Cruel Intentions

Is it significant whether or not we see Snow White's stepmother before she becomes the stepmother, or has anything at all to do with Snow White?  

Take the version we watched in class on Wednesday: we were shown a woman who wanted to be beautiful, and sought the (mis)guidance of a witch who wanted Snow White's head.  The woman's initial desires had nothing to do with Snow.

Then think about the Disney take on the story, in which right away we are confronted with a villainous version of that same character, and the woman jealous of Snow White's beauty is already the stepmother.  We never see her character or intentions out of connections from Snow.

Does this seemingly minor change do anything to the story?  I think so.

The Disney version, in which the stepmother is after Snow White from the start, gives credence to the idea that there is a parent out to get the child.  Like we read from Bettleheim a while ago, it is possible that children want to believe that.  Versions in which the villain is already the stepmother allows for that thought trail, because her intentions are against Snow White.

In other versions of the story, the future stepmother's cruelty is less of a focus, because it all falls in the master plan to become beautiful.  Since the witch is the master of the plan against Snow, the stepmom-to-be loses some of her agency as a true villain.  Her intentions are solely to be beautiful - Snow is simply an unfortunate stepping stone to achieving that goal.

What do you think?

Snow White and Her Wicked Stepmother

Last semester, I took a WGS First Year Seminar in which we spent one week discussing the grossly misogynistic aspect of several problematic fairy tales that Disney popularized:

the Little Mermaid (lose your voice and be pretty!)
Cinderella (cut off your toes; you won't need them when you have a man!)
Sleeping Beauty (worst princess)

but we spent the most time of all discussing Gilbert and Gubar's Madwoman in the Attic, and specifically their take on Snow White.

When watching the 1937 Snow White, I couldnt help but view it through mostly a feminist lens. Gilbert and Gubar describe the competition between the women: "the one fair, young, pale, the other just as fair, but older, fiercer; the one a daughter, the other a mother; the one sweet, ignorant, passive, the other both artful and active; the one sort of an angel, the other an undeniable witch." The main problem that this raises--why do women have to be either an angel or a demon? Women in fairy tales are either categorized as angelic or bitchy, and I don't think any REAL woman can be given exactly one category in which to live her life. Through the films, we see the stratification between angel and witch very clearly through makeup, figure, and sexualization.

One interesting character evolution we can see in film is of the wicked stepmother. In the 1916 version, she is given a name as Queen Brangomar and is more realistic. She conspires with a witch for more beauty, who kills Brangomar's sister and makes her queen. This somewhat lessens the severity of her evil by splitting the character of the Wicked Stempother into three different women. In Disney's, the Stepmother is much more interesting than Snow White. Dark makeup and a slinky figure show that she must be evil. She relies on some demonic magic and her dangerous beauty to get what she wants. Enchanted uses a real actress to embody this stereotypical evil woman.

Disney downplays Snow White's lack of agency in the tale by giving her working songs, and a previous "relationship" with the prince. But in the tale, Snow White is purchased as a beautiful thing by the prince. She is simply passed from a literal to a figurative glass coffin- a life of domesticity and happiness living with a Prince.

I found todays class discussion very interesting, how cinema, while although the new primary medium to tell fairy tales, will always rely upon textual material. Walt Disney establishes early on the cultural connection to his Snow White and the Brother's Grimm version by crediting the adaptation to the Grimm's version, and the iconic "Book" opening image. But while he credits this early literary form of the tale, Disney himself re-writes the tale, and through cinematic popularity, makes his own the "grand version." Disney accomplishes this by both keeping to the storyline, and by also making his specific and unique, Which is evident through the personification of the Dwarfs. In the Grimm's tale, the seven dwarfs are described as merely just that: 7. They have no individual characteristics or personalities. Yet Disney gives all 7 of them, a character trait unique to their own. Such a decision not only allows for theatrical entertainment and diversity, but in turn distinguishes the Disney form from the more vague and simplistic folk tale from the Grimm collection. Bashful, doc, dopey, grumpy, happy, sleepy, Sneezy: these names have become perpetually bound and synonymous to the identity of the Snow White tale, thanks to the creativity and ingenuity of Walt Disney to create something new, yet also traditionally familiar.

Absence of Parents

In reading the Grimms version of Snow White and watching the Disney version, I noticed that Snow Whites parents play a very insignificant role in both versions. The Grimms version mentions Snow White's parents in the first paragraph and then the mother is killed and the father disappears, not to be mentioned again. With the Grimms version, the mother is only used to give birth to Snow White and give the reader a background as to how Snow White got her name. The king is used even less than the queen with his role being the character who introduces Snow White and the readers to the evil queen/step-mother.

Disney chose to skip Snow White's parents altogether. When we meet Snow White, she is already in her late teens/early twenties and the Evil Queen's jealousy and hatred for her is almost at its tipping point. We never know where Snow White comes from, nor is it ever really established that the Evil Queen is Snow White's step-mother (as far as I can remember, I could be wrong about this but since it doesn't immediately stand out in my mind, I'm going to assume that it's never established). The Evil Queen simply becomes a crazy woman who is jealous of Snow White for a vain reason. Disney is notorious for using orphaned or single-parent characters (Bambi, Pinocchio, Jungle Book, Cinderella, and more recently Princess & the Frog, Lilo & Stitch, Aladdin, and the Little Mermaid). I read, but I can't remember where, that he did this in order to gain the sympathy of the audience for his animated characters. Yes, Aladdin is a street rat who steals but he also doesn't have any family!

It's interesting to see what a small role parents play in this fairy tale, particularly since Snow White doesn't seem to be as bright as other characters in fairy tales that we've read such as Hansel & Gretel and the Juniper Tree. These characters, who had present parents, were able to outsmart their step-mothers and prevail while Snow White falls for every trick the queen throws at her. If it weren't for the dwarves intervening, the queen would have killed Snow White much easier. It's strange, but it would appear that present parents equate to smarter protagonists.

The Queen's Identity

In the silent film, the Queen is given a name which makes her more human like and relatable rather than evil. But, this is the only element that suggests this. She is flat and there is not much evidence into the vision of her as a character in general. As the audience, we do not know much about the Queen and what she represents in they story. There become three women against Snow White later in the story, the queen being two of them. Her character was split into two roles, one of the queen and one of the witch.

The Queen in Walt Disney's version has no name, but the scenes that present her as a character show the strength and qualities of her. The entire movie opens up with a scene of following the queen into her mirror and seeing her from the mirror's point of view. She is displayed in the shot with dark hair and eyes, red lips, and a womanly silhouette. These elements show the sexuality of her character and the power that is behind her. This version of the film gives more depth and dimension to the Queen than the silent film did. It makes the viewer question who their loyalties are toward in the way that we are introduced to her as a being and a person rather than a flat figure in a film.

Bluebeard Post comment

For some reason I cannot comment on Pharra's post "Bluebeard", so here is my comment.
I also felt like these tales were similar to Beauty and the Beast. One major difference though was that there was no prince charming under the facade of the Beast, but instead a much more horrible beast under the facade of a normal man (minus the unnatural blue in his beard). The beast in these stories really was a beast.

I have to disagree with the last comment though about the leading lady in Bluebeard being stronger than Belle in any sense. Belle did make the decision to live with the Beast without being forced into it because she wanted to be virtuous and keep promises made in order to honor her father. This last wife of Bluebeard's sometimes did not have a choice about the marriage and when she did, she only acquiesced based on his wealth. Also, she took the time to be obedient and get to know him and fall in love with the Beast, instead of immediately doing something to disobey and build mistrust with her husband and then encourage his death. I believe Belle was the stronger female in these stories.

Also in contrast, the B&B stories focus on the love between them growing while in the Bluebeard stories the focus is on mistrust and murder. I know that I have focused on the differences, but I believe there are many more similarities between the stories than differences. I am curious about how closely their tale types are related.

Missing Something...?

I feel as though all of the criticisms of the Bluebeard stories we have read and the other blog postings that I have seen have focused on the discussion of the wife's curiosity and the consequences of that. This has been amusing to me because it seems that the fact that he is a serial killer, a black widower. Why is it so bad that the wife opens a door, and not so much that he kills at least seven women. Is it just a result of the significance of men being elevated higher in society, or something else?

One thing that occurred to me was that it has often been revealed through interviews with other psycho paths (modern day Bluebeards)the thrill of the chase, the excitement of predator and prey, the building of fear in their victims to raise the interest they have in murdering people. If Bluebeard really did not want her to go into the room, he didn't need to give her the separate key that went to that room (unlike in the beauty and the beast story where the father gave his daughters a key that went to all the rooms in the castle and told them not to go into one, Bluebeard has to give her a separate key for the room. He is bloodthirsty and clearly enjoys killing his victims, so I believe that he had the intention to kill her eventually whether she opened the door then or not, but by giving her the key, he knew he was making the option irresistible and that she would open the door and be horrified (which heightens the thrill of her murder for him).

He is crazy in a very bad way and he is a serial murderer; she just opens a door and through gaining this knowledge saves her life. Why is she the bad guy in this story?! I just feel that the past critics and our class is missing something...

Bluebeard

While reading this version of Bluebeard, I couldn't help but notice a lot of similarities to Beauty and the Beast. We have the odd man-freak who frightens the entire town, the woman that is with him even though she doesn't really want to be with him, and the secret, which does vary in the Beauty & the Beast stories. Both Bluebeard and Beauty & the Beast tend to focus on the heroics of the woman involved. B&B shows a reformation of the Beast by Beauty while Bluebeard shows a woman who kills her gruesome husband.

Another thing I noticed about the Bluebeard tales is that they tend to be more gruesome than many of the other stories that we've read. This series often focuses on the horrible deaths of the former lovers of Bluebeard and how he killed them. In my opinion, this series is the least "family-friendly" series since it is so violent and particularly descriptive. I think it is definitely on a different level than the rest of the fairy tales because of its mature content. Out of all of the different collections/themes that we've studied so far, this series is the one that was newest to me, but I know that it's most likely because of the maturity level of it that I was never introduced to it as a child.

The Grimm's Bluebeard

This version of the story includes alot of subtext. The Grimm brothers probably wrestled with the subject matter of this tale. It is included in the "Omitted Tales" section of our book.

The character of Bluebeard seems to be nothing less than psychotic. I relate him to a fairy-tale equivalent of the Jigsaw killer from the Saw films. Basically, Bluebeard has a need to kill. Above that need, though, is the need for rationalization. He knows that temptation is quite hard to resist. He sets up a trap for his wives just to remove the finality of the burden from himself. He thinks that their actions dictate their death. Outside of the fairy tale world where women without morals should be killed, Bluebeard would perhaps project his "beard" issues in some other way. The fact that his appearance--an unnatural occurrence that is seemingly out of his control--dictates his action makes the wife's rescue in the end feasible. I feel that Bluebeard is the world's originator of entrapment.

George Méliès’s Barbe Bleu

The story that struck me most was George Méliès’s Barbe Bleu silent movie version from 1901 - especially the details that were added to give the plot an orientation about classic values and morals. In some way it’s more like a Disney or softened version of the original. Not only is it not the wife’s fault any more that she’s opening the door but she’s influenced by a devilish creature. On the other hand we have a good fairy that tries to help the wife out of the situation and supports her. By the invention of those two characters, the question of what is good and what is bad is suddenly raised. In the original, we just have a plot and the issue weather the actions are right or wrong is not addressed at all. In the movie version on the other hand, we can see that not listening to your husband is a bad thing and that in order to be a good wife you should follow your husband’s commands.

On the other way the invention of the devil also takes away the wife’s responsibility of her own destiny. It’s not her fault anymore and she does not really have a choice about what she’s doing as the devil is influencing her. Taking this a little bit further, one could get the impression that this movie suggests that women do not really have a choice, but that their curiosity is part of their nature imposed by the devil and that they therefore cannot be trusted. It is obvious that the devil part has a much bigger influence on the woman than the good fairy. Thus, the moral message of this scene for the husband can be interpreted as don’t give too much responsibility to your wife as this is going to destroy your relationship. It somehow reflects the classical Victorian ideal of the husband being the leader of the household and the wife being his servant that does not have any authority at all.