40 Years, 40 Disney Movies – Counting Down to Daddy’s Birthday Trip Night 2 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Alrighty-roo. So on to another entry in the “Counting Down to my Birthday Disney Night Extravaganza thing a mah stuff.” I really need to come up with a different name.

And again, some of these posts may just be about the movie but this one is once again about an actual Disney Night, complete with food, fun and regret. Wait, scratch that last one.

This one focused on a movie that I once didn’t love as much as I love now – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It always feels weird calling it “dwarfs,” doesn’t it? I always want to type dwarves. But did you know that dwarfs is actually the correct plural for dwarf? Turns out that Tolkien was the one who popularized dwarves because he wanted to separate the race of fantasy creatures in his novels from those used in fairy tales (probably such as Snow White.)

The more you know.

Anyways, onwards and upwards. Heigh-Ho and all that.

Food

Being that Snow White takes place in Germany, we served bratwurst and sauerkraut. We had both beer brats and beef brats. The beer brats were fun because they caused Myles to worry about possible intoxication (a fear which I, of course, fanned). We also had German potato salad, pretzel bread, Beck’s beer obvs and, in honor of the curious choice made by the evil queen – an apple pie and apple juice for the kids.

Activity

Keeping with the apple theme, we played Apples to Apples. Ahem, we played Disney Apples to Apples. And Apples to Apples is always challenging with Owen since his judgements are really based on no logic whatsoever. The winning card mainly just ends up being the last one he reads.

Also, for this night, we were joined by my niece Stephanie. I am sure you will see a lot of Stephanie in these posts (as well as some other random visitors) since she apparently has nothing better to do than hang around with old people.

The movie

I love Snow White. I really do. But there was a time when I didn’t. And I had my reasons. For one, Snow White is probably the toughest of the Disney princesses to tolerate (not at the parks…at the parks she is HAWWTT) because she is just so ditzy. When she is going through the house and she is like “oh, a pickaxe” and “hahahaha, a stocking” or whatever, I always had a hard time wishing for her happy ending.

Also, there are so many “what?” moments in this movie. Like, why does the Evil Queen turn herself into a gross hag? I mean, wouldn’t it have made more sense for her to turn herself into a cute little girl selling apples door-to-door. Or even why not turn herself into the prince? Also, when she is in the house…why not just stab her when her back is turned? I mean, why go through all this “sleeping death” nonsense that could result in her waking up? She was RIGHT. THERE. Stab. Done. You’re the fairest one of all.

But eh…the more I have watched this movie, the more I have really grown to appreciate what DOES work in this movie. And beyond that, the significance of this movie cannot be overstated from a historical perspective. First, what do I love about the movie itself? This movie has some real emotion behind it. When the dwarves dwarfs are sitting there crying after Snow White has bitten the apple, those sound like the realest tears I think I have ever heard in an animated movie. If you don’t cry at that scene, you are obviously a serial killer. Also, the dwarfs themselves. I know they are one-dimensional and all that – Sneezy sneezes, Sleepy sleeps, Doc, um, docs – but they sure are likable. And I would go so far as to say the transformation Grumpy goes through as he starts to feel real emotions beyond anger shows me that these dwarfs are probably all more than meets the eye.

And the Evil Queen. I mean, come on. One of the best villains in the history of Disney. Her motivation? She wants to be the hottest. That’s it. And for that, she wants to kill someone. She’s probably not the top villain, but she is up there. She’s like a Mean Girl on steroids.

And to think all this was done against the backdrop of this being something never done before really makes you appreciate it all the more. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first animated feature ever. It started it all. Not just started it all at Disney, but started it all period. Groundbreaking stuff. And to think Disney still infused all this emotion, story and depth into something like that – it’s pretty impressive. He could have easily just gotten by on this being something different and people would have still seen it. But instead, he focused equally on innovation and story. And without that kind of focus, who knows what would have happened? Maybe this would have been seen as a novelty incapable of being art instead of blazing a trail for decades of the wonder and joy animated films have brought us.

So yes, Snow White has some minor flaws but its strengths more than make up for them. And this is why it remains in my top 40.