Snow White and the Seven Creepy Old Men

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was produced in 1937 and has claim to being the first full-length movie Disney created. The story revolves around a young girl named Snow White who is living with her evil stepmother, the Queen, after her father dies. The Queen is jealous of Snow White's beauty, and when a magic mirror tells the Queen that Snow White is the "fairest in all the land", she plots to kill her stepdaughter. The man sent to kill her allows Snow White to live and she escapes to the woods, stumbling upon a cottage. Snow White cleans the house up and when the dwarfs come home from the mine, they allow her to stay because she cooks and cleans. The Queen finds out later that Snow White is still alive and tricks her into eating a poisonous apple which puts her in a deep sleep, seemingly dead.  The dwarves do not bury her because of her beauty and when a prince arrives, he kisses Snow White and she awakes. The two ride off into the sunset, living happily ever after.

It is clear even from the summary of the movie that the thirties played a huge role in impacting the world of media at that time, specifically eluding to the roles of women in that decade. In her article Susan Ware quotes on the defined roles of each gender in the thirties, “the men, cut adrift from their usual routine, lost much of their sense of time and dawdled helplessly and dully about the streets; while in the homes the women’s world remained largely intact and the round of cooking, housecleaning, and mending became if anything more absorbing.” 

 

Women were the ones in charge of all the housework and Snow White was an embodiment of a typical housewife living in the 1930's. The dwarfs only let her stay upon her agreement to do all the housework and cooking while they were at work in the mine each day. It is also important to point out that Snow White never  held a true job of her own beyond cooking and cleaning and neither did the dwarves ever do the housework themselves, which is why it was so messy when Snow White first came across their cottage. This suggests that the work cannot and will not be done unless it is done by the hands of a woman.

Another key component to the ideal housewife is waiting for her husband to come home. The seven dwarves were hardly marriageable material in the eyes of Disney and throughout the movie, Snow White is waiting for her Prince Charming to arrive. Once he awakens her from the sleeping spell with "true love's kiss" they go off together to live in his castle, presumably happily ever after. Her quiet disposition and domesticity places her in an inferior position compared to the male gender, including not only the prince, but the dwarfs as well. They marvel at her impossible beauty and perfect manners but Snow White hardly presents herself as a person who can think for herself, too engrossed with the idea that her only purpose in life is to wait for her Prince Charming to find her. This is a common theme among Disney movies, of the female lead falling head over heels with a man whom she may have never even met before, but in this particular film, Snow White was especially reflecting on the gender stereotypes of women in the 1930's who were constantly waiting hand and foot on their husbands. These are some of the root ideas of gender roles in the thirties and it is easy to see how it was reflected in this film.