Who Would Listen To A Magic Mirror?

In Defense of The Queen
Or: Who Would Listen to a Magic Mirror?
December 16, 2007
Revised from April 28, 2007

Convinced that it would fail, the Hollywood film industry labeled Snow White "Disney's Folly". When it was finally released, it held the title of “highest grossing film of all time” until the release of “Gone With The Wind” a year later. It was the first full-length animated feature film to come out of the United States. When the DVD hit stores in 2001, more than 1 million copies were sold on its first day.

Considering how much production cost (Disney had to mortgage his house to finish production), it’s amazing how many scenes were cut for its theatrical release. Some cuts were due to censorship, such as the opening with Snow White’s mother. But even with such cuts, when the film opened at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, all the velvet seat upholstery had to be replaced. Young children were so frightened of the sequence with Snow White lost in the forest that they wet their pants.

Snow White established the franchise that persists today: the Disney Princesses. AFI ranked The Queen #10 in its list of top 50 villains of all time (Snow White didn’t even make the top 50 heroes). The Dwarves, Dopey in particular, have been one of the most visible icons at Disneyland for years.

Even before Disney remade it, Snow White was one of the most celebrated fables of Europe. Its origin might even go back to The Middle Ages.

What made this story so popular? Why has it survived over the years? And what does it mean today, in its current incarnation as film? In asking these questions, I am led to ask more specific questions about the entailments from certain incongruities in the film, and led to question most of all the representation of The Queen. Why is she so mad—and why on earth is she talking to a Magic Mirror?

Lets start with The Dwarves:

In the original Grimm fairytale of “Snow White,” the dwarfs were not named. Early drafts of the Disney version included an extensive list of possible names. But, as Walter Brasch in Cartoon Monickers explains, “the final list included only descriptive names: Awful, Bashful, Biggo-Ego… Grumpy, Happy… Sleepy, Snappy, Sneezy, Sneezy-Wheezy, Snoopy.” Dopey and Doc were added later. The directors named Doc after they developed him as “The guy who was aggressive and liable to take leadership… He ended up being called ‘Doc.’ I suppose that would stem from the fact that a doctor is somebody who is supposed to be able to point the direction.” Brasch attributes these choices to Disney’s ingenuity. Yet, Brasch both fails to capture why the dwarfs were so appealing to American audiences, and completely ignores the fact that the characters in the original fable, Snow White, The Huntsman, and The Queen, were all also descriptively named.

Now we move on to the intricate relationship between The Magic Mirror and The Queen. At the onset of the movie, The Queen asks, “Magic mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?” The question, with its alliteration and rhyme, is probably the most famous line of the movie. Yet the answer is often forgotten, despite its significance: “Famed is thy beauty, Majesty. But hold, a lovely maid I see. Rags cannot hide her gentle grace. Alas, she is more fair than thee.” Notice what we learn about the mirror from this line. Not only is the mirror capable of noticing beauty, but also it holds the capacity to see subjects who are not present. Just as a camera captures and image and reproduces it on film, so is the Magic Mirror capable of reproducing the image of someone far away. When The Queen demands “Reveal her name.” The Mirror responds, “Lips red as the rose. Hair black as ebony. Skin white as snow.” To which The Queen exclaims, “Snow White!” The Mirror, like the camera, cannot name the character it sees—like the camera, it is only capable of showing that information. But in the world of Disney’s Snow White, with its descriptive names, that is all that is necessary.

There is something else only hinted at in this scene. What is the real cause of Snow White’s “gentle grace” that “rags cannot hide?” Is it her “lips red as the rose. Hair black as ebony. [And] skin white as snow.” How “deep” can this mirror really see? Can it penetrate her soul, or merely her clothes?

There is something else, too, in the elaborate plan The Queen sets up to kill Snow White. Her plot involves more than simple murder. It is an assault upon the images and symbols of feminine beauty associated with Snow White. “Take her far into the forest,” The Queen orders The Huntsman, “Find some secluded glade where she can pick wildflowers… and there, my faithful huntsman, you will kill her!” The Queen is a Queen, why must she hide this execution? Why must it be secluded? Who is she hiding it from?

Really, we see very few people in Snow White. We do not know the intricate familial relations that put Snow White at the mercy of The Queen. Yet, in this instance, the question begged is: Where is The King? Why would he allow Snow White to be transformed into a servant preceding the beginning if he lives, and who is The Queen hiding Snow White’s murder from if he doesn’t?

I can think of two possible reasons The Queen wanted to kill Snow White in the glade that does not involve hiding from the King. First, it is possible that The Queen wanted to hide Snow White’s death from herself. This, however, is unsatisfactory. After all, she has very little hesitation in trying to kill Snow White later.

The second possibility is that The Queen was not trying to hide Snow White’s death from anyone. Instead, The Queen did not merely want Snow White to die. She wanted Snow White not only to die, but to die in a glade in the forest, stabbed by The Huntsman. The Queen exercised uncontested power within the castle, and with her magic, she could have killed Snow White easily and without repercussion. Yet, The Queen wanted to kill Snow White not out of jealousy, but to violate the very imagery of the forest glade, and the symbols of feminine innocence associated with Snow White, such as the flower. The execution is a spectacle, and one with a very limited audience: Herself, The Huntsman, and—The Magic Mirror.

The audience knows that The Queen has access to The Magic Mirror. Why, then, does The Queen order The Huntsman to bring Snow White’s heart in a box? The only compelling explanation is that The Queen ordered The Huntsman to kill Snow White not only to kill Snow White, but to bring about some manipulate some sort of influence on The Huntsman and The Magic Mirror (this begs the question of who these characters are, and what they represent not only to the audience but to The Queen as well, and we will return to this question soon). If The Queen wanted proof of Snow White’s death, she could ask the Magic Mirror. Yet, she does so anyway, after she has received the heart. She even keeps the heart until she talks to The Magic Mirror. Yet, she accepts the word of The Magic Mirror over the evidence of the heart she holds in a box. The Queen ordered The Huntsman to put Snow White’s heart in a box not as proof of death, but for the sake of having Snow White’s heart in a box, and as a way to spite the Magic Mirror.

The appeal of the heart in a box returns to the plot that occurs before the beginning of the film: The Queen’s forcing Snow White to work as a servant. When we first see her, Snow White is “garbed in rags.” When the Magic Mirror says, “Rags cannot hide her gentle grace,” what the Magic Mirror conveys to The Queen is that her attempts to mask, to compartmentalize Snow White’s beauty has failed. The task of The Huntsman, then, is to fulfill The Queen’s original plot: to compartmentalize Snow White. The other possibility, not mutually exclusive with the first desire, is to defy the judgment of the Magic Mirror.

The Mirror is more than just a mirror, it is a Magic Mirror, capable of replicating the same experience the audience receives with film. Yet, more than that, it might also be something hidden, and something displaced. The Magic Mirror is the voice of the missing King.

The Magic Mirror is located within The Queen’s bedchamber and is the only human figure other than the Huntsman that appears in a closed domestic space with The Queen. If one includes information stricken from the film by censors, we also know that The Queen is not the original Queen. She is a replacement, and the daughter of the king is not of her blood. We do not know much about The Queen’s relationship with the King either from the original fable or from the film, yet it seems that to become Queen, The Queen was judged almost solely on beauty. So, when it is the duty of The Magic Mirror to judge The Queen’s beauty, and is represented as the sole male figure in the bedroom, this implies that The Magic Mirror judges not only The Queen’s beauty, but her legitimacy as Queen.

When critics argues that Snow White is a sexist film, and seek to include The Queen in their interpretation, they point to her as a symbol of crazed vanity. After all, she is a woman who spends most of the movie staring into a mirror. (Instead of “Magic” think of the mirror as a “Crazy Mirror.” When The Queen looks into a mirror, she does not see herself. She sees Snow White, with a male voice saying: this is the fairest woman in the land. Identity issues, anyone?)

The “madness” of The Queen comes very explicitly from the Magic Mirror: when The Queen tries to see herself, she cannot. Instead, her perception of herself is mediated by the voice of the king; a king with a child from a former marriage. When the king, or the mirror, asserts that Snow White is “fairer” than The Queen, he is in some regard negating the very essence of The Queen. The Queen is not queen if the king still loves his dead wife, and their child, more than her. Yet, the madness of the Magic Mirror extends even beyond that. When The Queen looks at the mirror, she does not see nothing—she sees a male disembodied face. In a metaphysical sense, the mirror accurately represents The Queen from the perspective of The King’s. She is an intangible non-person, who can only speak with the voice of a man (the king). (Remember that The Slave in The Magic Mirror can still be interpreted as The Queen’s reflection.) The Queen has no purpose, because the previous wife has already provided a spawn, and the king is the sole voice of authority. She has no body because she has no direct power. She speaks with the voice of a man, because men are the only ones capable of being represented. That the mirror, then, asserts that Snow White is more beautiful is a crushing blow: the identity of The Queen is crushed by her sole means of mediation, and the king has admitted to finding his daughter as the most beautiful woman in the realm. The vengeance The Queen is not just out of vanity; it is revenge, for the king’s infidelity of voyeurism.

The betrayal of the Huntsmen, then, finally is the ultimate reaffirmation of the Magic Mirror, and it is he that levels the criticism that most accept without question. “She’s mad!” the Huntsman says, “Jealous of you [Snow White]! She’ll stop at nothing!” The first accusation is perhaps the most significant; the huntsman responds to The Queen’s desire to compartmentalize Snow White by then verbally compartmentalizing her under the category “mad.” The next, however is more informative: The Huntsman has no reason to believe that The Queen is jealous, unless he himself agrees with the Magic Mirror that Snow White truly is more beautiful, as the Magic Mirror contended. The Queen no doubt chose The Huntsman precisely because of his masculinity; his masculinity being reproduced by the dagger he wields. (The Huntsman has a very small phallic object…) The Queen wanted to destroy the appearance of Snow White’s virginal beauty by removing her status as virgin.

The Huntsman’s betrayal shows that The Queen never really had power. The Magic Mirror really is always right, especially in regard to beauty. The Queen has no power, neither as woman—since Snow White is more beautiful—nor as Queen—since The King outweighs her. If this is the case, then the madness of the Queen is that she asked the Huntsman at all. Since the Mirror is always right, she should have known she has no power.

When the Queen tries to kill Snow White again, she will not attempt to rely on her beauty to kill her—she knows that, so long as the Magic Mirror asserts that Snow White is more beautiful, she cannot work within the power structure already in place to reject the Magic Mirror’s assertion of beauty. Instead, she can only displace her rage by putting on the façade of something The Magic Mirror would characterize as ugly.

The Queen concocts a formula to:

transform my beauty into ugliness. Change my queenly raiment to a peddler’s cloak. Mummy dust, to make me old. To shroud my clothes, the black of night. To age my voice, an old hag’s cackle. To whiten my hair, a scream of fright. A blast of wind to fan my hate. A thunderbolt to mix it well. Now, begin thy magic spell.

Here the underpinnings of beauty come to the forefront. Clearly, the two most important facets of the transformation are clothing (indicative of status/wealth), and age. In the world of Snow White, age and ugliness are interchangeable, as evidenced by three of the ingredients being directly tied to age: the mummy dust, the old hag’s cackle, and a scream of fright, all transforming her to look old. Yet, the clothing is also quite notable, especially considering how the mirror stated in the beginning that clothing could not hide beauty. Yet, of them all, perhaps the most perplexing is the “blast of wind” to “fan my hate.” If the Queen is truly mad with jealousy and rage, there should be no reason for her hate to be insufficient.

What’s the point of this disguise? The dwarfs, after all, do not need an explanation that it is really The Queen beneath the disguise. There are only two figures that will ever see this disguise: Snow White, and The Magic Mirror. From the pragmatic perspective, the purpose of the disguise is to deceive Snow White. But once again, why the blast of wind? That would not help at all in deceiving Snow White. Instead, the fan of hate marks this disguise as not even wholly for Snow White’s sake: the fan of hate is only there to play into the sentiments of the male figures, of the Huntsman, the Dwarfs, and the Magic Mirror, because it is them that view her as hateful. And through The Magic Mirror, so too will the camera view her as hateful.

This transformation, partly to deceive Snow White, but partly to parody the Magic Mirror, is compounded and exaggerated in the object the Queen chooses to poison Snow White: the apple. Like the inclusion of the box, the flowers, and the forest glade in her orders to The Huntsman, the choice of the apple is more significant than merely as the instrument of murder. This significance is more easily explained if one takes into account the fable version of Snow White. The fable version follows the same basic arc, of Snow White’s expulsion, her hiding with the dwarfs, her biting the apple, and being kissed by the Prince. But the fable version includes two murder attempts directly preceding the use of the apple. First, the Queen appears and uses stay-laces to bind Snow White so that she cannot breathe, and when that does not succeed, she uses a poisoned comb. The symbolism here could not be more direct: The Queen is literally trying to suffocate Snow White with a symbol of “feminine beauty” in the case of the laces. When she poisons Snow White with the comb, she even remarks that Snow White is a “model of beauty.” Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in The Madwoman in the Attic discuss these images for precisely what they are, arguing, “the comb, stay-laces, and apple which the Queen in ‘Little Snow White’ uses as weapons against her hated stepdaughter… simply carry the patriarchal definitions of ‘femininity’ to absurd extremes, and thus function as essential or at least inescapable parodies of social prescriptions.” Although Gilbert and Gubar speak in regard to the fable version, their analysis is no less accurate in regard to the movie version.

Toward the beginning of the film, Snow White stands by a well and sings, “We are standing by a wishing well / Make a wish into the well / that’s all you have to do / And if you hear it echoing / Your wish will soon come true.” While she sings this, the camera moves away and watches a Prince, drawn by her singing, climb a fence and stand next to her. However, for Snow White, it appears that the echo of the well was what allowed her to meet Prince Charming. Afraid both of his sexuality and his dreamlike appearance, she retreats to her room. This is the only scene in which the camera records the Queen watching Snow White, and it is precisely this scene that the Queen chooses to parody when she seeks to destroy Snow White. The Queen says, “It’s apple pies that make the menfolks’ mouths water. Pies made from apples like these.” And later, “And since you’ve been so good to poor old Granny, I’ll share a secret with you. This is no ordinary apple. It’s a magic wishing apple… Yes. One bite, and all your dreams will come true.” The Queen seeks to not only destroy Snow White, but all she represents: including her desire to have her dreams magically fulfilled. Further, in the context of the fable, this scene allows the Queen to attack the final facet of Snow White’s appearance that demarcates her as “beautiful.” The three descriptions the Magic Mirror uses at the beginning of the film pertain to Snow White’s black hair, her red lips, and her white skin. The Queen’s choice of objects includes a comb for her hair, lace for her skin, and an apple for her lips. The comb, which in the fable shapes her naturally beautiful hair to the “latest style,” and the lace the Queen does “properly for once”. The apple, however, is the most significant: first, it parodies the “wishing” dreams of Snow White from the beginning of the film which no doubt reflect the “gentle grace” the Mirror remarks upon, the physical description of Snow White, and finally, as a parody of the myth of Original Sin. (If this last bit sounds absurd, bare in mind that both the tellers of fables in the 1800s and even American audiences in the early 20th century held Original Sin with much more significance than modern audiences might.)

In reproducing the narrative of Original Sin, The Queen becomes the Snake, or Satan (if one is going off Milton’s version). Like Satan, The Queen undergoes a transformation to provide a disguise. Like Satan, the only person to see this disguise is the recipient of the apple. Like Eve, it is Snow White’s innocence that allows her to be tricked. Both apples essentially have the same result: Eve, and all of womankind, must confront her sexuality as a result of eating the apple, and become clothed. Snow White, eating the apple, must forsake her fear of Prince Charming. The historical Christian argument has always been that it is because of woman’s biting the apple that facilitated humanity’s fall from Eden. All this imagery, The Queen co-opts in her plot to destroy Snow White. Eve could be said to be the prototypical virgin, and the epitome of innocence. The previous imagery that the Queen attacks, with the flowers and the forest glade, all evoke the Eden that Eve supposedly lost. Now, however, what is resulting in the fall—or rather, what is resulting in The Queen’s fall—is Snow White’s new innocence, and complete unabashed willingness to commit herself wholly to the masculine prescriptions for femininity. What the Queen ultimately parodies through the apple is the “gentle grace” that the Magic Mirror finds so attractive; what in other words, amounts for The Queen, as mere feminine dormancy in the wake of masculine power.

Ironically, Snow White’s bite of the apple does allow Snow White’s dreams to come true: when she awakes, The Queen is dead, and she has become Prince Charming’s lover. All the sacrifice needed was the loss of absolutely everything, including her voice and consciousness. In other words, all that was required to be Prince Charming’s lover is to become a completely dormant woman. Prince Charming functions within the film to confirm the notion of beauty asserted by the Magic Mirror. Yet, as the antithesis of the Magic Mirror, he also obliterates it. He has a body where the Magic Mirror is bodiless, and he is a Prince while the Magic Mirror is a slave. Yet both share precisely the same views of beauty. In doing so, he embodies the Magic Mirror’s thoughts. The movie begins with the Queen calling forth the Magic Mirror and demanding an assessment of female beauty and identity, and that assessment is given: it is Snow White. The film ends with the ultimate reaffirmation of this assessment. Prince Charming kisses Snow White, the masculine voice of judgment is upheld, and identity continues to be determined by image.

When The Queen looks into a mirror, she does not see herself. Despite this, she is often regarded as narcissistic. Not only narcissistic, The Queen is remarked upon as “mad,” “jealous” and homicidal (this last one being undeniably true, despite the problematic implications of the first two). Yet the film never directly explains the madness of the Queen. She is mad because she is violent and she is violent because she is mad. No consistent explanation is offered as to why the Queen demands Snow White’s heart in a box. No convincing explanation is given for her transformation into an old woman. No meaningful explanation is given for the choice of the apple. And the entailments of the apple as a choice are completely ignored. The film’s neglect of explanation leaves the audience with no voice other than that of The Magic Mirror, a figure whose awakening births the movie, and of which the antithesis—Prince Charming—removes from the screen entirely. Even from this view, however, and especially with the help of the fable, one can see that what is asserted as uncontested truth in reality is merely an argument, and although we perhaps still are not sympathetic to the murderous intentions of the Queen, we nevertheless do not have to regard her strictly as “mad,” and although she may be jealous, that jealousy no doubt is facilitated by the warped reflection she sees when she looks in a mirror. The Queen may not know that she is within a movie, and certainly is unaware of how the film operates the same as The Magic Mirror, but nevertheless by rebelling against the mediation of the mirror, she also is rebelling against the camera itself. This is the real heart of her madness; her unwillingness to be a moderated woman, the mediated woman, the figure that Disney, and perhaps the audience, regard as beautiful. Instead, if she cannot win a beauty contest, then she will assert her power through the only means she has: by choosing to gain control of her own appearance, and to reject and parody the Mirror’s conception of beauty. In a warped way, she may have even been successful. She made the top 20 of AFI’s “Top 100 Villains of all Time” list, whereas Snow White does not even make Top Heroes list at all. Most criticism that praises Snow White does not focus on Snow White or the Queen, but on the Dwarfs—those figures who manage to be distinctive despite their stereotypes. Snow White may be lumped together with the other “Disney Princesses,” but the Queen has been a favorite of artists other than Disney. In Annie Hall, Woody Allen entertains romantic fantasies with the Queen—perhaps expressing something resembling a backlash to her character—but nevertheless capturing the absurdity of her characterization. “You’re just upset,” Woody Allen’s character says, “You must be getting your period.” The “Wicked” Queen responds, “I don’t get a period. I’m a cartoon character.”