Snow White Movie Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Snow White Movie - Essay Example There are differences, in that the heroine in this effort is passive, a bit stupid and disloyal. This is in contrast to later heroines, in particular Belle from Beauty and the Beast. These are just a few of the similarities and differences between the early efforts put forth by Disney and the later ones. This paper will examine these similarities and differences, as well as many more. Discussion The imagery surrounding Snow White is considerably different than the imagery surrounding princesses in later Disney incarnations. The first, considerable difference between this animated feature and later features, such as The Little Mermaid is that the animals are less anthromorphized in this feature than in later ones, and the inanimate objects do not come to life, as they do in later features. For instance, in this feature, the animals do not talk. Thus, there is no talking, singing crab like in The Little Mermaid, and the dishes do not come to life and sing, such as in Beauty and the Beast. This aspect gave the movie a bit less of a fantasy quality than later movies, and lent a slightly more believable air to the proceedings. The story could have possibly happened in real life, except that the animals would not be as accommodating as they were in the feature, and, of course, the magic pr acticed by the Evil Queen would not be possible. But, since the animals and inanimate objects stay mute, the cartoon is not as much in the realm of the fantastic as the later Disney efforts. Because the animals did not talk, nor did the inanimate objects, the feature also seemed to be missing much of the humor which marked the later efforts. Some of the funnier characters in Disney films were the different animals that populate the worlds – such as the crows in Dumbo and Thomas O’Malley Scat Cat friends in The Aristocats. Another aspect to these characters, specifically the crows in Dumbo and O’Malley’s friends in The Aristocats is that these characters were unmistakably based upon African-Americans. The crab in The Little Mermaid was unmistakably Hispanic. In this way, the later features were able to subtly introduce characters of color, even though the main characters were white, or, as in the case of The Aristocats and Dumbo, animals who are based upon Caucasians. Snow White did not have any characters whom were indisputably based upon different ethnicities, as could have been the case had the animators decided to inject a few animal characters into the story, therefore the story is considerably less multi-cultural then later efforts by the studio. Another curious aspect of the story was the way that the dwarfs were introduced and handled. When the dwarfs were first seen in the diamond mine, and in their trek to their home, they were indistinguishable from one another, for the most part. The exceptions to this were Doc, who was set apart by the fact that he wore glasses; Dopey, who was set apart because he was bald and had no facial hair; and Grumpy, who was well-defined from the beginning as a grump, therefore he stood out. The others did not embody their respective names – Happy, Sneezy, Bashful and Sleepy. It would have been more effective if the viewer could have more of an introduction to these dwarfs to show exactly why and how they got their name. For instance, if Sneezy would have been sneezing in the mine and on the way home, he would have been more easily distinguished from the others. If Happy would have been seen doing a â€Å"happy dance,† then he would have been better defined. If Bashful would have been turning red early on, the viewer would have known who he was. And, if Sleepy would have been