeping off the chair and the squirrels are sweeping the dust under the rug.

Pop culture has made a big deal out of the Evil Queen from Snow White it seems, yet she's not actually in a whole lot of the film, which I found quite weird. By the time they showed her discovering that Snow was still alive, she had almost been off screen for half of the movie. And for that matter, Prince Charming is almost completely uninvolved in the plot.

This brings me back to Once Upon a Time, which I believe has made me appreciate the story of Snow White infinitely more over the past two years, because prior to that my only real experience of the story was Disney's telling of it. What Once has been able to do, is create story both before, during, and after the setting of this film, helping to inform the love of Charming and Snow, the dwarfs, and even the Evil Queen's hate of Snow.


I guess that pretty much sums up my first of 53 viewings, which means that my next project is Pinocchio... and I'm sorry to say that this it be my least favorite of the Disney Animated Classics, more on that next time.