Snow White from the 1937 Disney film
In 1937, our perception of fairy tales was forever changed when Walt Disney Productions released its first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The film was a massive critical and commercial success. Culturally, it reset expectations of what fairy tales are, who they’re for, and what they represent.
Yet the 1937 Disney film is only a part of a much bigger “Snow White” tradition. Walt Disney based his film on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s 19th-century short story “Little Snow-White,” but variants of the story can be found all over the world, from “Eliduc,” a medieval narrative poem by Marie de France, to “The Young Slave” by Giambattista Basile. Even William Shakespeare told a version in one of his romance plays.
Every version of this fairy tale revolves around a deadly conflict between a mother figure and her daughter, and themes of beauty, jealousy, rivalry, cannibalism, and death remain prominent throughout its history. Contemporary creators continue to reimagine the tale in formats ranging from big-budget Hollywood films to quirky short stories to inventive novel-length retellings.
Folklorists Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman do a deep dive into the fairy tale of “Snow White,” revealing folkloric and literary tales that provided the bedrock preceding Disney’s version and examining how the story has been retold in contemporary times. This lecture also includes prompts for audience interaction.
Cleto and Warman are former instructors of folklore and literature at Ohio State University and co-founders of the Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic.
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