Fairy Tale and Film

Sleeping Beauty 
(2011) 
draws attention to these negative features in an apparent attempt to 
remind women that they are complicit in the relationships they forge, 
and the actions they take, and it is time to wake up. The heroine 
(if we can even use this term) finances her studies with a seedy form of 
employment, taking a strong sedative while clients ‘sleep’ with her.
27
Untroubled by what they do, because she has no memory of it, she is 
a difficult character to sympathise with, and this is largely the point. 
No curse, as such, has placed her in this position and only she can save 
herself. An opaque ending has her madam wake her with a ‘kiss’ of life, 
her sedative proving dangerously strong, but whether this serves as a 
wake-up call is left open. The film has baffled many, yet Leigh appar-
ently strives for a sense of symbolism, referencing feminist rhetoric in 
affirming that we need to kiss sleeping beauty goodbye and take respon-
sibility for our lives. 
The ‘Snow White’ story has similar tropes to ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in 
terms of a ‘persecuted heroine’, almost killed by a malevolent female 
yet resurrected by a male, and cinematic attempts to invest the char-
acter with greater assertiveness have tended to have difficulties of their 
own. The two versions released in 2012 both make their heroines older 
figures who battle to regain their kingdom, rather than rely on a prince 
to save them, although these efforts at independence are undermined 
by the love interest in each case. As we might recall, the romantic 
features of the original tale are curious to say the least, with a passing 
prince falling in love with our heroine as she lies, seemingly dead, in 
a glass coffin, and convincing her dwarf benefactors to give him the 
apparent corpse. Whether she is resurrected from the poisoned apple 
being dislodged from her throat by a jolt (as written by the Grimms) 
or a Sleeping Beauty-style kiss (added by Disney), the assumption that 
the heroine also falls in love at first sight is the kind of fancy we are 

---

46 
Fairy Tale and Film
simply asked to accept. In a world where a prince can fall deliriously in 
love during a dance – and commit himself to marrying the mysterious 
stranger – it is perhaps no surprise that one can do so with an appar-
ently dead woman, just as we are asked to accept that such intense 
feelings will simply be reciprocated by the revived female. However, a 
degree of conflict between the pair has been added in cinematic treat-
ments to tease out a romance. Hence, both ‘Snow White’ films released 
in 2012 create tension by making their leading men involved, in one 
way or another, with the wicked queen, requiring the respective hero-
ines to change their loyalties.
Mirror Mirror
(Tarsem Singh, 2012) makes its Snow (Lily Collins) 
responsible for the disenchanting kiss used to reclaim the enchanted 
prince from her stepmother’s clutches and the film concludes with their 
marriage, opting to overlook the fact he’s an arrogant scoundrel. 
Snow 
White and the Huntsman
(Rupert Sanders, 2012) tries a different twist, 
making the huntsman a potential love interest, although he similarly 
seems unworthy of the heroine’s devotion. In each case, the representa-
tion of vain egotistical men may attempt to de-romanticise such tales, 
yet the result can scarcely be deemed feminist when they secure such 
unabashed ardour from naïve heroines. Even as archetypal symbol of 
female virtue, Snow White is recast as a warrior, despatching her rival 
(rather than fleeing from her) and serving as a more benign ruler due to 
her brief encounter with her lowly subjects, there is an essential contra-
diction at the heart of these films: presenting active heroines who take 
control of their lives as they come of age whilst exhibiting a traditional 
deference to male figures (and vilification of the wicked stepmother) 
which simply reiterate regressive overtones. These films, and other exam-
ples of the ‘Snow White’ tale, are further discussed in Chapter 5 (noting 
how some horror films subvert our usual understanding of the tale) and 
Chapter 6 (in which postmodern variations are further scrutinised). 
All that remains to be said in this context is that ‘Snow White’ is a 
difficult narrative to recuperate, partly failing to work as a love story 
because the usual romantic denouement seems tagged onto the end, yet 
also because the chief relationship, ultimately, is between mother and 
daughter. Modern variations tend to stress this archetypal rivalry, which 
is obviously questionable in terms of undermining female bonding and 
vilifying the older woman, a tendency that remains all too prevalent 
in many fairy tale films. While even revised versions of ‘Snow White’ 
tend to reiterate female rivalry, additionally asking their heroines to 
maintain a questionable allegiance to dubious males, contemporary 
‘Cinderella’ tales offer more positive features, presenting young women 

---