Snow White (1937)

“All females is poison.”

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I first saw Snow White when I was but a wee suggestible one. And I had the relentless night terrors involving the evil queen to prove it.

Watching it again on a rainy, dreary Saturday afternoon, I realize that Snow White embedded some important life lessons and behaviours deep into my brain.

•  Never accept whole foods from an elderly person.
• There’s always an evil queen out to get you – so don’t be too pretty or too nice. Women totally hate each other so keep an eye on your sternum lest someone try to harvest your still-beating heart. (This is similar advice to what my angry, pessimistic mother used to say about typing pool politics).
• Noses on girls were once very unfashionable. Do your best to conceal this feature.
• Breaking into someone’s house and cleaning it is totally cool. I have a long history doing this. There’s a host of emotionally-shattered family members and friends ready to testify.
• If you can bake a gooseberry pie, all of the breaking and entering charges will be dropped. I have been known to spell people’s names in pie crusts as well to make amends.  Now I remember why. Also: “It’s apple pies that make the menfolk’s mouth’s water.”
• The one guy in the room who is silent and sullen, appears not to like you at all is the guy you should totally obsess over. Snow White after nearly getting gutted by the Hunstman in the woods, prays that night that Grumpy will like her.
• Snow White’s singing voice repels men. Like Fran Drescher’s laugh, Adriana Caselotti’s vocal styling can cause emotional and physical dysfunction in the male of our species.
• Stepmothers will try to get you to do their more unpleasant chores for them. I have collected some ongoing, life-long empirical evidence that this is, in fact, true. Prove me wrong. Prove me wrong.
• If you are a very good girl, woodland critters will do your housework for you. A racoon once dragged away a dirty plate while I was camping so I’m clearly a very good girl.
• Disney(TM) Love(TM) and Disney(TM) Romance (TM) can not pierce my stern, humourless demeanor. I am apparently immune to Prince Charming’s form of pitching woo.

This rewatch of Snow White as a grizzled adult succeeded in making feel bored and bad about myself. Again. But if a film is capable of reshaping a human being’s brain patterns, it is least worth three stars.

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83 minutes but it feels longer. Pfft… more like Slow White (I thought of this incredibly witty line 14 hours after watching it with Mr. Renders).

Rated G for treacle by the gallon