Snow White...Mommy Syndrome

To be quiet honest, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was never one of my favorite movies. It took me three sittings to finish it....the first time I fell asleep after the dwarfs returned home. Still not one of my favorite movies, but it did a great job giving the stereotypical thought of a young lady at the time in history. Yes, young girls were expected to help around the house. I do understand the misconception of evil step-mothers is still prevalent in children's minds today. However, the older girls were expected to take care of the children, no questions asked. Also, during that time frame women were supposed to know how to cook, clean, sew and be very docile.
Now, I do see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a womanizing video. I do agree with the others that when viewing videos as young children one does not think of things like this. Come to think of it how many people really analyze the movies they see now, even at our age.
The problem with the obvious gender expectations isn't particularly offensive even now when I am an adult. I am not extremely feminist, I am actually very old fashioned. This movie sometimes, I feel portrays how I live in reality. I am expected to watch my siblings, cook, clean and run errands for my parents. My brother is 11 years younger than me so I have been the 'little mommy' for a long time. My mother is great, but when she worked evenings, I was the person to call on to watch my brother and I was never paid, and never asked for payment; it was just something you do in our house.
I did see the typical knight in shining armor facade when the prince comes along. The implications of this to small children are huge. After the girls come out of the 'princess' phase they all dream about their prince charming, or their knight in shining armor. It almost sets up an alternate reality.
I hope this is how a blog is kinda supposed to sound like...I'm new to this!

Snow White-Seen and not heard, unless she's singing...

I as well thought this was unbearable to sit through. Even though I am told that this was my favorite book, princess, movie, etc. as a child. It was very simple in many ways yet very complex in a whole other context. The scene that stuck out the most to me and offended my feminist sensibilities was when she was in the forest apologizing to the animals for "making such a fuss". I am well aware that this mentality was common place in the 30s and 40s. My grandmother who is still here at 81 has always thought and never kept it to herself that a womans place is in the home. Her responsibilties includes but are not limited to cleaning, taking care of the children, and dinner is on the table at 5pm. You only speak when spoken to, and never and I mean never cause of scene.

Snow|White became responsible for taking care of these "children" and the home they lived in. As if it was her sole purpose in life. And that misconception is still around today. In my late twenties I am asked by peer, family, clients why am I not married and why don't I have children. As if it is the only thing worth doing. I have never bought into this ideology and have spent most of my life rebelling against it. It is very disturbing that these are the underlying messages/images children are absorbing.

Snow White

This was like the first time I've watched this movie in so long and, although it is a little annoying, it is much darker than most early Disney films. The evil queen is obsessed with be the most beautiful in the land that she orders a hit man to bring back Snow White's heart in a box. The idea of beauty to drive someone to murder another is an extreme of today's society. With shows on television that are driven by those who are beautiful, it seems that in today's world in order to be somebody you have to be beautiful. If, in a Disney movie, the villain is willing to cut out Snow White's heart to be the most beautiful person in the land, what would be today's equivalent of extreme measures to be number one? To measure a person by beauty before knowledge and personality is very shallow and in the end will get you no where. And in Snow White it will get you killed.

Snow White as a Political Allegory

OMG! I love Disney films for a couple reasons, one being that as a child you never understand some of the jokes until you watch the movie as an adult. In Snow White Doc has speaking issues and at one point he says to Snow White “What are you and who you doing?” LMFAO! However the movie has some good rules of life, such as wash b/4 dinner, work can be fun, and democracy will rule? The Queen represents anything but democracy, which is represented by Snow White. Even Grumpy comes around to loving Snow White, therefore the rest of the world will too and the Queen, I assume will fall. When the Queen threatens Snow White the forest animals pull the dwarfs towards the house in hopes to save Snow White from the evils of the Queen. I see this as Communism, or Marxism, threatening democratic states and overrunning them, and the animals as the interventionist policy of democratic states to help those countries who need help. Snow White was made in the 1930’s when Hitler and Mussolini were coming to power, therefore this representation makes since to me.

Snow White

As some others have already posted, it is so unbelievably weird to watch a kid's movie for the first time in like 15 years. The thing I think that stood out most for me was how prevalent song was in the movie. I thought it was weird how every single time something needed to get done (a house cleaned, food made, going to work etc.) all the characters randomly broke out in song. I'm not really sure why this stood out to me, but it was really strange to me and it kind of bothered me. It made it seem like if you are ever in a bad situation all you need to do is sing and everything will be fixed.

I thought that the way Snow White was presented was pretty funny as well. As a couple people have already mentioned, she was utterly clueless. She could not make a decision on her own and was completely reliant on her surroundings to make her decisions for her. The amount of trust she had in people was sickening, but I guess this is probably just a reflection on the type of movie Snow White is. Snow White is clearly a movie meant for children and therefore it isn't surprising that Disney would present the world as a good place to live in and that people are generally very trustworthy.

Get in the kitchen and make me a Grumpy Pie!

It's amazing the little things you notice when revisiting a movie you first saw over 20 years ago. Like others have pointed out Snow White is completely and utterly helpless and at the mercy of those around her. She also has a bad habit of mothering strange, creepy old men, one of which is apparently mentally handicapped.
It's a shame that there's no Halloween in Snow White's era, because then she would know not to accept gifts of fruit from hideous old hags with questionable intent. She seriously comes off as completely vapid and ultra-feminine, swooning incessantly whenever romance or love comes up as a topic, as if that's all girls should be concerned with. Another interesting thing I picked up was how Snow White is devoid of curves compared to other Disney princesses, particularly Jasmine from Aladdin.
While goofy as hell the movie showed a pretty straight-forward and typical damsel-in-distress story, and actually reminded me a bit of the ending of the movie Pretty Woman, with the Prince sweeping the Princess away to live happily ever after. Now I just need to find something to wash the disgustingly sweet taste left in my mouth.