
Isn't it time that Snow White learnt stranger-danger
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Last weekend, I chaperoned my daughter and her friends to see Snow White. You can judge me later, but just bear with me for the next few hundred words.
A scene soon after the interval elicited loud guffaws from my group. Sadly it had nothing to do with the script but all to do with a certain member of the audience. Just as Snow White accepted a poisoned apple from the evil queen in her old hag avatar, a child, around 5 or 6 exclaimed to her parents, “But, didn’t her Mumma-Papa not tell her not to accept things from strangers!" Here was a little child spouting words of wisdom, while a young adult in this stale-beyond-years fairytale failed to exhibit basic common sense and continued to do what she had been doing in umpteen retellings of this story.
I waited and waited for some reimagination, some empowering moment when Snow White would break from tradition—a twist in the tale, if you will—but to no avail. Once again, we had a comatose belle waiting for a true love’s kiss. If I had a drinking game for the number of times fairytales have somehow featured this magical kiss of love to make everything better, I would be seriously drunk by now.
The sole deviation in this film was Snow White marching into town, brimming with the magic of a good heart, and transforming hardened soldiers into vessels of regained humanity with mere mentions of their strawberry farms and generous feasts of the past. For most of us, while growing up, fairytales were a stepping stone into the magical world of stories, and it is only natural for us to want to pass on these tales— which often spell comfort—to our kids. But isn’t it time that we demand better of them? Isn’t it time that we get some respite from these
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