Saving Cinderella Read online

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  All Disney princess narratives are about the transition from childhood to adulthood. As legendary Disney producer Don Hahn explained it, “Disney films are about growing up. They're about that day in your life when you have to accept responsibility.” And, while the later Disney films tackle this idea in a much more literal way, the original Disney princess narratives stick much closer to their fairy tale origins, and depict this transition almost entirely metaphorically. The story of Snow White, both the original fairy tale and the Disney version, is a clear, concise, and obvious (if you’re looking for it) allegorical tale about puberty. It tackles the intense, confusing, and sometimes frightening transition that all girls must go through as they morph from an innocent child to a sexually mature adult woman. And this story, like so many others, is meant to help girls process this transition and approach it in a way that is healthy and mature.

  But here come the princess critics screaming at us again (hush princess critics, we can hear you!) Healthy?! Mature?! She falls asleep! She waits for a man to save her! She’s powerless! Passive! Or, in a lovely little piece of victim-blaming, the FeministFiction blog declares, “She's so insufferably good that it's no wonder the Evil Queen wanted to kill her.” Poor, misguided princess critics. That isn’t it at all!

  When the story begins, The Evil Queen looks into her magic mirror and asks, “Who is the fairest?” And, initially (as the slave in the mirror has told her every day up until this point) the answer is that she is. She, an adult woman who has already reached sexual maturity, is the fairest in the land, even though a very beautiful girl is living in her home. It is at the exact moment when The Prince declares his love for Snow White that the mirror changes his tune. Suddenly, Snow White is the fairest, not The Queen. In her book Spinning Straw into Gold, Joan Gould explains, “Snow White’s body has begun to change by the time her story is under way — we know this from the violence of her stepmother’s reaction to her beauty.” The spark of romance that has been kindled between Snow White and The Prince is only possible because Snow White is beginning to mature. The Prince wouldn’t be attracted to a child. And it is this that suddenly transforms Snow White into the fairest in the land — usurping The Queen, who may be getting close to menopause.

  And, of course, princess critics want to whine about the emphasis on physical beauty, claiming that it sends the wrong message to little girls, but remember, it’s The Queen that’s obsessed with Snow White’s physical beauty. The Queen. The bad guy. Snow White has absolutely no interest in her physical self. As Gould says, “her self-awareness hasn’t taken into account the biological upheaval staring to take place inside her.” She’s not aware of these physical changes, and doesn’t indicate in any way that she holds beauty as an important element of her character. In fact, as we’ve already seen, she is much more concerned with being industrious, cheerful, resourceful, and brave. The whole “fairest” thing is the symbol for the changes of puberty. She is transforming from a girl to a woman. It’s not about how nice she looks while doing it, it’s that she’s doing it at all. She becomes “the fairest” at precisely the moment when the change has begun.

  So we get this first indication that Snow White’s transition into puberty has begun. And it is this that causes the mirror to make its fateful proclamation which, in turn, causes Snow White to have to flee the only home she’s ever known. A young adult having to leave home. Sound familiar? The onset of puberty and the inevitable push to adulthood means that, eventually, the girl will have to leave her family and find a way to make it on her own. Since this is an allegory and not a realistic narrative, the leaving home follows immediately on the heels of the revelation that puberty has begun. And, in leaving home, Snow White encounters the next metaphorical element in the story: the dark forest.

  Bettelheim explains that, in fairy tales, the forest “symbolizes the place in which inner darkness is confronted and worked through; where uncertainty is resolved about who one is; and where one begins to understand who one wants to be.” The forest represents Snow White’s teen angst. It’s the dark, confusing, frightening teenage years in which, as parents often lament, a sweet, well-behaved child becomes a moody, rule-breaking terror. It’s the time in a girl’s life when she has to come to terms with the fact that she must leave her childhood behind and become a woman. She must. Her body, if nothing else, makes that very clear to her. The forest metaphor is present in so many fairy tales (Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, and on and on and on) and it always means the same thing. In fact, there’s an entire musical (Into the Woods) based on this metaphor and what happens to the characters during their time in the forest.

  As happens in many fairy tales, Snow White’s narrative pauses in the woods. It’s the moment Bettelheim describes, of confronting the inner darkness and beginning to figure out who she will become. At first, Snow White is frightened. Things that she thought she knew and understood (trees, and leaves, and animals, and branches) are suddenly transformed into frightening creatures with evil eyes. And, as we’ve already seen, she panics. The woods is the metaphorical embodiments of Snow White’s “inner darkness.” But Snow White passes through the fear and, as with many other allegorical heroes and heroines, Snow White encounters a stopping point in the woods. A place where she must do her soul searching.

  And here, in the cottage, she finds seven little men. This cottage is the place where Snow White is going to practice being the woman she will one day become. But OMG! the princess critics are screaming. The kind of woman she’ll become?! But she’s cooking and cleaning and taking care of men! Or, as Chelsea Mize says on Bustle, Snow White is practicing her “trophy wife skills.” But that’s not it at all! Regardless of whether Snow White wants to become a rocket scientist, or a lion tamer, or an activist for democracy (given the current situation with the monarchy), the skills she is practicing while in the dwarfs’ cottage are precisely the skills she’ll need for what her body is preparing her to achieve: motherhood.

  So, yes, for Snow White, homemaking will probably be her lot in life. One that she (and so many modern women) will be happy to embrace. One that she aspires to and takes pride in (as I do, as so many of us do). But, in the context of this allegory, that’s not the point. The point is that puberty quite literally prepares a woman’s body to conceive and carry a child. So, by the time she has fully transitioned (whether she actually decides to become one or not) she will be ready (at least physically) to become a mother. So the thing that she must metaphorically come to terms with in the cottage is not her career path, but the inevitable fact of what her body is now capable of. And this is represented in the story by Snow White preparing for motherhood (and wifehood, too, since you can’t biologically become a mother without some kind of interaction with a man, much as feminists might like it to be otherwise).

  So these dwarfs are men, but they’re not really men. The characteristics they embody (as represented by their names) aren’t the characteristics of fully-grown men. Men aren’t bashful, dopey, and sleepy. They’re brave, loyal, and passionate. Like The Prince. These men are actually more like children. And Snow White treats them as such, scolding them for not washing before dinner, and not allowing them to eat until they’ve submitted to her will. But, in other ways, they are men, who are affected by Snow White’s beauty and desirous of her physical affection. When it’s time for them to go to work and Snow White gives each of them a goodbye kiss on the head and they all react with a swoon.

  It is Grumpy — who embodies a trait which, to a child, might seem more masculine than the other dwarfs’ demeanors — who Snow White spends the most time trying to win over. Before bed, she prays to God that Grumpy will like her and, while the dwarfs are at work, she cooks a pie with Grumpy’s name written across the top. It is the dwarf that is least childlike that Snow White focuses her attentions on, trying out her newfound romantic abilities on this practice man. And, in the end, she wins him over with a kiss — the physical represe
ntation of her new role as a sexual being. Snow White’s kiss renders Grumpy initially disoriented and, later, evokes the kind of loyalty and protectiveness indicative of an adult man. Snow White is practicing for her real man, The Prince, who she knows she will find again once this interlude in the forest is over.

  So, in the cottage in the woods, Snow White learns to inhabit her new, adult, body and practices the womanly activities that her new sexual maturity allow her. Enter The Evil Queen. While Snow White has orchestrated her own escape and hidden herself as best she can, the Queen has consulted her magic mirror again and realized she’s been duped. And, hell-bent on killing Snow White, she searches out a magic spell to get rid of her once and for all. Consulting her book of evil spells, The Queen fixes on “The Sleeping Death,” a potion which, when consumed, will cause Snow White to fall asleep, as if dead. And the only thing that can wake her, according to the spell book, is “love’s first kiss.” Not “true love’s kiss” as it is often misquoted as being. Love’s first kiss. (More on this in a moment.) The Queen, sure that the dwarfs will think she’s dead and bury her, is confident that this will get rid of Snow White for good. And so, the potion ready, The Queen dips an apple in it, ready to take to Snow White.

  The red apple that The Queen chooses as the vehicle for Snow White’s “sleeping death” is another metaphor in the story. The apple’s redness is important because of the traditional symbolism of the color red. “Above all, sex is red,” Gould explains, “as in Eve’s apple, a virgin’s ‘cherry,’ Persephone’s pomegranate or the Devil’s cloak, the red-light district, red shoes, red satin boxes shaped like hearts and filled with candies to be licked on Valentine’s Day, or a Scarlet letter A for adultery, embroidered in gold on a Puritan gown.” But the apple itself is important too, as was Eve’s apple in Genesis. Gould again: “After a single mouthful, Eve was overcome by knowledge and left innocence and the Garden behind.” Biting the apple is the metaphorical representation of Snow White’s acceptance of her new role as a sexually mature woman. One bite of this sexually-charged object changes everything for Snow White. Literally and metaphorically.

  Princess critics hate the fact that Snow White falls asleep. They think it represents her ultimate passivity. She’s literally immobile until The Prince comes to wake her up. But the sleep is another metaphor, of course. Snow White falls asleep at exactly the moment when she accepts the symbol of her sexuality. And, similar to a caterpillar going into its cocoon in order to emerge a butterfly, the sleep that immediately follows the acceptance of her new self is symbolic of this final transformation taking place within Snow White. And the kiss that The Prince bestows on her is not, as Dray suggests, an act of “necrophilia” performed by “some stranger” while she’s “dead” (gotta love those princess critics), but the metaphorical representation of Snow White’s readiness to emerge an adult.

  The kiss that The Prince gives to Snow White is not “true love’s kiss.” The point here is not that she’s been waiting all this time for the right man, and if only he would come along then all her problems would be solved. She’s waiting for “loves first kiss.” The kiss is the symbol of Snow White’s readiness to be a romantic being. And we’ve already established that Snow White and The Prince love each other and that he isn’t a stranger. He’s the adult man who represents the natural counterpart to her as a (now) adult woman. The fact that The Prince has no other name marks him as a symbolic representation of Snow White’s readiness to be a woman. Rather than her single-minded desire to be rescued by a man.

  See, the princess critics want us to view The Prince’s namelessness as further proof that Snow White has pinned her hopes on a totally random guy she doesn’t even know. That she’s just passively waiting around for any guy at all — even one with no name whatsoever — to rescue her. But it’s actually the opposite. The story is about her internal transformation. He isn’t really that important. He’s the symbolic conclusion of Snow White’s transformation to adulthood and sexual maturity. Not because all adult women need men to complete them (although a fulfilling romantic relationship is part of a complete adult life), but because the completion of puberty means that she is now able (whether she is emotionally ready to do so or not) to bear children. As Bettelheim puts it, “the central motif of ‘Snow White’ is the pubertal girl’s surpassing in every way the evil stepmother who, out of jealousy, denies her an independent existence.” See, princess critics? It’s a completely female story. A woman’s journey. The man is almost irrelevant. Doesn’t that make you happy? Don’t you want to change your mind about Snow White? Oh never mind.

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  Snow White was a huge critical and commercial success when it came out in 1937, and it remains one of The American Film Institute’s top 100 movies of all time. In the Disney canon, Snow White is precedent-setting. She’s the first in a long line of princesses, each trying to depict a woman’s journey from childhood to adulthood. And while she certainly is a product of her time, and while it may be debatable whether the allegorical mode of storytelling hits its mark with modern audiences, there’s no doubt in my mind that Snow White is a good role model. She’s strong, brave, resourceful, and true. She depicts, in a way that children can process and begin to comprehend, the transition to adulthood. She demonstrates how to stay strong and true to yourself even in the most adverse circumstances. Sure, she walks kind of weird, and she sounds even weirder. But those things are only on the outside. A true princess’s beauty is on the inside. Regardless of what princess critics believe.

  Chapter Two: Cinderella

  When I was in grad school, studying to be a teacher, I got a job babysitting an adorable two-year-old girl. She loved Disney princesses and so did I, so we got along well. And every day, for months, we would act out the fairy godmother scene from Cinderella. It always went the same way. First, she would run into her room and fling herself facedown onto her pink princess armchair. “Cee-bella so sad!” she would lisp from inside the cushions. Enter the fairy godmother — me. “Don’t cry, Cinderella,” I would say. “You shall go to the ball!” And she would lift her little angelic face from the chair, her blonde hair in disarray — her features still arranged in a two-year-old’s facsimile of sadness — and gasp. A light would enter her eyes, her eyebrows would raise in timid hope, a smile would adorn her lips (she was really an excellent actress) and she would stand. I’d lift my hand, wave my magic wand, bibbidi bobbidi boo, and she was transformed. And then we would do it again.

  Cinderella is inarguably Disney’s most iconic princess. Even if you haven’t seen the movie in years (or at all!) you can probably still picture the moment that Cinderella’s pink rags, are suddenly, spectacularly, transformed into a glittering white ball gown. You shall go to the ball! Even though princess critics want us to favor “feminist” princesses, like Mulan or Merida — because of their “strength” and their “agency” — Cinderella is actually Disney’s most popular princess. It’s true. A poll conducted by the secret-sharing app Whisper that asked a whopping 80,000 people to reveal their favorite Disney princess crowned Cinderella number 1. Mulan and Merida didn’t even make top five. In fact, Elsa from Frozen was the only “feminist” princess to make the cut.

  It isn’t surprising. Almost every culture in the world has a Cinderella story. According to The American Library Association, more than 500 versions of the tale have been documented in Europe alone, with its roots dating as far back as the ninth century. Clearly, there is something about Cinderella that deeply resonates with us. Something powerful that speaks to a universal human experience. Otherwise it wouldn’t have endured for so long or become so meaningful to its listeners. So what is it? What truth does Cinderella illuminate? What secret longing does it help fulfill?

  Don’t try asking the princess critics. They have literally no idea. “Cinderella is another unfathomably popular princess,” says Kayleigh Dray from Stylist, “considering she doesn’t do or say all that much to help herself in this movie.” Okay, thanks for that Kay
leigh. Literally everyone for thousands of years has been wrong and you’re right. Jeez. But Dray is not alone. Princess critics hate Cinderella. They, like Mary Grace Garis from Bustle, think it’s about a girl who sits around until “a rich guy she just met decides she's hot enough to marry.” Or Chelsea Mize, also from Bustle, who thinks it’s a story about a girl who’s “pretty enough to grab the prince's attention.” Shoes and a dress. For princess critics, that’s what Cinderella is all about. A girl who sits around doing nothing until a magic lady shows up and solves all her problems by giving her a pretty dress, some fancy shoes, and sending her off to the ball where she can meet a rich and powerful man who will save her from her mean stepmother and stepsisters. Yup, that must be it princess critics. All human beings, for over a thousand years, have been obsessed with fashion and its lifesaving capabilities.

  The problem with the princess critics, of course, is that they take everything so literally. It’s true that, compared to Snow White, Disney’s Cinderella is a much more realistic movie. Thirteen years had gone by between the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Cinderella, which came out in 1950. And, in those intervening years, Disney had made an additional twelve feature-length animated films including classics like Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Bambi. This art form that was a daring experiment when Disney tried it out on Snow White was now an established filmmaking technique. Roger Ebert notes a “general smoothing-out of the character's appearances” such that they look less “odd.” The whole thing seems much more “normal” to modern eyes and ears. The characters don’t look so different from the animated characters that we’re used to from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The voices sound somewhat old-fashioned, but not weird like Snow White’s. The characters’ movements and dialogue are much more realistic. So, if we were in a particularly forgiving mood, we might excuse the princess critics for forgetting everything we learned in the last chapter about fairy tale shorthand and symbolism. But they’d be wrong to forget it. Of course.