30 Day Challenge #5

     The final fairy tale I am going to compare with its different adaptations is Snow White.
     Once again, Disney has the most popular Snow White adaptation. This seems to be a pattern, and this is not surprising, since Disney is known for its "princess" movies. The plot of Disney's Snow White is fairly simple. Snow White is a princess who is living with her wicked step-mother, who presumably took the throne after the original king and queen died. The queen has a magic mirror, which always tells the truth. The queen asks the mirror who "the fairest in the land" is, and he always answers that it is her. One day though, the mirror says that Snow White is the fairest, which angers the queen. She plans to murder Snow White, who runs away when she hears this news. She meets the seven dwarves, and later, the queen finds her and disguises herself as an old hag, and gives Snow White the infamous apple that puts her in a death-like slumber. Later in the movie, the queen falls to her death, and Snow White is awoken from her sleep from true love's kiss from Prince Charming, and they all live happily ever after. Except for the queen.
     This fairy tale is probably the one with the biggest changes. For example, one character is forgotten completely. Snow White had a sister, Rose Red. Rose Red had her own separate story along with Snow White. Basically, the story involves the two girls who rescue and help a bear, who turns out to be a prince that was trapped in a bear's body. Snow White marries the prince and Rose Red marries the prince's brother. Rose Red and the bear/prince are never even brought up in the movie.
     Also, the fate of the queen is different in the original Grimm fairy tale. She is invited to a wedding, but when she arrives, she is dismayed because the wedding turns out to be Snow White's. The queen is then punished for her actions by being forced to wear extremely hot iron shoes and dance until she drops dead.
     I really liked doing this challenge because I was able to take the classic movies I watched as a kid and got to find their origins and what was changed about them. I found that they were surprisingly dark for a children's story, but as children, we never really understood how dark it was. For example, one of the non-princess fairy tales I liked when I was younger was about a wolf who at seven young sheep. The mother sheep cut open the wolf's stomach to get her children back, and replaced the weight with rocks and sowed him back up. The weight of the rocks makes the wolf fall and drown in a well, and the sheep celebrate. Children can never truly understand how dark a story can be until they get older. I was a little shocked when I found out that that used to be one of my favorite stories as a young girl. But overall, I really liked this challenge and thought it was a lot of fun.