Cinema Nirvana
Chapter One
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Dare to Be Dopey
So, in planning a new picture, we don’t think of grown-ups and we don’t think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us, that the world has maybe made us forget and maybe our pictures can help recall. —Walt Disney
As a role model, Snow White sucks. She’s an utterly passive fairy-tale heroine who climbs no beanstalks and slays no dragons. She has no talents but housecleaning and no interests beyond pining away for that Special Someone who will someday come and solve all her problems. Her shrill, girly voice attests to her empty-headed helplessness—she’s sisters-under-the-skin with the old politically incorrect Teen Talk Barbie that sighed, “Math is hard!” All she is is young and pretty, and not smart enough to understand that one day, like the Queen, she’ll be forty and washed up.
This sort of critique is valid as long as we’re viewing the film on a strictly literal level. But on that level, Jack and the Beanstalk teaches us to solve our problems by stealing and killing, a ... read full excerpt from Cinema Nirvana: Enlightenment Lessons from the Movies ebook
