Fractured Fairytale–Feminist Style!

Now that I’ve refreshed your memory of Disney’s popular version of the story which pervades the media, here is the esoteric version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  You will see after reading this prose, how Disney imbued his stories with patriarchy.  My version of the story has penetrated deep into the Disney script and eliminated the permeating factors of negative female stereotypes from within.  My version of Snow White is an arcane fractured fairytale of feminist proportions!  And remember just because a story is obscure doesn’t mean it isn’t just as relevant as the more common prose.  Hopefully, this story suffused with girl-positive symbolism will be the future of all fairytale–where women are strong, smart, and independent. . .

ONCE UPON A TIME

A well-known queen sits reading at the window and intermittently gazing at the peaceful snow.  She gets a papercut when flipping the page and upon seeing three drops of red blood fall on the perfectly white snow, dreams about having an equally ideal daughter with white-hot thirst for knowledge and burning red passion to change the world.  Later, later, later the queen is blessed with an illustrious child that is the paragon of inner-beauty with a compassion pure as snow, a motivation that flushed her cheeks red, and a dark wit (when appropriate).  Unfortunately, the queen dies very shortly after and the king remarries an officious, yet well-intentioned woman.

This gorgeous women, was very smart, and unlike the King’s first wife who only dabbled in politics, this new queen had an interest in taking a leadership role around the castle and in the community.  The King felt threatened that his new wife had higher aspirations than just dilettantes roles around his kingdom.  To keep her in her place, he started to stigmatize her about her good looks.  At first, it was more of a subconscious effort on his part to keep this new queen from usurping his power.  But steadily his efforts to keep the queen in a disenfranchised state so she was no threat to his role as king became continuous.  After constant mocking and criticism, this new queen of his became obsessed with checking herself out in the mirror.  She doubted her once good looks, and felt small and self-conscious.  The king hoped that the queen would remain so entranced by the mirror that she would never take a leadership position in the castle.  All he wanted were for things to remain the same–with him safely in the most dictatorial role.

Snow White and the Queen got along well, but the king began to demur to their kinship as his daughter aged, because he felt threatened  having so much female influence around the castle.  The king dissented to all the time his wife and daughter were spending together, especially since his wife’s self-esteem was better as a result of Snow White’s pervasive positive body image.  The queen gained self-confidence through seeing her step-daughter’s motivation to make the world a better place–starting with the palace.  Snow White was beginning to remonstrate against some of the oldest traditions in the kingdom, such as collecting a dowry for a new bride!  Sure, the King was able to keep his wife preoccupied with her looks, but certainly he could not achieve such a hold over his own daughter.  What if the women became empowered and ganged up on him?  What if the castle and court liked the ladies better and stopped listening to him or worse yet, derided him for being such a weak man?  The king would not be ridiculed for losing control over the women in his own family, and he could not have a threat to his patriarchal rule.

In order to expurgate this tool of feminism from his kingdom, the king demanded the huntsmen to kill his daughter out in the woods using the excuse that his wife had actually ordered the kill because she was threatened by Snow White’s beauty.  Knowing the female confidence, and later hunger for equal power, would spread like an epidemic, he felt ossified in trying to sanitize the castle from Snow White’s influence.  To confirm the assassination, the king relentlessly requested the huntsman bring his daughter’s heart back.

Snow White had an inkling of what fate would befall her, when she was invited to the woods for a pic-nic.  As such, she used every dilatory tactic she knew to prevent anything bad.  Once in the woods the huntsman’s previously inured heart was warmed by the princess’laggard manner which showed a tenacious zest for life.  He admirably took pity on Snow White and told her to run away and live cautiously.  Knowing the consequences of being disloyal to the king, the huntsman shot a deer and collected its heart to corroborate his tale of murder.  Upon receiving the heart, the king was so propitiated his status was protected that he had no idea any perfidiousness had taken place.  Not wanting DNA evidence of the hit to be traced to him, the king cooked and ate the heart of his daughter along with dinner.

In the woods, Snow White came upon an anomalous family of seven dwarfs who offered her shelter in return for her to clean, cook, and sew while they were mining.  At first she found the house-cleaning tasks in exchange for free room and board to be a fair trade-off.  But then the jobs kept increasing in amount.  The dwarfs began to get more slovenly, leaving dishes unwashed, beds unmade, and toilets un-flushed simply because they could.  Snow White OWED them after all!  The accretion of chores became so dramatic that Snow White did not have a minute to eat, nor an hour to sleep.  She was constantly scrubbing and laboring for the dwarfs.  The dwarfs were treating her more like a slave than the boarder she was.  Every day the dwarfs would send a shrill shrieking through the woods as they tunelessly whistled on their journey to work or back.  When they left Snow White in the house, they ordered her to be discreet and warned her to be provident about letting anyone in while they were out.  They had a good thing going, and didn’t want anyone to steal their free labor!

Not one to sit around waiting for someone to rescue her, Snow White brainstormed a way to get an urgent message to the queen. She knew the mail carrier did not come this far into the woods, and could not trust that a courier would not tell her father or the dwarfs of her plans.  Thinking back to biblical times. Snow White thought of sending a note with a dove.  When none were to be found, so she settled on sending the message with a pigeon.  In her letter, she said she was desperate to attempt an escape from the excessive amount of cleaning, glut of cooking (and resultant bad manners), and superfluity of endless sewing projects she endured with the dwarfs.

The queen turned away from her mirror and saw a pigeon with a paper tied to its foot and the visible word ‘exigent‘ on the corner of the scrap. She was astonished to find that the paper was a message from he supposedly deceased stepdaughter!  After being happily surprised that Snow White was alive and well after all, the queen became fearful of her husband and knew she had to take critical measures.  Together, using the pigeon to transport notes, the queen and Snow White worked out a plan to rise above their situations.  While the surfeit of dreaded little men were out working, the queen would dress in disguise and render Snow White comatose.  Then, when the little men let their guard down, Snow White would escape her slavery.

On the first attempt, the queen an anodyne wrap on laces to relax and sedate the princess.  The whistling dwarfs came home and untied the laces, waking Snow White from her calming slumber, and foiling the plan.  The queen’s second attempt to rescue Snow White required her to dress as an old woman and employed the use of a narcotic comb.   Upon combing her stepdaughter’s black locks, the princess fell into a peaceful sleep.  The queen was interrupted by the shrill whistling of the little men before a large enough dose was dispersed, and Snow White again awakened prematurely.  Finally, the queen dressed as a farmer’s wife to avoid suspicion and brought an opiate apple to Snow White.   The princess had half of the apple and promptly fell into a deep sleep, and the queen anxious to flee the scene before she was seen by the dwarfs ate the other half of the apple to get rid of the evidence and calm her own nerves with what little nepenthe that remained on the fruit.

The dwarfs finally gave up reviving their female help and put her in a clear coffin so they could still objectify the pretty girl.  Meanwhile a capricious prince rode into the area and unpredictablyhad necrophiliac leanings.  He demanded the coffin containing the female form from the dwarfs, and because he was bigger and more powerful, won her body to do with what he pleased.  During the journey, there was commotion when the coffin went over some bushes, jostling it, and the poisoned apple was dislodged from stunned Snow White’s throat.  She woke up, and scuttled quickly out of the erratic prince’s vicinity.  Glad to be away from the dwarfs and the prince, Snow White sprinted home to face her father. . .

When she got to the palace she saw the town had revolted against her father’s antiquated ways and had impeached him.  They favored a democracy instead of a dictatorship.  The kingdom, ecstatic their favorite progressive influence was alive after all, planned an extravagant coming home party for Snow White with a multifarious and diverse guest list.  This broad list contained everyone from the region, including her father, the former king.  Never one to miss a grandiose event, the disgruntled king attended the party, that was unbeknownst to him an investiture of authority.  The townspeople, voted for Snow White to lead the kingdom, because he her great leadership skills, compassionate nature, and enduring spirit.  The other guests showed their disapproval that the king had so heartlessly impugned Snow White, and ostracized him for being a demagogue. The community also wanted the king to wear hot iron shoes and dance until he died, but Snow White would not hear of it.  She instead ordered her father, the former king to read feminist novels until he was enlightened and donate his time to battered women’s shelters and Planned Parenthood.

And Snow White ruled fairly and let her newly educated father stay in the castle with the former queen who had regained her self-esteem and the whole society lived happily ever after. . .

THE END

Maybe if whimsical tales had more empowering messages for women our society would be a little different!