Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

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Ever since I got Disney Plus, I thought it would be a good idea to take a time-travelling journey through Disney's vault. But instead of making it another tedious project that I can't keep up with, I figured I'd try to squeeze it into any month that has 5 Thursdays, meaning the next set of these will be set for July, October, December, and so on, until I go through all of Disney's animated features. So yeah, this is just gonna be a thing now. Today, we start with 1937's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves'.

A couple of things to cover first and foremost - for one, I find this to be a product of its time, and it simply hasn't aged well when it comes to certain aspects. At the time, this was the world's first full-length animated feature, and it was unprecedented technology done without the handiness of a computer. I won't go into full detail, but the process of animation in the late 1930's was something to be admired. It was hard work, and animation has come a very long way since then, but one can't really deny that animation as a whole has its roots in this film.

Getting into the story, it's the classic fairy tale, brought to us from the Brothers Grimm back in 1812, but tidied up just a bit. A vane and evil queen (Lucille La Verne) is all pissed off about apparently not being the "fairest in the land", according to her magic mirror (Moroni Olsen). As it turns out, the mirror sees the princess, Snow White (Adriana Caselotti) as "the fairest one of all", which prompts the queen to send out a huntsman (Stuart Buchanan) to assassinate her.

When the huntsman manages to catch up to Snow White, he can't go through with it, and sends her running into the woods where she has a nervous breakdown, and is then comforted by a bunch of woodland critters. The critters lead her to a little cottage in the woods where she can rest up, but not before *cringe* cleaning up the house with the help of all these woodland critters.

The little cottage ends up being home to seven dwarves; Doc (Roy Atwell), Dopey (​Eddie Collins), Sleepy, Grumpy (both Pinto Colvig), Sneezy (Billy Gilbert), Happy (Otis Harlan) and Bashful (​Scotty Mattraw). They all hit it off as soon as the dwarves find out she can *cringe* cook. She then plays a bit of a mother figure to them, and finds them ultimately cute, which brings me to her character - yeah, she kinda sucks. Aside from the abilities to cook, clean, sing and pick wildflowers, she's pretty much helpless, and far too cutesy. It's pretty cringe-worthy stuff, for the most part.

Going back to the story, however, we ALL know what happens. At this point, it really shouldn't be a spoiler, but the queen disguises herself, gives Snow White a poisoned apple, and she accepts and takes a bite like an idiot. To me, this has always been a lesson for kids simply not to accept things that strangers offer, or they'll put you in a potential coma that only "love's first kiss" can get you out of (you thought of 'Shrek' just now, right? Not 'Snow White'?) This kinda turns the film on its head, because now here's a girl who's been drugged, and only someone who wants to kiss her passed out body can revive her - so yeah, I get why this maybe isn't the best thing to show your kids nowadays in order to send a message.

In closing, I'm not here to start a whole thing with this movie. We all have an opinion, and at the end of the day, if you don't wanna watch it, just don't watch it. However, I think that despite how its viewed nowadays, I can still admire the film for what it managed to do, technically. Most people my age, or a bit younger, remember when 'Toy Story' came out in 1995, changing the face of animated cinema forever. Well, this was essentially that for 1937, and it's pretty well the title that sparked it all. To my amazement, it still looks really good by today's standards, right down to character expression, and beautiful backgrounds. So, I definitely see it as a solid technical achievement.

As far as the film itself goes, however, it's a little difficult for me to brush it off as a simple, harmless, fairy tale. But I can say that what the problems boil down to is just that it's extremely dated. We're much more woke now in today's society, so if you wanna show your kids, go ahead and show them - just do it with caution, is all. On the other hand, if you'd rather not expose your kids to dated gender roles, just skip it 'cause nowadays there's better out there. For me, it has a place in history, and does still get some of my respect.

3/5

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