Snow White and Cancel Culture

My Twitter bio reveals that I am a “huge fan of Disney’s original Jungle Book.”

I must have watched the movie 50 times.  However, after the recent Cancel Culture news regarding Disneyland, maybe I should skip the 51st time.

With its gates back open after C-19 lockdowns, the Californian theme park takes a different look at social distancing policies.

Its ‘Snow White Enchanted Wish” ride features an animatronic recreation of Prince Charming awakening Snow White with a kiss.  (You’ll remember that Snow White was cast under a spell by an evil queen).

Critics complain that as Snow White is in a deep sleep, she could not consent for the prince to kiss her.  

Writing in SFGate.com, managing editor Katie Dowd and contributor Julie Tremaine say the kiss scene should be cut.

“Haven’t we already agreed that consent in early Disney movies is a major issue? Teaching kids that kissing is not OK when we don’t know that both parties are willing to engage?” 

“It’s hard to understand why the Disneyland of 2021 would choose to add a scene with such old-fashioned ideas of what a man is allowed to do to a woman.”

Undertones of ‘date-rape’ have been buzzing around the story, with parents wondering if such scenes and similar stories like Sleeping Beauty send the wrong kind of message to impressionable children.

Critics point out that the story of Snow White and that kiss throws up other issues too.  The kiss itself is not just any old peck on the cheek.  It’s meant to be “Love’s True Kiss.” According to the fairy tale, a lesser embrace would not break the spell.

In addition to the problems of consent, the kiss “cannot possibly be ‘True Love’ if only one person knows it is happening.”

Disney star Kristen Bell, who voiced Anna in “Frozen”, says she had a serious chat with her kids about Snow White.

“Don’t you think that it’s weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission? Because you cannot kiss someone if they’re sleeping!” she told People magazine in 2018.

For many, the Cancel Culture story is disconcerting. After all, discovering one of Disney’s best-loved characters who has been in the consciousness of millions of children since 1937 is suddenly an unwitting victim of a sex crime is unsettling.

It sceptically suggests that for over 60 years, parents have passively encouraged children to accept non-consensual acts of intimacy.

And that is ludicrous.

The journalist, Piers Morgan, has also ploughed into the debate:

“The ‘Wokies’ say the prince kissing Snow White is sexual assault because he didn’t get her consent.  But he thought she was dead, so why would he ask for consent” And kissing her, he saved her life… What the f*ck is wrong with these woke morons? We mustn’t let them ruin everything we love because trust me, they can, and they will.”

One detail of the fairy tale that even Disney seems to have overlooked is that in the original story, the prince is aged 31 years old, and Snow White is only 14. This presents a whole new set of issues that have been kept away from the general discussion.

(Disney’s first full-length feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, was made in 1937.  There were subsequent re-releases in 1944, 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975, 1983, 1987 and 1993.  It took $184,925,486 (then £37,404,022) at the US box office, equivalent to $1.2 billion (£890 million) as of 10 May 2018).

Disney’s PC issues are affecting other attractions too.

The theme park recently reviewed and updated Splash Mountain and Jungle Cruise.  Both have been judged racist.  

The Jungle Cruise has been slated for its depictions of indigenous people.

Instead of referencing the much-debated film, “Song of the South,” the Splash Mountain log flume ride will focus on Disney’s first Black princess, Tiana, from Disney’s animated film, The Princess and the Frog.

Whilst it is no longer neither acceptable nor charming for a Prince Charming to kiss a Snow White, another franchise of Disney, Marvel (which Disney acquired in 2009 for $4bn), is about to release several much-awaited sequels from their ‘caring family’ of superheroes who unite to fight evil.  

Many Marvel movies feature terrifying creatures that go much further than casting sleeping spells – they want to destroy entire worlds – including planet Earth. And thanks to highly sophisticated CGI, devastation and violence are celebrated in their full gory glory. `

More disturbingly, many young teenagers are getting hooked on playing 'slasher' games. The shoot, stab, electrocute .... immersive software is influenced by stories of tough characters out to protect their people and territories - at any cost.

Coincidently, incidents of young men stabbing to death other young men as the first choice to resolve issues are now so common, they barely warrant a mention in the news.

Maybe given the constant media soundbites that their futures along with Earth's environment, are as doomed as a poisoned apple, it's not really surprising.

So, what is worse? Love’s True Kiss or the Kiss of Death?  Or maybe we should allow sleeping beauties to rest and enjoy the simple bare necessities of life for what they were once upon a time in a land that seems so very far away.