In Snow White, the wicked stepmother, or queen, is known for her beauty and vanity. Despite some variations, in all of the Snow White stories the queen wants Snow White killed because she is vain and wants to be the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. Disney treats the evil queen's beauty interestingly, because she is vampy and sexual, but her hair, arguably one of the most important features a beautiful woman has, is never shown. She keeps her head completely covered by a sinister looking perversion of what looks like a nun's habit. It is only when she transforms herself into a hideous old woman that we get to see her hair, although at that point it is grey and stringy. The film opens with a shot of the queen looking into a mirror. It highlights the shape of her body and the cruel beauty of her face, as well as the covering over her head. By highlighting her sexuality and beauty, but hiding her hair, Disney makes the queen seem less womanly. She is a perversion of femininity, not only in her actions, but in her very physical makeup. After she becomes the old woman, she remains a perversion of femininity because her beauty and her hair are still absent. As an old woman, she is a an abberation of youth. At no point in the story does the queen appear totally human, with all the parts that would make her a complete woman. She is an unnatural woman on the inside, so she is presented as an unnatural woman on the outside.
In the silent film we watched in class today, the evil queen begins the film as an ugly woman who desires beauty. Instead of being vain and beautiful from the get-go, she has to ask an old witch to make her beautiful. The first thing she notices after her transformation is her long, thick hair. The operatic braids she lifts with excitement represent the ultimate in femininity. It wasn't until she became beautiful that she could have ultra-feminine hair. This version of the Snow White story emphasizes the queen's desire to be as truly female as possible, if femaleness is defined by beauty. It is different from the Disney version of the story because gaining beauty does not make the queen any less human. It actually makes her seem more feminine and complete by beauty standards. Her evil actions do not match her appearance in this story. The two different depictions of the queens in the films highlight Disney's propensity to make the characters look on the outside how they are on the inside. Disney's queen has to be beautiful to make the story work, but she doesn't have to be truly female. The traditional way the queen's beauty is portrayed in the silent film contrasts the way Disney portrays their villain.
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I think this is a good point, especially about whether or not the queen's hair is a part of her depiction. Maybe in the Disney film, she is portrayed as beautiful but not in the soft, feminine way because, as you said, that's not how she is on the inside. She is cold and cruel, and as such is depicted as having a hard, dark sort of beauty.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting though, that the queen in the silent film was never truly beautiful. So, maybe that means she is jealous of Snow White's beauty in general as opposed to be concerned with being the MOST beautiful...
I think you make an interesting point about the queen's femininity, or lack thereof, that depends on her hair. Disney's film makes her almost a vampish version of a man it seems. Yes, she has the sex appeal, but she lacks the key "female" qualities an audience expects of her: long flowing hair and a sweet feminine voice. This queen no only hides her hair but also possesses a deeper, somewhat masculine voice.
ReplyDeleteAs for the silent film's queen, I agree with Katie: how interesting that she didn't begin as beautiful yet wicked and was merely vain. This vanity becomes her downfall, but still, she did not start as being outright evil.