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So. Back to business and let’s get on with our lovely Disney Princesses and the not so lovely video about them. Today, we’ll be taking a look at the ‘fairest of them all’… Of course – Snow White!

Snow White (Disney)

Snow White (Disney) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the video, lessons she teaches us are said to be the following:

“Your only goal in life should be the acceptance of a man..”

and

“If you are beautiful enough, some women may try to kill you..”

Well, this time, let’s start with the second statement. What is that even supposed to tell us? Like what kind of lessons should we draw from that? “Don’t be beautiful”? Now, I think we all know that this would be totally ridicolous. But, for once, the statement above actually does speak truth. Because, what it actually states is, that there is jealousy in the world. Sometimes people might be jealous of you for something. And as a result, they might want to harm you in some way or another. Yes. True. There’s nothing to argue about that. The whole movie revolves just around that – the evil queen‘s jealousy and her thereby resulting efforts to kill Snow White. So maybe the lesson we should draw from the statement is that we should be aware of jealousy around us. That we shouldn’t walk around blindly and carefree and be careful instead.
But if that was the case wouldn’t it make more sense if the evil queen succeeded and Snow White actually died, so we truly learned our lesson? I certainly do think so. But it doesn’t happen after all. In the end, the evil queen’s attempt at murdering Snow White stays unsuccessful and Snow White lives. Happily ever after, if I may add. And the evil queen? Well, first of all, let me say that she doesn’t even end up as second in the list of the most beautiful. Why? Easy. She’s dead. Yeah, you heard right. The evil queen died. But how did that happen, you ask? Oh boy, you really didn’t pay attention, did you? To make it short – she dug her own grave. And no, she didn’t kill herself on purpose. The huge rock that smashed her was, if it were up to the evil queen at least, actually supposed to smash the seven dwarfs. Oh right, there’s something else. When she dies, she’s far from being beautiful. She dies as an old, ugly hag.
And with the evil queen’s death and the circumstances of it, you finally got your true lesson. Jealousy and envy will get you nowhere. And even more importantly: biters will be bitten. Or curses, like chicken, come home to roost. However you wanna phrase it.
Quite the important lesson, if you ask me. Even if it isn’t directly Snow White who teaches it. After all though, Snow White is already occupied with teaching us how our only goal in life should be the acceptance of a man. Or is that so?
Snow White is looking for acceptance, yes. For example, she wants to be accepted by Grumpy. I can’t blame her for that. Of course she doesn’t want people to dislike or even hate her. I guess it’s safe to say that nobody really wants that. But Grumpy’s acceptance isn’t Snow White’s life goal. Maybe the statement refers to Snow White’s wish at the beginning of the movie then:

“I’m wishing for the one I love to find me today.
I’m hoping and dreaming of the nice things he’ll say.”

The second line here implies yearning for acceptance in a way, too. She just wishes for somebody who treats her right, for once, after she’s been treated badly by her stepmother her whole life. And for now, at least as far as we know, that’s the only thing she wishes for. But I don’t think this can be seen as Snow White’s overall life goal. Because a goal is something, that you actually need to achieve, something you need to work for. And that’s also what it sounds like in the statement above: as if Snow White dedicates her whole life and everything she does to earning the acceptance of a man. But that’s not how it is. Snow White doesn’t work for the acceptance of a man. Neither does she need to nor does she even want to. She wishes for somebody who just does treat her right and therefore accepts her. Point. Just like that. The acceptance of a man might be something she wants, but it’s nothing she wants to dedicate her life to and it’s also not the only thing she wants in life.
I know, I know, you’re already wracking your brain about where she mentions something else she wants. Well, don’t worry, I will enlighten you.
Later in the movie Snow White sings:

“Someday my Prince will come
Someday we’ll meet again
And away to his castle we’ll go
To be happy forever I know
Someday when spring is here
We’ll find our loved one
And the bees will sing
And wedding bells will ring
Someday when my dreams come true”

That’s exactly the same, you say? Well, I don’t agree at all. Snow White states here that she wants to meet (and later marry) the man she loves again, the prince, the man who accepts her. True. But is this the end already, the goal? Umm.. no. Meeting him again and therefore getting to be with him is only what gives her the possibility to go “away to his castle”, which in turn makes it possible “to be happy forever”. But why does she want to go away and why is that obviously a requirement for being happy?
Well, at that point in the story, Snow White already knows that her stepmother wants to kill her. Her stepmother, who happens to be the queen and therefore rule over the whole territory of the kingdom. So as long as Snow White stays on her territory, she lives constantly in imminent danger and therefore has to stay hidden, which means that she can’t really do anything and she’s pretty much trapped. And as long as that i the case, there’s also not really anything to achieve, to aspire for her in life. What Snow White ultimately wants is happiness. So I guess you could say that this is her life goal. Good one in my opinion. But before Snow White can achieve happiness, she needs to be given the circumstances that allow her to do so. And a circumstance that she obivously deems necessary is also freedom, since leaving the place where she’s nothing but trapped is a requirement.
I know, she still goes away in the end even though the queen is dead. But whatever. It’s irrelevant. The point is, her life goal isn’t the acceptance of a man. It’s something she might want, but it’s just not her overall goal in life. Her goal is happiness. And freedom.
And no, she does not get out of her bad situation on her own. Similar to Cinderella she’s (in a way) saved by a man in the end. But just like Cinderella’s story, Snow White’s story is supposed to give us hope. Hope for justice and hope for a happy ending.

And actually, Snow White teaches us a multitude of important things throughout the movie. But as I said in previous posts already, we’ll get back to that later. I’m already looking forward to it!