Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Pravanthika Alluri

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated feature film in color and also with sound. It went on to become one of Disney’s greatest films. The production of this movie was very interesting because it ended with Disney mortgaging his house which totaled $1,488,422.74. He went through with the movie by fighting hard for it because his brother and business partner, Roy Disney and also Walt Disney’s wife, Lillian tried to talk him out of it because they didn’t feel like the movie would be a hit with the audience. The Hollywood movie industry also didn’t think Disney’s movie would be anything. They felt that this movie was going to be “Disney’s Folly” while the film was in production. Folly meaning foolishness. I agree with the movie industry honestly, because whenever someone tries to do something out of the ordinary especially something which costs so much money, anyone would think it is foolish. Disney actually acted out the entire story of Snow White to his staff, while announcing to them that this would be produced as a feature-length film. Disney’s dream/wish was to expand his studio by doing features since before Snow White, Disney only produced animated short subjects. Disney concentrated mainly on the dwarfs when his team was working on the story and script of this movie. He was adamant about the dwarfs having their own personalities and making each of them different which would make them prominent. The representation in this film which I feel holds a lot of importance was the representation between good vs. evil. The fact that the film showed how the Queen who was evil, died during her own plan to kill Snow White who didn’t even have to do anything to the Queen. She just remained pure and innocent which is portrayed as good. This representation, I believe, showed children that being pure and innocent and nice towards everyone was good. If someone is that way, then only good will happen to them. The consumption of this film was that many families went to it and enjoyed it very much because it thought little kids a good lesson about good vs. evil. The emotion, the illusion, and the fantasy and romance were good plus points which lead people to love this movie so much. I think the identity of films like this one was that it made little kids who watched it, feel like they could all be little princesses or princes. It made kids want to be like Snow White or want to live in a place like that fantasy. The film overall set the trend for all these fairytales which followed.