So I’m still writing out the full synopsis for my re-telling of Snow White and the Mirror of Shadows. Act I is pretty much done and I am in the process of writing out Act II while fleshing out Act III. I am hoping to finally have it done later this week for people to read but that will depend on how much I have to work to pay the bills. Yet, while I am writing out the synopsis, I need to remember the overall message and themes of the original story of Snow White so that they are being incorporated.
Unlike Disney, which is changing the story with its live action Snow White movie, I don’t want to create something that completely deviates from what made Snow White a great story. So what are those themes?
Well, to me there tends to be a number of themes and messages that the original story focused on which are the following:
Good vs Evil
Jealousy and Envy
Beauty and Vanity
Friendship and Kindness
The Healing Power of Love
Resilience and Resourcefulness
Family Dynamics
Many of these themes are easy to figure out. When it comes to good vs evil, Snow White represents innocence, kindness, and purity while the evil queen stepmother embodies more negative emotions such as jealousy, cruelty, vanity, pride, and manipulation. This dichotomy between the protagonist and antagonist is what makes the story so memorable and is something I would never stray from or change.
Now, where I do agree with actress Rachel Zegler and Disney is that Snow White should also embody leadership. Just, not the way that Disney probably envisions it. In fact, not the way that Hollywood sees it these days. A perfect example of what I am talking about is Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s portrayal of Galadriel which I highly recommend you check out in my editorial contrasting the major differences between Tolkien’s Galadriel and RoP’s version.
The other obvious theme that Snow White approaches is that of Jealousy, envy, and vanity which are traits exhibited by the evil queen. She desires to be the most beautiful woman and cannot bear anyone else to even be thought of as more beautiful than her. These traits today, in a large portion of modern women, have been brought to the forefront more than any other time in history and my idea for the queen is to make her even more relatable to the modern day woman.
With friendship, compassion, kindness, we saw this from the seven Dwarves who were kind enough to help Snow White by taking her into their home providing her food, shelter, and companionship. Snow White’s kindness and compassion certainly helped in the Dwarves being more receptive to her. However, I want to expand upon Snow White even more when it comes to these three traits. That, if you are kind, compassionate, and value friendship it will go a long way in being a large positive in your life.
In essence, the golden rule which is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” from the Bible.
With that said, it is hard not to mention the power of love and not just true love’s kiss which Disney is eschewing from their live action movie. At least, as far as we know so far. I want to build up more of a relationship between Snow White and Prince Charming. While the original Grimm’s version had the Prince show up towards the end of the story and Disney’s animated version introduced him earlier on, there was no real setup for their romance except that it was love at first sight in both examples. But it won’t just be romantic love that will be the focus in my version. Snow White and Prince Charming’s romance will be more of a side story but the overall theme of love I want to make more prevalent throughout this version and continue to be the solution and reason why good triumphs over evil.
Another theme revolves around resilience and resourcefulness, though not to any great extent in the original stories. I would say that Snow White was just a princess who got lucky with her circumstances. Even though Snow White survives long enough to stumble across the Dwarves and is resourceful just enough to make herself useful, it is rather shallow and needs to be expanded more. At least, that is what I think. Such as her struggling to survive by herself out in the woods when, as a princess, she has no experience traveling through such terrain or surviving off the land, not to mention no experience when it comes to cooking and cleaning.
Finally, the theme of family dynamics. For Snow White’s parents, they are just an afterthought and footnote to kick off the real story between a stepdaughter and her stepmother. However, I want to fully flesh out Snow White’s original family before the evil stepmother makes her move. Doing so, provides far more motivation for Snow White to become more than just a princess wishing to find her prince. Her parents’ death, the slow corruption and downfall of her kingdom should be used as elements to help her become more than she ever expected herself to be. Then, as of now, give her a surrogate family when it comes to the Dwarves.
But there you have it. Some of the themes and messages I plan to keep into the story while still changing Snow White’s story to be a bit more progressive and, as I hinted in my previous editorial, a bit more diverse.
Let me know what you think and feel free to include any other themes or messages you got from Snow White that I might have missed.
Update: So my car’s power steering decided to break as I was getting ready to go to work today. Right now, repairs are going to cost quite a bit which means I’ll need to be working for longer hours for the rest of this week and next week so I can afford to pay some bills.
Which means that the synopsis for Snow White and the Mirror of Shadows won’t be posted until late next week if I’m lucky.
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