Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) ***

Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) holds a special place in my heart, as it was the first film my mother ever took me to see.  Mind you, I saw it in re-issue, and only after I was so frightened by the newspaper advertisement for Charlotte’s Web (1973, also in re-issue) that I refused to see a film with a menacing-looking spider. In retrospect, I now know that I saw the more frightening of the two.  As a child it was easy to adore the dwarfs and to idolize the beautiful Snow White. As an adult, however, I find many troubling elements.

While I’ve always been a fan of the Magic Mirror—he was the thing I most looked forward to on Disney Sunday nights—he was ultra-creepy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. So, anytime I watch the movie it’s unnerving to see my beloved Mirror sell Snow White (Adrianna Caselotti) out to Queen Grimhilde (Lucille La Verne). I know it’s a small thing, but it’s sort of like watching Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) play evil Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele in The Boys from Brazil (1978)—something just isn’t kosher!

Then there’s the unsettling fixation of beauty that everyone in the film has—except Snow White, of course.  The Queen spends her days asking the Mirror who’s the fairest in the land, and her nights disguised as an old crone casting spells to kill her rivals.  This, obviously, does not send a positive message to young girls in a culture fixated on their outward appearances.  Ordering the execution of your step-daughter because she has surpassed your beauty seemed ridiculous in 1937, but today it doesn’t seem so far-fetched when beauty queens and cheerleaders have plotted to kill their rivals.  The dwarfs get in the act, too, by allowing Snow White’s beauty to endanger their lives and to put them out of their beds. Really, in what world should seven miners (don’t let their ‘happy’ singing of “Heigh-Ho” fool you, they did back-breaking work) give up their bed for one woman?  Why? Because Heigh HOE she was a good-looking woman.  Bad message…

Oh, and then there’s the carnivorous slavery issue—not so much Snow White, but the forest animals.  After her foray into the creepy woods after the Woodsman (Stuart Buchanan) told her to run for her life, Snow White befriends a whole host of adorable animals.  Not long after this she puts them to work cleaning the dwarfs’ scuzzy cottage so she can live there.  Yes, they hung out with her in the day, but at what price?  Snow White was the dwarfs’ cook, right?  I ask you this: did the Dwarfs look like vegans to you?  I‘m sure having animal ‘friends’ came in handy for her…

Finally, after Snow White ate the poisoned apple and succumbed to the ‘Sleeping Death’ spell, who was it that built her that gold and glass coffin and sat in constant vigil?  Prince Charming?  No, it was the seven dwarfs. Yet, as soon as the handsome prince came and broke the spell with a kiss, Snow White was waving goodbye and riding off into the sunset on his white horse. What message does that send?  Bald dwarfs, no matter how devoted, just can’t compare to tall, handsome princes?  As such, now countless women dream of the day when their princes will come and take them away from housework and less-attractive men. Hmmm…

Still, in all seriousness, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a delightful film.  As the first feature-length animated movie, it is historically significant. It launched Walt Disney as one of the most important (and bankable) film companies, too.  What they did with animation in 1937 has to be admired as well.  For several children, like myself, it has served as an introduction to the amazing worlds that cinema can create. Even if I give it a hard time as an adult, that does not minimize the lasting memory that it created for me back in 1975, when my mother took me to see my very first movie.