Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Quote of the Day: Lyrics Edition … Snow, Adam, and Sol
I hope not to shock any of you, dear readers, but when I was a teenager, I used to dream of finding a wonderful woman and getting married. Yes, I know, this isn’t 1937, but it’s so.
Let me explain the chronology reference. A few weeks ago, Rachel Zeigler, the actress playing Snow White in the new version of Snow White (not Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs because there are some of vertically challenged persuasion who might be offended), said in a PR tour, “It’s no longer 1937…and she’s not going to be saved by the Prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love.“
(Sadly, because of the actors’ strike, the members of SAG currently can’t participate in public relations tours. The world is so much the poorer for it.)
I was a teen forty years after the Disney classic was made, in the disco era, the Me Decade, and it should have been a more enlightened time, but I was still hoping for true love. Romantic crushes bloomed and withered throughout my teen years, and yet, in my heart and mind, I still yearned for something more, something real that would in some way save me from the loneliness that teenagers feel so profoundly. What a Neanderthal I was!
I was almost as primitive as Miss White herself, who sang, “Someday my prince will come, someday we’ll meet again, and away to his castle we’ll go, to be happy forever I know.“
Can you believe it? This woman had the nerve to hope for a relationship that would bring happiness in her life, a permanent relationship at that. And with a cis man!
It had been quite a while since I saw the 1937 version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, so I watched it again yesterday. It holds up very, very well. The animation is gorgeous, the dwarves are funny, and I understand why the witch and the chase in the woods terrified me when I first saw the film as a child.
But what surprised me was what a strong and likable character Snow White herself is. I remembered finding Snow’s voice (Adriana Caselotti) as high-pitched and hard to take. And that is true. But that’s not all there is to her. She is brave facing the knife of the woodsman. She is exceedingly kind to the forest animals and the dwarves. She is hardworking and inventive in fixing up the dwarves’ home. You may not recall that she is also a woman of prayer (even asking God to make Grumpy like her.)
When she sees the handsome prince early in the film, she takes a liking to him. (I know, I know, a young woman taking a liking to an attractive young man. Fortunately, we have progressed beyond such things, so you probably want to shield young eyes from such a spectacle.) She even sings the above-mentioned song about the Prince. And it turns out, she does need saving. (Spoilers!) After the Evil Queen tricks Snow into eating a cursed apple, she falls into an enchanted sleep.
I know, I know. She should save herself from the curse. She should fight ninjas in a dreamworld or something to set herself free. But instead, she is saved by true love’s kiss. How absurd! I’m sure no one reading this has ever had life changed by the kiss of someone they loved or came to love.
But this wasn’t exactly the worst that Hollywood had to offer. In 1954, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers opens with Adam Pontipee singing these transgressive words,
“Bless yore beautiful hide
Wherever you may be.We ain’t met yetBut I’m a willin’ to betYou’re the gal for me.”
This musical, set in 1850 in Oregon Territory, tells the story of a settler who goes to town to find himself a bride, and eventually seeks wives for each of his six brothers. Why did they need love and marriage? Shouldn’t they have just been happy farming and caring for their animals? Baffling.
Sorry to break this to you, but these love songs of longing are even older than Hollywood. Read these words:
Listen! My beloved!
Look! Here he comes,
leaping across the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
Can you believe it? A young woman longing for the approach of her lover. Right there in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Song of Solomon.
It seems the man and woman of this ancient book are obsessed with their love for each other, rather than the really important things like reaching their full potential as individuals and equity and diversity and, well you know, the things we know now are really important.
I’m sure you are looking forward to this Snow White remake that leaves out that yucky love stuff (because if you remember your third-grade science, love leads to cooties.)
I’m ashamed to admit to you all that not only did I continue to hope for romantic love, I found a pretty wonderful woman and we did get married and have lived happily ever after. If only Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot had been around back in the day to teach me better.
Published in Entertainment
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members.
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community
of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.
There are 14 comments.
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
Lovely.
Here’s my thumbnail review of the Disney Original:
I think that about sums it up.
I’m glad you found your dream.
It has been a very, very long time since I watched Snow White. I don’t recall anything suggesting that the Queen was losing her beauty because of her negative character traits. It seems to be the natural process of aging. Female physical beauty fades, often very quickly. Time is not kind to us, and with respect to physical beauty, this is tougher on women.
Women even face the loss of fertility, usually around age 50, though female fertility starts declining at age 30.
Further, of course, being kind and gentle and full of gladness and joy does not make one physically beautiful. Snow White is simply a beautiful girl, in a way that most are not. Almost by definition, most people, male and female alike, are close to the average.
Men do seem to value female beauty significantly more than women value male attractiveness. This makes sense, biologically and historically, I think.
Snow White is a celebration of motherhood. She demonstrates her ability to be a good wife and mother by caring for the dwarfs. She works hard, but not in the mines. She does domestic chores, and makes a home for them. She fills that home with beauty and music. She dreams of her heroic Prince, and she is precisely the type of woman that a Prince would want.
Of course these days, due to feminism, the very idea of this sort of relationship between husband and wife is insulting to most women. Women want to be the Prince.
We saw this shift in the Disney movies, I think, between Aladdin (1992) and Mulan (1998), with Pocahontas (1995) as the transition.
The live-action remakes of the older movies are eliminating the heroic Princes:
It is appalling that women want to be “strong.” This ideology is so depraved that, from what I’ve heard, young people are marrying even less than in my generation, and many of them aren’t even having sex any more. I’m opposed to sex before marriage on moral grounds, but for crying out loud, we have an ideology that has made young men and women uninterested in each other.
This, of course, undermines the incentive for young men to make something of themselves. They end up hopeless and weak, which is exactly what the feminists want.
Perhaps this is the problem. LOL. Maybe watch it again?
No, Jerry. The Queen didn’t lose her beauty because she got old. She lost her beauty because she was a nasty, vicious, jealous bitch:
I can’t even comprehend, in light of your comment, how you could possibly miss such a thing. If you’ve ever actually seen the original Disney movie, that is:
It takes only a moment (once the old bat has learned that her lovely rival Snow White is still alive) for her to formulate her evil plot:
The transformation takes about 150 seconds. Nowhere near the “natural process of aging.” One in which those of us from prior generations were taught not to frown otherwise the “wind would set” and we’d be stuck with a grumpy expression forever. Those are the lessons we took with us from such fairy tales, and one of the reasons we’ve avoided so many of the traps going forward.
The old hag, having bought into her evil ways, was stuck with the consequences forever.
Until her nasty death.
That was the lesson.
Where’ve you bin, Jerry?
Heh. My teenage daughters love this musical.
I’m sure that means we raised them wrong.
A family favorite!
I’m pretty sure Jerry was talking about the queen losing some degree of beauty much earlier–at the beginning of the story, the first time the mirror told her Snow White was prettier.
Well, I agree with you, and with Jerry if that was some of his point, that she gets uglier the more horribly she acts. I don’t think that’s the ‘natural process of aging,’ although it may be “the natural process of meanness.” I’ve known plenty of women still in the first flush of youth who–through jealousy, cruelty, and an nasty disposition–are ugly as sin, because what’s inside shows up on the outside pretty quickly. (Shades of my Granny, who used to tell me that if I spent all my time scowling at the world, the wind would change and my face would “stick” in that position forever.) And I know women who’ve gone through the natural process of aging for decades and retained their beauty to the end, for the same reason–what’s inside, will out.
A photo taken many years ago of me with Miss White.
Do you want to tell us about what you’re wearing?
What everyone was wearing back in the day. A psychedelic Mickey Mouse Fantasia shirt, a Confederate cap inscribed with “Ashley” (I bought that day), a vest I wore playing Jud Fry in my high school production of Oklahoma, shorts that were self-cut and not hemmed. My friend and I decided to dress like deranged tourists that day.
I think you certainly succeeded in maxing out the ‘deranged’ metric.
He’s either the prince or the huntsman.
Or Dopey.
(1) End Wokeness on Twitter: “It just gets worse and worse…. The new Snow White says that the Prince was a creepy stalker and suggests that all scenes of the Prince could be cut She’s a walking PR disaster for Disney https://t.co/7QJGDIx5er” / X
There are people on Disney’s board of directors who will not allow this movie to be cancelled.
This will become the new standard by which future bombs are judged.