![]() Maybe there's a female fantasy about how great it would be to get to sleep undisturbed for a couple thousand years. Maybe it's some sort of backlash, Tatar says, about women now outnumbering men in college or outpacing them at work. She wonders - why Snow White right now, and why a "catatonic girl" like Sleeping Beauty? There are also a bunch of Sleeping Beauties in the works. Right now, it's not just Snow White, she says. What fascinates her is which ones bubble up and why. Tatar says fairy tales are a way to explore such elemental human concerns. "The mother is constantly competing with her daughters for attention, and she's got these gorgeous daughters she becomes more anxious than ever about aging." It's filled with beautiful princesses, sham weddings - and, like Snow White, an older-versus-younger-woman dynamic. You can even see that, says Tatar, on a reality show fairy tale like Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The tension between the princess and the queen, says Harvard professor Maria Tatar, might also help explain Snow White's recent revival: "Maybe the mother-daughter rivalry that has caught our attention with so many women trying to remain youthful now." It stars Twilight's Kristen Stewart as Snow White and Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen. The second Snow White movie coming out this summer is darker, much more high-tech, violent and visually sumptuous. Everyone now is out there shooting themselves with Botox." In the movie, in fact, Julia Roberts gets an Evil Queen spa special with scorpion bites, bee stings, bird poop and grubs digging around in her ears.Ĭharlize Theron plays the evil Queen in the upcoming dark adaptation Snow White and the Huntsman. "What's interesting now," Wallack says, "is that almost the first time really in history, you can remain young. Part of that meant acknowledging baby-boomer grandparents' concerns about aging. But screenwriter Melissa Wallack wanted to make the story contemporary. Speak Let me see thy face.Magic Mirror: What woulds. The new Snow White movie, Mirror Mirror, is also meant for families with young kids, just like Disney's version was. Queen: Slave in the magic mirror, come from the farthest space, through wind and darkness I summon thee. "In the Disney film, there's that terrible moment, that terrifying moment when the Wicked Queen drinks the potion, turns into an old hag, and we see the aging process." ![]() "It may be that there is something about the boomer anxiety about aging that is renewing our interest in Snow White," she says. She's sent off to die and winds up in a coma, but she prevails, thanks to a prince and seven short hi-ho-ing men of some renown.Īfter decades of the cold shoulder, why is Snow White suddenly white hot? Maria Tatar is a Harvard professor with an expertise in fairytales. ![]() Snow White is, of course, the story of a poor girl whose beauty earns her the envy of an evil queen. And her image hasn't changed much since Walt Disney set the Snow White standard in 1937.
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