Yesterday, some friends were helping me paint my kitchen when it was decided that we should pull out the refrigerator.  Shame covered me.  My heart sank.  It was worse than going to confession.  My sins of omission and commission lay in greasy, dusty tangles and lumps on the floor–not even within a darkened stall, behind a door or curtain, but out in the sunlight for all to see.

(Forgive me, for I have sinned.)

“How long has it been since you’ve done this?” they asked.

(Through my fault, through my most grievous fault…)

They laughed and vacuumed away the filth, washed the floor (whiter than snow), painted the wall, and gave me a fresh start.  Forgiven.

If there’s one thing that having small children taught me, it’s that you can analyze almost anything after watching it over and over. Maybe it’s my own peculiar habit, but sometime after the tenth viewing of — Pick One: Power Rangers, Lion King, Thomas the Tank Engine– I start to ask questions.

Take Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, for example. This Disney movie always gets a lot of grief for teaching little girls that all they have to do is wait for a handsome prince to kiss them, but I’m not so sure that’s really the message. On the contrary, it seems to me like the movie is actually a fairly solid argument against the whole Pretty Princess myth–but don’t tell that to the folks in Disney’s marketing division.

I mean, who’s the biggest baddie of all in story? The Evil Witch Queen of course, whose one major hangup is “Who’s the fairest of them all?” For crying out loud, she’s ready to kill to be The Fairest, and she’s not even on America’s Next Top Model.

And when does Snow White get into trouble? When she buys into the Who’s-the-Fairest racket and starts singing, “Someday My Prince Will Come.” (“wedding bells will ring…”) It’s only when she escapes from that crazy Chick Universe and finds herself out in the forest with the Dwarfs that the world is right. At the Dwarfs cottage she gets to be the Civilizing Influence (another great girl myth, but we’ll save that for another time) and whistle while she works.

When the Dwarfs first find Snow White we hear them say,

“Why, i-it’s a girl!”

“She’s mighty pretty.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Just like a angel.”

But Grumpy warns, “Angel, hah! She’s a female! And all females is poison! They’re full of wicked wiles!”

Eventually Grumpy learns that not all females are poison, but from the movie’s point of view, their “wicked wiles” are poison. Beauty and seduction stand in contrast to true love–and you just have to wonder where Prince Charming fits into this schema. After all, he says he’s been “possessed.” And as Grumpy says in response to Snow’s “Someday my Prince will come….and away to his castle we’ll go, to be happy forever I know.”

“Hah! Mush.”

I think Snow should have stayed with the Dwarfs. Sure, they were funny-looking and kind of quirky, and she couldn’t marry them all, but they had steady jobs, a good income, and they loved her. Instead she fell for the old poisoned apple trick at the hands of the Queen disguised as an ugly (!) hag. Calling herself “poor, old Granny,” the Queen seductively tells Snow White, “It’s apple pies that make the menfolks’ mouths water. Pies made from apples like these.”

“Oh, they do look delicious.”

“Yes!”

The apples are fair and appealing to the menfolk, but their beauty disguises the poison within. Old Granny tempts the young girl to taste a magic “wishing apple” that will make her dreams come true, and Snow White does herself in by foolishly chasing after romantic fantasies instead of being happy with the good life she’s found.

Okay, I know some would argue that the apple actually worked. Snow gets “love’s first kiss” at the end and rides off on horseback (the horse as much a prize as the Prince for many little girls), but ask yourself, “Is she going to be happy with the cute guy and the palace?” “Is this true love or was he just under the spell of her feminine wiles?” “What will happen when she’s not so fair anymore? Will she end up old and bitter and talking to the mirror?” “And what if Doc or Grumpy had had the gumption to kiss her first?”

We’ll never know. The movie doesn’t really say-it just leaves us with a warning and a lot of questions. But the next time I see Snow White, I’m gonna think about it.

….

For a transcript of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs see Drew’s Script-o-Rama

Purple crocuses have appeared in my garden. They are guileless and lovely and, like me, impatient.

My family loved kaleidoscopes:  stained-glass windows at the end of a tunnel, subtly changing with every turn.  When an especially wonderful pattern appeared, we’d carry the tube to another family member to see.  I remember the suspense—balancing the tube and listening intensely to hear any movement.  It was so difficult to pass the kaleidoscope without shaking the pieces inside—you never knew if the other person was seeing exactly what you had seen.  And by the time they passed it back to you to check…well, you were taking even more chances.

You find a thing of beauty, something interesting, and you try to show it to someone else.  But it’s tricky business.  Sometimes your hands shake.  Sometimes they miss the handoff.  But some things are too good not to share.