Rolly Crump
FROM: Beauty and the Bitch A Disney Dispatch Feature
Snow White: Beauty or Bitch?
Is she a beauty? Is she a bitch? Or is she a little bit of both? Bob and Dennis give Snow White a good working over, but in the end agree to disagree on the essential elements of fairy tale favorite Snow White.
Can you be a beauty - and a bitch? Absolutely! (And often, quite likely.) The fairy tale princesses are no exception. In fact, they are the perfect examples, contend award-winning playwright Dennis Giacino and non-award-winning non-playwright Bob McLain, who each week will do a princess/counter-princess take on their royal majesties.
Bob has the beauty; Dennis, the bitch. From Bob, you'll read the traditional princess story; from Dennis, you'll read a modern interpretation, as the princess in question dishes on what pop culture has done to her fairy tale prospects.
This week, Bob escorts lovely, fairy tale Snow White into the royal ballroom, arm-in-arm, while Dennis meets his modern Snow White at the door, who pushes it open with much fanfare and motions him to follow.
Snow White: Beauty, Says Bob
Snow White, Snow White, so pure, so demure, so... nice.
Even her name makes sugar drip like sap from your nose: Snow. White.
Her round eyes glisten, her cheeks shine apple red, and she has no problem working for a pack of pissy dwarfs, unpaid. She is the epitome of feminine docility.
Something about her appealed to Walt Disney, who 
decades ago dusted her off from the pages of the Brothers Grimm and sanitized her surprisingly brutal fairy tale into a sweet animated film.
In both fairy tale and film, Snow White is the daughter of a good queen, who dies. Her father, lonely in his drafty castle, soon re-marries, but his new wife quickly turns into a bad queen, and orders a huntsman to drag Snow into the woods and kill her.
Here's where fairy tale and film first diverge. In the film, the Queen orders the Huntsman to bring back Snow's heart so she can put it in a jeweled box. In the fairy tale, the Queen orders the Huntsman to bring back Snow's liver and lungs for her to boil for her dinner. Cannibalism in a fairy tale? You betcha!
In both fairy tale and film, of course, the Huntsman lets Snow White escape, and she wanders to the cottage of the aforesaid pissy dwarfs, who had no names in the fairy tale (not even abbreviations - hi-ho!) but who knew slave labor when they saw it.
The Queen is angry! Not only has she not had her liver and lungs, but she's still not the fairest in the land, and we all know what happens next: Snow bites into the poison apple and falls into a paralytic swoon. The dwarves (and shame on Doc for not checking Snow's pulse!) put their housekeeper into a glass coffin, where Snow stays until a prince comes along and kisses her...
Yes, I'm sorry: necrophilia! But the prince had no time to make out with Snow, since she woke up right away, so it really wasn't that bad.
Snow, of course, falls madly in love with the molesting stranger, and she agrees immediately to marry him - which no doubt annoys the dwarfs, who must now scrub their own little toilets once again.
In film, as in fairy tale, Snow White is portrayed as the lovely, innocent girl completely dependent upon men: first the huntsman to spare her life, then the dwarves to hide her, then a prince to revive her. She doesn't complain. She doesn't yell. She doesn't punch. Why bother when there are men around?
And that's the problem, isn't it? Even though it's 'just' a fairy tale, just an animated children's film, hasn't Disney damaged the self-esteem of little girls by encouraging them to identify with impotent princesses like Snow White?
Well, Snow? What about it? (Yes, it's okay to talk now.)
"I really don't understand, but of course, I trust Mr. Disney with every aspect of my career."
You know, Snow White, I knew Mr. Disney quite well, and he authorized me to...
But let's step out of sight, shall we, Snow White, and allow Dennis to say some things you really shouldn't hear. And you definitely don't want to get anywhere near who's with him...
Snow White: Bitch, Says Dennis
Hi-ho! Snow White here. You remember me: skin as white as snow, lips cherry red, the original damsel in distress. That's me!
That young fairytale princess who finds herself running from sword-wielding huntsmen (princess liver pate, anyone?), eating poisoned apples given to me by complete strangers (I oughta know better, right?), and spending many a day cleaning up after a septet of slovenly men (one of whom is a grumpy, outright misogynist played for laughs)!
Pretty dark stuff.
No coincidence that my real-life adventures have been compiled by the ironically-named Grimm Brothers.
No matter. I mean, I did live happ'ly ever after. Well ... not exactly. I'm afraid the beverage served up at my recent princess tea parties (equipped with 
Disney Princess Castle Teapot Tea Set - $18 retail and available at Disney stores everywhere) may be a slightly bitter tea.
You see, the second I was unceremoniously ripped from the page and reenvisioned onto the silver screen in 1937, I became an unwilling template of womanhood inspiring little girls everywhere to be just like me. Passive, naive, a young woman content with spending her days holed up in her home chatting with furry woodland creatures (crazy, right?), a girl starving herself to the point where her waistline is thinner than her own neck!
I'm hungry, dammit!
Oh, and then there's the sitting around helplessly waiting for my prince to come.
Hello!
I'm a successful modern-day woman. I have countless sequels, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and theme park attractions on my resume. All exploiting my likeness for financial gain. All without my permission. All without my seeing even one red cent deposited in my bank account, mind you! So really - do you think in the year 2011 I still need to sit around and wait from my prince ... to come?
Truth be told, happ'ly ever after ain't all it's cracked up to be. What would be wrong with telling a new, non-damsel-in-distressy kind of princess story? Perhaps a tale in which we actively create our own happ'ly ever afters. Novel idea!
(PS. Evil Queens, tainted fruit, and above-ground, glass coffin burials not necessarily included!)
Sure, you can polish up that shiny apple of a notion that marrying the first man who plants a kiss on your cold sorta-dead lips is the do all and end all. Since 1937 (heck - since my story was originally written - yes, by men), us women have taken a big juicy bite out of the idea that we should ride off into the sunset with the first guy who comes along on a tall white horse ... even before we learn his first name!
How about we chew on this instead: it's time we pissed-off princesses come 'out of the vault' they like to lock us in and sing the truth at the top of our lungs.
Let's face it - those old fairytales are SO once upon a time.
Good Night! Good Night!
And so we leave Snow White, perhaps a bit disenchanted but certainly not dissatisfied, and promise to return next week with our new date, Cinderella.
"She's a real beauty, don't you think, Dennis?"
"Well, there's more to the story, Bob! This beauty has a bitch, too!"
And they carried on like that for quite some time...