Fairy Tales 2010

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Snow White Characters

I really wanted to say something about the depiction of the mirrors because I thought that the mirror as the patriarchal voice of judgment or as a woman's voice of vanity was really interesting. Unfortunately, I suppose that the mirror isn't quite a character so, I'll just review the character of the huntsman. I couldn't help but admire the huntsman in the 1916 Snow White and the 1961 Snow White. In both versions, the huntsman regrets to have to inform Snow White of the Queen's intentions and resolves to kill a beast instead and return the beasts heart to the queen. Lasky's Snow White (1916) had a little more sustenance to him. You could see his devotion to his children reunited his family in and trapped the guard to retrieve the keys. In the 1961 version of Snow White, (if my memory serves me correctly), he told the prince Snow White's fate and set out with the prince to find Snow White. He helped the dwarf to blow the horn, showing his virility and masculinity in the same fashion that the huntsman in the 1916 version did. Even though the huntsman's character is relatively minor, he does his part to keep the story going and display some morality of character (since he is supposed to be the saving grace for the female).

2 comments:

  1. I think it is really interesting that you chose to focus on the huntsmen. Like you said, he is relatively a minor character within the two films that you are comparing, but a really important character in saving the day. This made me think about Grimms Little Red Riding Hood and the way that the huntsman is depicted in that story, still a relatively small character but one of high moral standing and essentially the one who saves the day.

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  2. I thought it was interesting that the 1916 films (and other film adaptations, to a lesser extent) turn to the huntsman to get a masculine hero rather than the prince. Couldn't the prince be doing some heroic deeds in search of SW while she's doing the dwarf chores? Instead the guy just shows up at the beginning and end, and as far as we know he's little more than a foppish royal who likes cute girls. It's easy to see the Snow White lineage of stories as anti-feminist, but it's not really pro-masculine either--even the dwarves, who are in a sense very "compact" men, ultimately seem more cute than powerful. I wonder if the 1916 filmmakers decided (or were subconsciously led) to use the huntsman as the flagbearer for virility to address that lack.

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