Snow White & Castles in the Air

Today we discussed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in class, so last night, I had to re-watch it. (Sometimes, I really love my job.)

I also watched it with my family -- my husband and both my kids -- which made my heart all kinds of happy. My daughter is just about 2.5 and, amidst all the fun of the terrible 2s, she's starting to become her own little person with a clear personality. It's also a lot...less quiet. 😂 There are so. many. questions!

But it's fascinating to see what she picks up on. Critics, especially the academic ones, like to make a big fuss over Disney movies -- especially the princess ones -- especially the early princess ones. They like to say that kids take this harmful message away or that watching princess movies will make them grow up into weak, passive women. Which...I've always been skeptical of. After all, how can you determine what a child takes away from a film? Won't every viewer take away something different? And even if you could definitively conclude what a child takes away from watching a movie, can you lay the blame entirely at Disney's feet? Isn't this one part of a larger conversation?

So, yeah. My daughter didn't bat an eye at the dark, scary parts -- not when Snow White ran into the woods, not when the Queen went down into her dungeon and used dark magic, not when the Dwarfs chased the Queen at the end.
She was more concerned with where characters were -- so when Snow White was cleaning the house, she didn't seem to focus on what Snow White was doing, she wanted to know where the rabbit was.
And her biggest concern was that she didn't understand where the Queen went when she transformed into the hag -- and after answering that question about a dozen times and trying to explain magic, she wanted to know what happened to her crown. 😳 Write about that, academics.

Anyway. I noticed something at the end of the movie that I hadn't noticed before and, TBH, I found it a little odd. Yes, things wrap up pretty quickly. Yes, the Prince randomly stumbles upon Snow White and kisses her (without knowing that Love's First Kiss is what breaks the spell). Yes, Snow White wakes up and is like, "O hai. Sure I'll ride off with you to who knows where." Yes, Snow White just abandons the Dwarfs after all they did for her.

But it was the castle at the end that I noticed.

Here's a screenshot near the end, with Snow White and the Prince riding off, literally, into the sunset.

Then, here's a screenshot of a few second later:

I remembered the Prince's castle differently...I assumed/remembered it as a castle on a hill off in the distance (maybe like the castle in Cinderella?), but this castle appears to (1) have magically appeared in the middle of the sky and (2) be floating on a cloud. Which...intrigued me and sparked a connection to "castles in the air." 

I remembered the phrase from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women -- there's an entire chapter titled "Castles in the Air." The March sisters are telling Laurie about how they used to play Pilgrim's Progress and try to make it to the Celestial City. Beth tells Laurie:

If people really want to go, and really try all their lives, I think they will get in, for I don't believe there are any locks on the door or any guards at the gate. I always imagine it as it is in the picture where the shining ones stretch out their hands to welcome poor Christian as he comes up from the river.

And Jo replies:

Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true, and we could live in them? 

The castles are, I think, meant to represent the girls' (and Laurie's) daydreams, their aspirations, what they want most in this world. (Jo's dreams and castles were the ones I related to the most, TBH.) The idea, though, is that they have to live their lives first -- to deal with their weaknesses, to face their troubles, to endure the hardships. There's also the Christian undertones, given the reference to Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress (which I'll admit I'm not familiar with, except to know that it's about how to get to Heaven) which are quite prominent in Snow White.

There's also the connection to Thoreau (who I'm pretty sure was close with Alcotts -- or at least moved in the same circle as them), who wrote in Walden,

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary...In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. "

Later, in the same chapter, Thoreau writes,

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is....

These are still unformed thoughts but I think the connection to Snow White is there: if Thoreau viewed "castles in the air" as a person's dreams, their heart's desires, the life which they have imagined, then the "foundation" is to love your life, as poor as it. 

Doesn't this hold true for Snow White? However "mean" her life was, she "met" it and "lived" it. She met adversity with "a smile and a song" and never stopped wishing "for the one she loved to find her." She built her castle in the air in her heart and dreams, and lived her life as poor as it was. And in the end? Her castle literally appeared in the air in front of her, as her reward for her good life and faith and hope. 

I have no idea if Disney read Walden or Little Women, or was familiar with Thoreau's or Alcott's ideas, but he was a smarter man than people sometimes give him credit for. At the very least, I think it's plausible.