Article: We Want More From Snow White

By Denis Zilber for a German anti-alcohol campaign

Now this is the sort of article I've been expecting to surface ever since ABC's Once Upon A Time became a hit. It starts like this:

The Little Mermaid is problematic. The girl who hates what she is, the misguided infatuation, the boy who likes a girl who knows how to keep her mouth shut . . .

Beauty and the Beast is probably worse. Kidnapping. Stockholm Syndrome. Interspecies angst.

Sleeping Beauty? Arrested development. Rapunzel? Desperation. Cinderella? One-night stand.

But none of these demented fairy tales have anything on Snow White.

In a fairy-tale cage match for the title of "most deranged, most horrific, most berserk classic children's story," Snow White lays waste to the competition. (And then devours the competition's internal organs.)

It's the kind of story you'd create if you were trying to mess kids up.

While this isn't exactly my view of Snow White (nor of the other tales - at least not as simply), the writer, does have some good points, especially as they echo concerns parents are currently having in reading kids fairy non-Disney versions of fairy tales.  My argument would be that's exactly why they should be read (but I digress and that's another paper altogether... ;)

Little Snow White by David T. Wenzel

She also goes on to talk about the Snow White movies in production, Once Upon A Time and puts forth theories as to why Snow White has gotten (and is getting) so many adaptations. I like what she finishes with (which explains also why the rest of the article is still very much worth a read):

I think we want more for Snow White — and more from her — than her story ever gives us. So we just keep coming up with new ways to tell it.

For some people this may be true and it may very well inspire new takes. Personally I think there is far more to Little Snow White (Grimm's version) than meets the eye, which is why I keep going back to it, but ultimately it doesn't matter. The best thing is that people are thinking - really thinking - about fairy tales and why these stories keep coming back to us again and again.

You can read the whole article HERE.