Philosophy of the Fairy Tale

Philosophy of the Fairy Tale

Dr. Abigail Heiniger

Avital Elyazam

Final Paper

Escaping the Consuming Darkness:

Gilburt and Gubar focused their essay, Snow White and Her Wicked Stepmother, on their ideas behind Snow White’s symbolism and how the tale was mainly written to socialize women, but I disagree with this notion.[1]Gilburtand Gubar ignored many of the more modern versions of Snow White, which causes me to question the validity of their argument. When doing a close analysis, I realized that the tale of Snow White kept being revived in the visual medium during depressions, and recessions. These newer versions evolved to fit the cultural time causing them not to only be tales meant to socialize Victorian women, but also to be stories that could deliver important, motivating messages to the public.

Disney was the first to accomplish this feat when he released his version of the tale in 1937. At that time, the Great Depression was in full swing and the country had an unbelievable unemployment rate of 14.3%.[2] Disney saw that many were affected by this great number and realized that he could manipulate the tale of Snow White to mirror the depression and, later, motivate the country out of the darkness. Almost 60 years later, in 2012, Sanders produces a modernized version of Disney’s tale of Snow White calling it “Snow White and the Huntsman”. He produced the film to also connect with those who were struggling, but he adapted the tale to help those who were struggling in the more recent recession. Sanders realized that 2012 was a major juncture that would reveal the fate of stocks and economies for the next decade.[3] He knew that after the huge recession,defined as a period of temporary economic decline, in 2007-2009, there would need to be a form of motivation to help the country rid itself of the 8% unemployment rate.[4] Both of these movies are only examples of the evolution of the tale of Snow White. These versions place the American values, the idea of unity, and a short lesson on the different forms of power into their plot as to help the American people out of the seemingly inescapable darkness. Snow White became the driving force of this determined movement. Even though shewas originally created by the Grimm brothers to symbolize sexual purity,she slowly evolved to become a symbol of selflessness and patriotism helping those who had lost hope during the Depression or the Recessions regain hope once again.

The Grimm brothers had always meant their tale of Snow White to be one of sexual purity meant to instill the Victorian value system within European children.[5] Their story focuses much of its attention on the feminine beauty, personality, and actions of the protagonist Snow White. Snow White is foiled by the Evil, sexually impure Queen. Throughout the Grimm tale, the Evil Queen continuously tries to kill Snow White. The focus is solely on this murderous rampage and the continuous survival and success of the pure, and good protagonist.[6] Even the three items used by the Queen in her rampage are symbols of contemporary beauty.[7] These items were: the lace, the comb, and the apple. In the end, Snow White’s purity wins her the incredible gift of life, but, most importantly, the needed gift of a husband. In Victorian society, the focus of the Grimm story made it one of the most famous of its time. Even though many parts of the story have evolved, some of the Grimm aspects of the tale still remain even today to portray certain feminine ideals that have remained prominent in society.[8]

One of the most unevolved aspects of the story that has made it attractive to the entertainment business today is the abstract ideas behind the consuming antagonist. The Evil Queen is one of the only antagonists in princess tales to physically consume her victims to remain alive and powerful. The symbolism behind this consuming antagonist is so great that producers have wisely chosen this princess tale during multiple recessions to embody the ideals behind the all-consuming “evil government”. In the Grimm tale the focus remains on sexual purity and the evil consumption of this purity.[9] In modern tales, perpetuated by Disney andSander, the focus shifts to a different form of purity. This purity is more a form of selflessness and self-sacrifice. These values are idolized in society today especially when corruption and other negative factors seem to be consuming the government. In the end, the consuming antagonist becomes the bonding factor for people during a recession—a common enemy that the people can battle and overcome. These Snow White movies help people feel as if they can help the government return to its “pure self” and that’s why this tale continuously returns as a tale of unity, and hope.

I. The push toward America Values:

During a recession, the American values of hard work, determination, and success become all the more important. Since the target audience for both Disney and Sander were the struggling American people, these values were perpetuated quite well throughout the movies. Both producers saw that the struggling American population needed a reminder of the value system that had united them years before. These values had helped most gain their high position in society and, with a bit of a push, would help them regain that position or an ever higher position depending on how hard they were willing to work. These two movies may have been separated by time, but their messages make them a part of American history.

In Disney’s tale, Snow White is the symbol of these values. She becomes the driving force to those around her hoping that they follow in her Americanized footsteps. The entire story is focused around the personal struggle that she faces after her fall from her high status. She is only able to rise back to power after a period of hard work and determination. Only after she proves herself to those around her is she able to be successful and revered as the most incredible symbol of the idealized American value system. Disney even visually dramatizes Snow White’s personal story. At first, the viewer finds her cleaning the palace steps as a maid, she then is found in the highest tower of the castle only to be forced into the darkness and unknown that was the dark forest. She faces many dangers, but her selfless, determined, and hardworking nature pushes her and those around her out of poverty and back into the status where they belonged. The entire tale mirrors what occurred to many people during the Great Depression. It gave those struggling people hope that if they worked hard enough—if they mimicked the methods of Snow White and the Dwarfs— then they would be able to crawl back to the status where they belonged. The Disney movie forced those who had lost hope to see the light at the end of the tunnel through American lenses.

There are many examples of the American values system being perpetuated throughout Disney’s tale of Snow White; however, one of the most famous happens to be the scene where Snow White and the forest animals are cleaning the Dwarf home when they first find it. After descending from the dark forest, Snow White automatically finds the happiness, and determination that she needed to move on with her life. She may have always needed help to do so, but she never ceased being the leader that the people (or animals) needed to get the job done. During the cleaning scene, Snow White takes control of the people (symbolized by helpless forest animals) and successfully cleans up the lives of the many struggling folks (symbolized by dwarfs). She forces a number of extremely different animals to work together to clean up the lives of their fellow struggling men. These animals, like the American workers, come from diverse backgrounds making them extremely different yet during this scene they are united. Snow White even yells at the two animals for trying to slack off as their work by “sweeping the dirt under the rug” instead of truly cleaning it up. She verbalized the American value of hard work by forcing those who slack off to work harder. This scene and her leadership helps to create one of the most important, and meaningful scenes of the movie.

Snow White and the Huntsman also evolved to perpetuate the American values of hard work, determination and success, but did so in a more modern fashion as to fit the cultural time. This movie happen to be released in 2012, during another one of America’s horrid recessions. Sanders, the producer, also found a way to manipulate these American values into the movie as to push his viewers toward a brighter future even as times looked dangerously grim. Sanders decided to create Snow White as a selfless, determined idol that would lead the people out of the darkness. He knew that Americans always struggled to find an idealized version of the perfect leader so he gave them one. Even though selflessness was not an American value due to the over powering individualistic nature of American people, the idea behind such a person was attractive when visualizing the ideal leader. This aspect was onlyin Sander’s version of the tale since in this tale Snow White rose to power without a man by her side ruling her own kingdom whereas Disney’s Snow White rose to power only to rule as a passive Queen in her husband’s kingdom. This factor was modernized to empower women and minorities when power came into question. In this movie, she was even able to overcome the sexist barriers that men placed in front of her only to gain the trust of her entire kingdom due to her full embodiment of the Americanized values.

Snow White’s Story (very much like the Disney version) causes all viewers alike to connect to her during such difficult times. Snow White starts out in the highest status possible only to become imprisoned in her own palace/status. Eventually, she escapes, but does so in the most symbolic manner. Snow White literally had to descend from the highest tower and trudge through the gutter system only to jump to the dark, icy waters of the ocean. She then ventures through the dangerous dark forest only to find beauty, and light on the other side where she finds her strength and determination to rise above and fight her way back to the top. She shows the struggling people of the recession that with hard work and determination even a rise in status during a difficult time period can be earned. [10]

II. The Message of Unity:

The tale of Snow White also evolves by shifting its focus from the sexual purity of Snow White to the people’s struggle and, later, their timely success. In modern versions of the Grimm tale, Snow White embodies all of the Americanized traits that the people need to overcome the consuming antagonist—she becomes more of a symbol then a person. With her help, the people are able to defeat the evil antagonist and regain their former statuses in society. Snow White was even able to convince the kingdom to unify and fight the evil forces as one. This was the most difficult task, because the American value system that all of the characters in the movies embodied also included the less revered desire to achieve individual goals causing unity to be non-existent. The characters in both movies were able to overcome their differences to work together toward a better future, which is exactly what the American people needed to do during the difficult times they faced. The idea behind unity was greatly weaved into these versions of Snow White as to help the struggling realize the real path they had to take to overcome the darkness.

Disney was the first to sneak in the message of unity into his version of Snow White. He shifted the focus from Snow White to the literal little people that were greatly affected by the evil and darkness. Snow White became a symbol of hard work, determination, selflessness, and success—she united all of these very rare traits into one. In this slightly modernized tale, she helps them—unites them—and rarely needs their assistance (unlike in the Grimm tale). Even though she does keep her domestic role in place to fit the cultural time period, she had become a little more of a leader in the home. She even helps them clean themselves up in a way that would fit the American idealization of the perfect worker. Snow White also changes the way they treat each other and leads them out of the darkness before they even knew they had reached better times. Disney causes his viewers to idolize the very idea of unity almost unconsciously following in the positive steps of the dwarfs. [11]

Sanders followed suit almost 60 years later when he also slyly focused his version of the tale around unity. Instead of only displaying the struggle of the dwarfs Sanders displays the struggle of different types of people, but also shows how the combination of unity and action can lead those men out of the darkness and into the light. He starts the movie off by showing the poor, grim townspeople who were worst off due to their selfish pursuit of satiation. Because they were not united, they suffered the most and had the least pity from the audience. Sanders portrayed them in the most negative light possible leaving them with a negative pathos that was unavoidable. The story then shifts to focus on the illegally prosperous yet still struggling dwarfs. In this version of the tale, the dwarfs have become bandits to survive and are no longer the miners that Disney had envisioned. Snow White helped them realize that their illegal way of life would eventually tear them apart even if it united them in the present. She showed them that they were hurting many others to save themselves. This teaches the audience that only certain forms of legal unity would be acceptable.

The story then shines the light briefly on the slightly more prosperous lake dweller women who lived united, yet quiet and passive lives. These women were united and peaceful, yet they were somewhat selfish due to the fact that they were not using their strength to fight for a better life which was quite important in the American way of thinking. Because of this very fact, their unity was quite useless. The end of the movie focuses on the boldly prosperous Duke and his followers. These people were only able to survive because of their strong unity. They were even idolized due to their incredibly brave actions in the last scenes of the movie. Their determination, hard work, and strong unity lead them into the arms of success and victory. Sanders finished with their idealization, because he knew the audience would be greatly affected by the actions they took andthe values that those actions displayed. Both Sanders and Disney were very successful in glorifying the idea of unity causing their movies became truly moving. [12]

III. Foiling Coercive Power and Legitimate Power:

During dark times of recessions, both producers realized that people started to lose trust in the government due to the bad events occurring to them. To change the way the population thought, both producers found a method to sneak ideas into their movies about the different forms of power foiling them in the two main characters. This is done intentionally to regain the lost trust; however, it ends up changing the intended effect of the foil that the Grimm brothers had first envisioned.

There are two main types of power that the movies shed light upon—a negative form and a positive form. The negative formof power (coercive) was embodied by the consuming Evil Queen. This type of power canbe what many members of the struggling population see the government as being during times of recession.Coercive power is the power acquired by the employment of fear, suppression of free will, and/or use of illegal punishment or threat.[13] This power thatthe Queen embodied caused the audience to despise her as they would despise that type of corrupt government official. In both movies, the Evil Queen embodies all of these traits. She becomes the visualization of the worst form of government. She shows Americans that they have it better even when they think they have it worse. The Queen’s foil, Snow White, also rescued the public opinion of American government. Snow White shines with the ideas of legitimate power. She is such a “pure” form of government that the evil form (once defeated) only seems like a distant nightmare. Legitimate power is received through multiple different means, but once in place followers will willingly follow out of respect and loyalty.[14] This form of power is embodied by the idolized leader Snow White in a fashion that causes the audience to see government in a new light. She may symbolize a form of power that is rarely reachable, but she gives the audience hope that there is a leader like her out there. She also displays some traits that the government does embody setting the American political system far apart from any “Evil” form of government. In the end, the people realize that they have a political system willing to help—a form of government that was closer to the one that Snow White lead when she regained her crown.