Analysis: In Which I “Fix” Disney (Again)

Guess what I took the oldest to see recently! If you guessed Snow White (The Live-Action Remake) (Herein referred to as “the new version” or “the new Snow White” or “SWTLAR”), whatever gave you that idea? But yes. Did I enjoy it? Yeah, I did. Oh, wait, I have a rating system! I’ll stick one in here!

Incidentally, from here on in, SPOILERS. You’ve been warned. But then again, it’s based on a 90-year-old movie based on a hundreds-of-years-old fairy tale. I realized on the way there that my daughter hadn’t seen Snow White and asked her what she knew. “There’s dwarfs and a poison apple. I guess that’s about it.” And yeah, that covers it. Anyway, did we like it?

It was cute. The songs were good. Once you got used to the fact that they went real literal with their transition of the dwarfs¹ from classic Disney 2d to CGI animation, they were… less jarring. And yeah, the animals are like the platonic ideal of a cute rabbit and therefore not quite realistic, but hey. It’s a fantasy land. The message felt timely too. (Just… look, “live action” peeps. Animation can do things you can’t. Making dwarves with faces like that that look just fine? That’s a thing ‘realistic’ just can’t get away with.)

What was my favorite part? Simple. SNOW WHITE HAS AGENCY.

In the OG film and fairy tale, she’s there, she’s pretty, and then her stepmother casts her out of the castle, the huntsman takes pity on her and doesn’t kill her, the dwarfs take pity on her and shelter her, the mirror tells her stepmother where she is, her stepmother kills her, and then the prince kisses her back to life. Do you know who doesn’t do anything? Snow White. Everything happens to her, her only job is to be pretty and sweet and look scared sometimes. And clean the house, I guess, because everyone knows 7 bachelors are gonna have a nasty lil’ pad full of spiders. Which don’t count as cute magical helpful critters.

Well, it’s been nearly 100 years since then and she deserved better. And she did get better! In this movie, all of those things from the last paragraph do happen. But Snow White gets to take an active role in her life as well. She tries to stand up for what she wants. She wants a fairer world, not just going for “Someday My Prince Will Come” vibes. Then she takes an active role in helping her friends in the forest escape from soldiers (who were admittedly in danger because the soldiers were chasing her). Then she stands up to the queen at the end and, while she doesn’t execute, imprison, or even kick her out (despite the fact that the queen deserved it), she leads to the queen’s comeuppance. And she leads her people back to prosperity.

It’s cute. It’s a nice story. But– and here’s my least favorite part of the movie– at the end of it all, she still deserves better. Snow White’s character arc was kind of muddy. So I’ve been thinking about how I’d improve it and here come my ideas!

So here’s the rules. I’m trying to figure out what they were trying to do and change it as little as possible to emphasize the story arc and make it shine. This is a polish of an existing statue, not reworking the statue entirely.²

What do I think they were trying to do with Snow White’s arc? I think they were looking back at the original and looking at her passivity and saying “actually, yeah, let’s take that and make it her story. She learns to be a leader and that that’s what really makes her the fairest of all.” (They got a lot of mileage out of “fair” meaning both “just” and “beautiful.”) So Snow White’s arc is to learn to be a leader and, I think, to learn that what she’s good at is really seeing people, understanding them, knowing them, and bringing out their best side.

To emphasize that more, we set it against the antagonist’s beliefs. After all, that is the point of an antagonist in a story. The wicked queen helpfully tells us her belief in an analogy twice and no, it’s not “I’m pretty and want to stay prettiest in the world.”³ (Okay, okay, the land, slightly more achievable. Especially if you’re the only one with cosmetics and don’t have to work.) No, her belief is that people want and respect someone beautiful and hard more than they want and respect someone beautiful and soft. She at least twice goes “See, you’re a flower, pretty but then wilted and gone. I’m a diamond, I retain my beauty forever.” And to be fair, there’s some backup for her; people do tend to brush aside someone who’s “just a pretty face” quite often. Women have often found that they need to be harder to be able to stand up in positions of power against men who dismiss them. That being said, I don’t think her fictional idealized kingdom had such misogynistic problems and boy is she taking it to extremes.

Let’s start at the beginning then. We need Snow White to be at a low point so she has somewhere to go. She has loving, doting parents trying to teach her to be brave, strong, true, and fair. That’s wonderful but I think we could show her saying “Dad, you’re so brave when you __thing__. I don’t think I could do that.” Then Mom and Dad assure her that she doesn’t have to be brave/strong/true/fair like them, just brave/etc like her. Then when there’s the scene of her sharing her flower crown with the girl at the festival, they beam because she’s being fair already. Speaking of, at this point we have her baking apple pies and tarts all by herself in the kitchen. I think it’s too early to show her taking on that sort of responsibility (and not just that that’s way too much pastry baking for a 7 year old on their own); put the king and queen in that kitchen with her because we don’t want her to already be strong enough to stand alone. Right now we want her to see her role models and aspire to be like them and so have her helping them cook instead.

Then mom dies, “Fairest In The” shows up and sends dad out on a suicide mission. The kingdom turns gray. How? Uh, well, the color desaturates and there’s clouds. So here’s a time to bring Evil Queen dearest into the spotlight some more. Have her divide people. Dismiss people. How does she get soldiers loyal only to her? Well, say the townspeople are angry that they’re helping the one who’s oppressing the town (which, btw, is their kingdom literally just this one town? Irrelevant probably) and she tells them they’re doing their job and those people just don’t understand. She gives them some privileges for fighting for her, which sets them further apart from those under her thumb. Divide and conquer. I’d do this in just a few short scenes, showing people becoming further and further apart over time. Right now, the way we know time passes is that there’s a narrator who says “the kingdom falls apart” and then we see Snow White all grown up. It’s not too big an expenditure of time to give us a 1 or 2 minute montage of people becoming less trusting while the queen smiles conspiratorially.

Then Snow White starts to step into her own. Johnathan, who thinks she’s a maid, tells her the people are starving out there, it’s not just her who’s in trouble, and if she “sees the princess” she should tell her the people need help, not just good wishes. We see her distressed that she doesn’t feel capable of stepping up and being the person her father saw in her, but she does try. She goes to the queen and gets the “you’re a flower, I’m a diamond, they listen to me because I’m hard” speech. But she does her best, or all she can at the time; she lets Johnathan go instead of letting him be made an example of. Pretty good, very few notes, this can stay as is.

Then the queen gets all up in a snit and decides it’s time to get rid of Snow White. Cue the huntsman. Now this? This is the one scene that I think would change the most if we changed it. Right now they go out to the woods (and suddenly she’s wearing a fancy dress? Oh well. I’d add a “Sorry, maybe you were right, here’s a pretty dress, go pick apples” scene or a passing reference to one) and then the huntsman pulls his knife, feels bad, and turns his back on her to let her go.

BUT. I think this is the perfect place to slip in a little foreshadowing. She starts picking apples, huntsman pulls his knife while her back is turned, and Snow White says “Your name’s Maurice, right? I remember meeting your little girl, Julie, at the last festival before my mother died. She was so sweet. She must be almost grown now! And you’d just been promoted to huntsman because you’d done such a good job and the old guy was retiring. My father was so proud to have you.” Or something on that vein. Then she turns and we see him crying. “How have I forgotten the good times? I’m so sorry princess. You must leave. The queen wants you dead. I can’t believe she almost made me part of this!” And scene. She’s done it. She’s changed the world in just a little way by just knowing someone.

Now we’re in the forest, we meet Johnathan, he sings his little song about how she’s delusional for wanting the world to be fair. I think she should say something about “Well clearly you believe it should be more fair or you wouldn’t be thieving in the name of the true king.” Show how quickly she gets to know people. This also works for her scene with Dopey, teaching him to express himself even if he’s not talking. I’d hone the scene with the dwarfs arguing as well, or have them arguing more before because all we’ve seen of them up to this point is the Heigh-Ho song which seems pretty in-sync honestly. Then she becomes a leader by seeing them, understanding them (especially Grumpy), and getting them to work together through their differences. Not many changes, just a few moments of making it sharper.

At this point, we’re pretty set for the finale of the movie. The only thing I’d add to sharpen both the queen’s arc/stance and Snow White’s in contrast is to make the poison apple scheme be a scheme intended directly to stick it to Snow White because she wants to prove she’s right about being harder is better. This also solves the “Wait, if you know where she is, why not just go shoot her with a crossbow when someone isn’t around to take an arrow for her?” Queen says “Snow White survived for being soft and friendly? Snow White’s got people backing her up because she’s soft and friendly? Well guess what, that’s her vulnerability too. She’s so soft and friendly she’ll never suspect me.” Which already is played with in the apple scene– the queen claims she wants to help the daughter of the true king. Then she takes a moment to gloat as Snow White chokes and falls, so stick a reminder in there. “This is what you get for being soft, flowers always wilt and die.”

And now the set-up for the finale, where she turns the soldiers by recognizing them, connecting them, etc, is solidly in place. Now’s your time to stand up, be brave and fair, and stick it to the evil queen, Queen!

The big takeaway here is this– figure out your character’s motivation and arc, then remember that in every scene they’re in. This is especially important in short-form if you want the emotions to hit right. And yes, I’m calling full-length movies short-form stories, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Are there other things I’d change? Yeah. Kissing a dead girl is still problematic (but at least this time they’d met and were actually in the process of falling in love). The dwarfs have magic but it’s shown in one scene and then never appears again! Why would you do that to me?? And the magical nature of the woods and animals is just kind of… there and unexplained. Is it really so hard for the king at some point to add in while he’s boasting that “Our mines are (improbably) full of gems!” to add “Our woods are full of magic! It can be dangerous but it can also be sweet. The animals are so willing to help if you are kind to them!”

Are there other things I enjoyed? Yeah, the music was fun. The romance built well to me, and their falling-in-love song was adorable. The visuals were great (even if occasionally uncanny-valley). Most importantly, my daughter enjoyed it and if she wanted to take this version of Snow White as a role model… well, learning to be honest, brave, true, and fair? I can think of worse things to want!

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1. Did you know “dwarVEs” was made a plural by Tolkien? Where “dwarFs” was how they were pluralized originally. It’s weird to me because I habitually type “dwarves” where here I’m trying to do it right for the world. Also spell check doesn’t recognize dwarves in whichever dictionary we’re using here. I’ll have to fix that. ↩︎
2. Unlike my response to Tangled which was to write my own Rapunzel story. But that time I was criticizing the witch’s decision to say “hey, guess what, it’s your birthday!” or even tell her what a birthday was. Watch for Witch Hazel by Elizabeth Doman to totally get finished and published someday I’m sure! ↩︎
3. Which… can we talk about how ridiculous that is? How can you be the fairest? The one who tops out all beauty scales? Literally the most beautiful. Everyone who sees you acknowledges you’re more pretty than anyone they’ve seen. Just… sheesh. Old age is gonna hit her like a ton of bricks, eh? She’s just going to shrivel up as soon as she sees a single wrinkle. “Oh no laugh lines? How have I been so careless as to laugh enough that it’s imprinted on my face??” Anyway. It’s a fairy tale, it’s allowed some hyperbole. I guess. ↩︎