Currently, there are three Snow White films in development. This new version is a “re-imagining” of the tale, and production has been delayed, perhaps because of the two other films coming out in the 2012, along with the television series “Once Upon a Time,” based on the Snow White story. Why has that particular story gone viral? The key element, a beautiful, seductive, evil woman who plots the death of her more beautiful, innocent, virtuous rival, does not resonate immediately with our cultural fears and anxieties. But I wonder if the rise of the “cougar” has anything to do with the resurrection of Snow White? And is it a stretch to consider the Casey Anthony story a grim, modern version of “Snow White”? Or more importantly, is our cultural obsession with Casey Anthony based to some extent on how she embodies childhood fears about maternal sexual envy turned murderous?
I hadn’t thought of the Casey Anthony/Snow White parallel before. Did you know that in the original tale, Snow White’s evil stepmother was actually her real mother? It’s 10x more scary to think that it was her actual mother who tried to kill her.
I wrote a paper about how current cinema set in Ancient Rome focused on trying to keep the American underdog archetype alive in a world where we’ve become the deciding power by taking the powerful ones: Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Nero-into people who beat the odds, or into underdogs. Perhaps this fascination with Snow White hinges on the same thing? We can’t admit to being the older, troubled country who’s overly aggressive or involved in the younger, less developed country’s business. On the other hand, everyone knows America’s far from remaining the innocent, rebel country, with pure, new intentions. But we can believe in and relate to that lost, well-intentioned girl who’s been provoked into fighting back, into the violence of a “just war”.