Deep Dive Disney: Wes Looks at Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs

Welcome to the first in what I hope to be a long running series. Yes, I still intend to continue discussing Grimm, but those articles can be very difficult to write so I need to pace myself. While writing my Disney Villains article a short while ago, I had to re-watch a lot of classic Disney Films. It was a lot of fun reliving these films from my childhood, most for the first time in many years. It got me thinking that maybe these touchstones of pop culture that we all grew up with are worth revisiting with adult eyes. I don’t know if we’ll get to all of them, but we’ll be hitting the majority of the important ones. So, I’ve decided to go through Disney’s Library and reanalyze these classics one by one. Before we go any further, a few things to keep in mind. First and foremost, yes, I am aware that I am a man in his thirties talking about films intended for children. I spent my entire summer talking about a Saturday morning cartoon and I took that just as seriously as I intend to take this. Just because something is made for kids does not mean that there are aspects to the work that adults can appreciate. Furthermore, this will not be a point by point plot synopsis like I did with Gargoyles. Those were half hour episodes, and these are feature length movies. We’d be here all day and besides, I’m operating on the assumption that most of you have seen these films already and if you haven’t, all of them are readily available on Disney+. Instead, I will be watching the films and analyzing them based on seven key factors: Main Character, Villain, Side Characters, Songs, Memorable Scenes, Story and Something I like to Call “The Dark Disney Factor.” I won’t be analyzing how the films stick to the stories they’re based on since I believe a film should stand on its own regardless of whether or not it’s an adaptation and Disney is notorious for playing Fast and Loose with the source material anyway. That said, if it comes up, I will gladly discuss the source material, it just won’t reflect my overall opinion of the film itself. All that out of the way, we may as well start at the very beginning with Disney’s first animated feature and a film that forever changed the way we view animation, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. An incredibly ambitious endeavor back in 1937, for yours truly, Snow White is a film that holds a special place in my heart. While I have my misgivings about the Disney Princess concept, something we’ll be exploring over the course of this project, but I still get nostalgic for this one. Like any child growing up in the 90’s, I had a certain set of VHS tapes that I’d watch over and over again and well, Snow White just happened to be one of them. Let’s dive right on in with

Main Character:

Here’s the thing with a lot of early Disney Princess characters. Many of them are blank slates, often so the little girls watching the films can insert themselves in their place. As such, there’s not that much too Snow White. That’s not to say she’s a bad or poorly written character or anything like that, she’s just not too terribly nuanced. Still, she does have many admirable qualities. She’s kind, cheerful, innocent and optimistic. You can see why people find her desirable and why the Queen, who seems incapable of those virtuous traits, would be jealous of her. One of the messages of the movie can be seen as how kindness begets kindness. Afterall, it was the kindness she showed to a small bird that got the animals of the forest to guide her to the dwarfs’ cottage in the first place. That said, something I noticed is that she is also incredibly naïve. That’s not entirely her fault as she’s very young and has lived in a castle her whole life and likely knows little of the outside world. This could explain why she falls head over heels with a dude who breaks into her house looking for her and gets up in her personal space, since she has no concept of what real love is yet. However, what’s not understandable is how, after all of the dwarfs warn her not to let anyone in the house while they’re away, and knowing full well that there’s an evil witch looking to kill her, she lets a clearly evil old woman into the house and swallows her bullshit story about a “Magic Wishing Apple” hook, line and sinker. Seriously? I know she’s meant to be kind and sweet to all living things, even an ugly old hag like the Queen, she should display more of a sense of self-preservation than that. Still, she’s likeable enough and her interaction with the dwarfs is pretty adorable, even if she does act like their mother after knowing them for five minutes and breaking into their house. A good prototype for what would become the Disney Princess model.

Villain:

We talked about The Queen, who according to Wikipedia, is actually named Grimhilde, at length in my Disney Villains article. Suffice to say, my opinion has not changed. I mean, she hires a mercenary to murder her stepdaughter just because she can’t abide someone pretty than her. Not just kill her, she specifically asks the Huntsman to cut out her heart as proof of death. Jesus Christ Lady! I know you want her dead, but do we have to go full Mortal Kombat with this? Of course, when the Huntsman grows a conscience, she takes matters into her own hands with the poisoned apple business. And, in doing so, The Queen actually manages to accomplish her goal. Sure, she dies before she gets to celebrate her victory, but she still managed to kill Snow White. Disney had a lot of balls to build up this character as a sweet, kind-hearted likable person and then traumatize all the little children by having her die. The Queen is a memorable villain for the ages with an impressive intimidation factor. Though, to be honest, I found her way scarier in her younger form than in her old hag disguise. Something about how she intimidates the Huntsman is deeply unsettling. Still, the old hag disguise is ultimately metaphoric to show how her obsession with being the most beautiful ultimately turned her ugly. Still, she’s definitely a great opposite for Snow White, even if there are better Disney Villains to come.

Side Characters:

I suppose I should give some lip service to Prince Necrophiliac. Frankly, he’s kind of a non-character. He shows up at Snow White’s castle like a creeper, gets all up in her personal space and then fucks off until the end of the movie where he kisses Snow White’s Corpse, having no way of knowing it would bring her back. Snow White and the Prince is one of the most egregious examples of the Forced Disney Romance that I’ve ever seen. They literally share less than a minute of screen time together. Even for a fairy tale, that’s pushing it. A character who gets possibly even less screen time than the Prince who’s infinitely more interesting was The Huntsman. I really liked how he’s clearly torn between not wanting to slaughter an innocent and his fear of what the queen will do to him if he doesn’t. This is all conveyed in very few lines of dialogue and subtle facial gestures. It’s really interesting how they put so much nuance into this comparatively minor character. The scene where his hand is trembling when he’s about to kill the princess is incredibly well done. But, of course, the real stars of this movie are the Seven Dwarfs themselves. These guys are hilarious every time they’re on screen. Despite this, as their names would suggest, their personalities are still fairly one note. Happy is happy. Bashful is bashful. Sneezy seriously needs to get his sinuses checked. Sleepy looks like he’s been hitting that sweet Colorado Grape Stomper harder than Snoop Dogg on vacation in Amsterdam. Doc… wears glasses. The only two dwarfs who have a little more beyond their named personality are Dopey and Grumpy. I don’t have too much to say about Dopey, but during this film, I developed a bit of a theory. I think Dopey is actually female and the other dwarfs don’t know it because she’s pulling a Mulan/Ping. It would explain why she doesn’t have a beard and never talks. Is this canon? Who knows, I just thought it was worth mentioning. That brings us to Grumpy, who is given the most individual development and growth out of all of the seven dwarfs. While he’s portrayed as a jerk, in actuality he’s the sole voice reason most of the time. Yeah, we as the audience know that Snow White doesn’t mean the Dwarfs any harm, but as far as they’re concerned, this woman broke into their house and is now sleeping in their beds, they have no reason to trust her. Not to mention, they learn that The Queen is hunting her, and Grumpy is the only one to raise concerns about harboring a political fugitive being hunted by an evil witch. That said, even though he doesn’t like the situation he’s been put in, you’ll notice that as soon as he learns her life is in danger, he’s the first to leap into action. I really like that.

Songs:

What Disney movie is complete without some memorable musical numbers? I don’t have too much to say here since with one exception, none of the songs in Snow White really stood out. Someday my Prince Will Come is memorable, but it’s nothing I’d go out of my way to listen to. However, once again, the Dwarfs show that it’s they’re movie by having the best song in the film. Hi-Ho may be pretty short on lyrics, but it’s makes up for that by being an iconic and impossibly catchy number. Good stuff.

Memorable Scenes:

Snow White, like any of its animated contemporaries, has no shortage of memorable scenes. A couple of them I’d like to save for the Dark Disney factor section. However, there are two scenes that have stuck with me that I’d like to discuss here.

First is the scene where Snow White makes the Dwarfs wash up. Ignoring the fact that Snow White has known the Dwarfs for a period of ten minutes at this point and even though they’re doing her a massive solid by letting her stay in their house and not pressing charges for breaking and entering and she’s already bossing them around like she’s their mother, the scene is still plenty humorous. I won’t lie, the bit where all the Dwarfs slowly surround the reluctant Grumpy still makes me laugh out loud all these years later.

A scene I found shockingly relatable was the scene when the Dwarfs first come home to find that someone broke in and cleaned their house. As a child, I found it odd that the dwarfs were so put off by a clean house. Now that I’m an adult with my own living space, I can understand the anxiety of having someone in your house when you’re not there to supervise them. I don’t know if anyone else is like that, but I can’t stand people messing with my stuff when I’m not there, it’s one of the reasons I don’t have any pets. Even if they think they’re doing you a favor, they don’t know how you like your home arranged and you don’t know if they’re going to mess things up. With that in mind, the Dwarfs reaction to a clean house makes perfect sense.

Story:

Of course, all the previously mentioned elements wouldn’t mean much without a solid story to tie the whole thing together. Truth be told, as fun as this movie is, the plot is pretty average fairytale stuff. An evil witch is jealous of a pretty young innocent and tries to kill her, but she’s helped by some friends and in the end, evil is vanquished and the girl lives happily ever after with her prince. I do wish that more time was given to develop the relationship between Snow White and The Prince, but then, I’m trying to hold to modern standards a film that’s over eighty years old adapted from a fairy tale that was already over one hundred years old at the time so maybe I should lighten up and take solace in the fact that Disney Romances do improve over time. The story is otherwise fine. I wish the Dwarfs played a more vital role, since other than giving Snow White a place to stay, they surprisingly don’t influence the plot all that much, but the story is ultimately fun and harmless.

The Dark Disney Factor:

Despite a reputation for wholesome content, Disney movies often can have a bit of a dark side. A little something thrown in to scar the unsuspecting kiddies for life. And Snow White certainly has its fair share. I especially enjoy the Dark Forest scene where Snow White runs for her life and encounters all manner of scary stuff. What I like about this scene is the unspoken subtext that the monsters aren’t actually real, just a manifestation of Snow White’s fear. Afterall, she’s spent her entire young life in seclusion, and now she’s suddenly forced to fend for herself in a spooky forest. That’s scary for anyone, why wouldn’t the trees look like monsters or the logs like crocodiles. The Queen’s transformation sequence is also pretty creepy, with great use of creative angles, my favorite being the Queens reflection in the Goblet just before she drinks the potion. But yeah, we discussed it earlier, but let’s talk about how this film had the balls to kill off Snow White. Like I said, the movie spends the entire film building up the Princess as a likeable, kind-hearted, maternal individual. A person you want to see live happily ever after, and then take that away towards the end of the movie, albeit temporarily, by showing her death on screen, that took some balls on the part of ol’ Walt Disney.

Final Thoughts: One cannot overstate the cultural significance of this film and how it revolutionized how we think of animation as well as the media empire that it contributed to. However, take that away, and what remains is actually a fun little film that, while nothing especially grandiose, still mostly holds up fine to modern scrutiny. I hope you all enjoyed this little deep dive into classic Disney. Next time, we’ll take our next step of the journey when we cover Pinocchio.