Friday, January 22, 2010

Snow White


So I watched "Snow White" with my daughter yesterday and had an interpretation of it that I haven't seen before.  Maybe it's unoriginal, maybe it's stupid.  You make the call.

Anyway, if you recall the story, Snow White is a princess, but her evil stepmother the Queen is jealous of her beauty.  The Queen's whole job, it seems, is to be the most beautiful woman in the land.  It's all she talks about.  Then her magic mirror tells her that Snow White is more beautiful.  The Queen responds by ordering her huntsman to murder Snow White so that she can again be the most beautiful.  Yikes.

Anyway, the huntsman can't bring himself to do it.  So the Queen, upon learning this, figures she'll have to do the job herself.  So she disguises herself as an old ugly woman (ironic) and creates a poison apple for Snow White to eat.  But the apple isn't supposed to kill Snow White, just put her to sleep forever until she's awoken by true love's kiss.

WTF?  She just wanted to kill Snow White a few minutes ago.  Now she wants her to be terminally sleepy?  This makes no sense, unless you see "sleep forever" as a metaphor for death.  And, in fact, once Snow White eats the apple and passes out, the Seven Dwarves put her in a glass coffin.  A coffin.

So then the prince arrives and kisses her, at which point she arises from the coffin and they walk off to live happily ever after.  But in the final frame, we see the prince and Snow White climb a small hill and stare off into the distance, at which point the Prince's castle slowly materializes out of the clouds.  I don't think that's an earthly kingdom.  It's Heaven.  The Prince is Jesus.  You know, the Prince of Peace?

So Snow White didn't live happily ever after.  She's dead.

Anyway, that's how I saw it.  I should probably get out of the house once in a while.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Seth,

perfect observation. Consider this: www.thetruesnowwhite.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/the-prince-of-hearts

And if you are interested, we'll invite you to write an entry for www.thetruesnowwhitesdiary.wordpress.com

All the best.