The Evolution of Snow White
By Guest Contributors Paul and Renee, cross-posted from Fangs For The Fantasy
One of the newest trends we’re seeing in speculative fiction is the revisiting of fairy tales, especially in a modern setting–they’re almost a unique sub-genre of the Urban Fantasy and Fantasy genres.
And, in many ways, this is very important to do as fairy tales are some of the very first stories many of us are exposed to as children. Unfortunately, they’re also very old stories–and contain a lot of very old and sadly prevalent tropes that have stayed with us over the years. Generations of children have grown up with stories of helpless princesses, passively waiting for a handsome (and anonymous–after all, any man will do if he’s in the right place at the right time) prince to save them from abject peril. There is no question that this iconic image–repeated over and over in fairy tales, has had a profound effect on our culture, our society, and our view of gender roles, and there have been numerous excellent posts deconstructing the damaging messages of fairy tales.
There is no fairy tale that can be considered more centre stage than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. An ancient tale, it rose to prominence when it became Disney’s first full-length animated movie and was forever cemented front and centre as not just a fairy tale–but the fairy tale. The ultimate tale of the protagonist–poor, helpless, sweet and oh-so-fair Snow White is attacked by her evil stepmother, while she helplessly sings to wildlife and eventually resides in a glass coffin to be rescued.
This is clearly an image that needs challenging–and, appropriately, Snow White is front and centre of the fairy tales that are being revised for the modern world. Between Once Upon A Time, Mirror Mirror, and Snow White and the Huntsman, we see a very different princess. The modern Snow White does not lay in glass coffins awaiting rescue. Her reaction is to attack, not to run away in fright, or maybe sing a little ditty to bluebirds. The modern Snow White kicks arse, she wields a sword, actively hunts down the Evil Queen, and she stands shoulder-to-shoulder with her Prince Charming.
One of the things that we love most about Once Upon a Time is that, while Mary Margaret may be the soggiest lettuce in town, Snow White is a highwaywoman, a fighter, and a swashbuckler–every bit Prince James’s equal. Snow White is no longer a prize to be claimed, no longer an object to be won, and no longer a passive element in what is supposed to be her own story. And if she needs rescuing, she is quite capable of rescuing herself, thank you very much.
This is both so very needed and very empowering. It’s powerful to not only create new stories that empower marginalised bodies, but re-examine these old tropes and challenge them in a way that not only sets a new paradigm but highlights how wrong the old paradigm was.
The problem, of course, is that strong woman still means straight, able bodied, cisgender, and white. Snow White may not necessarily be waiting in her coffin for true love’s first kiss, but we do know that there will be a love interest and it will most certainly involve a man.
We always expect fairy tales to be 100% straight simply because they are seen as children’s stories (and pervasive bigotry holds that any GBL&T inclusion is both sexual and obscene) and because they are often seen as historical (and, for some bemusing reason, there’s a stubborn idea that all GBL&T people arrived from space in the 70s or 80s) so any GBL&T inclusion in this genre is always an uphill struggle. But nearly all fairy tales–and certainly most of the ones popularised by Disney–revolve around a romance. The Princess will meet her Prince, and then there will be Happily Ever After.
This story is repeated so often that it is written in stone–Happily Ever After with One Man and One Woman–and this is inviolate. Snow White could never look for another Princess. Prince Charming could never rescue Prince Down-Right-Sexy. It’s pounded home over and over again–True Love Conquers All, man/woman, happily ever after: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Princess and the Frog, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Disney’s Aladdin, Rapunzel, the Little Mermaid–need I go on? Our childhoods are wallpapered with incessant images of straight love.
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