The Princess Diaries #1: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

This brand new series deep-dives into the Disney princess phenomenon, one happily ever after at a time

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At least half of my freelance career has involved tricking editors into letting me write about Disney princesses. So with a live action Snow White remake just around the corner and this Substack at my disposal, I thought it was time to finally launch a series that would let me go all-in on Disney’s beloved yet divisive line-up of animated heroines. With this new monthly column, The Princess Diaries, I’ll be moving through the Disney animated canon one film at a time, exploring how the Disney princess archetype has evolved over the years and what these women reflect about the era they were made and the culture we live in now.

That all starts with 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which is not only Disney’s first full-length animated feature but the first cel animated feature film period—essentially the first animated movie as we know them today. Before Snow White, Hollywood viewed animation as a medium for goofy, fast-paced jokes, not actual narrative storytelling. In fact, Walt Disney’s belief that a full-length animated feature could hold an audience’s attention was seen as so ridiculous that Snow White was deemed “Disney’s Folly.” But the film went on to become an absolute cultural sensation—a critically acclaimed success and the highest-grossing film of 1938. The Academy Awards even created an honorary Oscar to award Walt for the achievement. It came with one regular-sized statue and seven miniature statuettes.

Despite Snow White’s legendary place in animation history, it’s also the Disney princess film I’ve seen the least. We didn’t own it on VHS growing up and when we rented it from Blockbuster I remember being absolutely terrified of the Evil Queen in her witch disguise. Though I’ve absorbed most of the film’s iconic moments through cultural osmosis, I’m not sure whether I’d ever sat down and watched the full thing from start to finish before now. And while I’ve always thought that it stands apart from the rest of the princess canon because of its age and art style, rewatching it with fresh eyes really allowed me to see just how influential Snow White truly is on the Disney animated films that followed, princess or otherwise.

You can see hints of designs that Disney would expand in its next few animated films, including Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi. And so much of what we associate with the Disney princess archetype arrives fully formed here too—from the wistful “I want” song to the devoted animal friends to the iconic, scene-stealing villain to the soft, feminine animation style that makes Snow White feel like a jewelry box ballerina come to life. Narratively and thematically, Disney princess films would evolve quite a bit over the next 88 years. But tonally and visually, Snow White set a template Disney has never entirely moved away from. In fact, when Disney decided to lovingly parody its princess tropes in 2007’s Enchanted, it largely just recreated several Snow White scenes wholesale.

Still, there are definitely places where Snow White feels of its era, which makes sense when you consider that Walt and his writing team were pioneering the very idea of feature-length animated storytelling. From the late 1980s onward, Disney princess movies have crafted their stories based on some combination of Broadway-style musical theater storytelling and action-adventure plotting, with a real focus on character motivation and growth. But the earliest princesses didn’t have that narrative template to anchor their fairy tale adaptations.

Instead, the whole middle chunk of Snow White is basically an attempt to recreate the goofy humor audiences associated with Mickey Mouse cartoons and Looney Tunes shorts, using the seven dwarves and Snow White’s animal friends as the main source of comedy. Meanwhile, the human drama that takes center stage in the opening act and climax pulls from the more impressionistic, expressionistic worlds of opera and ballet. (There’s near constant musical scoring to every onscreen action.)

One of the big complaints that modern audiences have about Snow White is that she doesn’t really have a character arc and her love story with the prince (who doesn’t even get a name) is wildly underdeveloped. But in an opera, it’s not that unusual for characters to fall for each other over the course of one duet, which is what happens with Snow White and her prince here.

In fact, I kind of love how inconsequential the princes are in these early Disney princess films. There’s this almost subversive assumption that of course hot straight men are boring and why would you want to spend any more time with them than you have to in your fantasy world? While the prince technically saves Snow White in the end (with “love’s first kiss,” rather than “true love’s kiss” as I remembered it), he’s very much the prize she wins, not the other way around. The prince serves a narrative function, but the actual screentime is devoted to Snow White, the Evil Queen, the dwarves, and how they bounce off one another.

Indeed, rewatching Snow White with fresh eyes, it’s no wonder the dwarves and the Queen became the film’s breakout characters. The dwarves are somehow both a send-up of straight male incompetence and also a lovely example of non-toxic masculinity (even woman-hating Grumpy softens in the end). There’s even a queer-coded edge to the way they worship Snow White like a beloved pop star who has suddenly stumbled into their home. And for her part, the Evil Queen is a diva camp icon from the moment she first swishes her cape to demand Snow White’s death. (Do yourself a favor and watch the hilarious way she’s played at Disneyland.)

Still, I was mostly curious to see how Snow White herself would hold up, given that the only thing most people seem to remember about the character is her trilling 1930s voice. And I actually wound up being far more charmed by her than I expected. She may be introduced with the wistful song “I'm Wishing,” but she’s not a particularly passive princess. Instead, she has an optimistic, can-do spirit that reminded me of lovable fish-out-water characters like Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf and Brendan Fraser’s George of the Jungle. A big part of her story is that everyone she meets instantly falls in love with her, and the movie makes her genuinely enchanting in a way that totally sells that.

Even after surviving a murder attempt and fleeing her home, Snow only takes a moment or two to have a mental breakdown before pulling herself together with a pep talk. And though she’s been raised as royalty, she’s got an impressive work ethic and a wonderful sense of empathy. The animals help her because she helps them first. And when she stumbles upon an untidy cottage in the woods, she figures that maybe the people who live there will let her stay if she earns her keep by cleaning up and baking them gooseberry pies.

The cooking and cleaning sometimes seems to bother people, but, honestly, I think I prefer that to a version of this story where Snow just shows up to a stranger’s house and demands they take care of her. Especially because she’s not just a polite domestic pushover. In fact, she’s got this hilarious little Type A control freak side to her, whether she’s chiding the animals for trying to lick the plates clean or passive aggressively shaming the dwarves into washing their hands for the first time in weeks.

I don’t know if all of that makes her a good “role model” for a little girls, exactly. But I also don’t think anyone watches Elf and wrings their hands about whether Buddy is a good role model for little boys. Snow White is a relatable Wendy Darling archetype in the way she’s both naïve and mature all at once. So while I wouldn’t put her in the top tier of Disney heroines, there’s more to chew on in her characterization than I was expecting.

If each Disney princess is an attempt to evolve or improve upon what came before, Snow White set a high baseline—especially once you understand the historical context in which she was created. Maybe most importantly, Snow White established that each Disney princess would get a signature look that makes them immediately recognizable, like a superhero’s costume.

Indeed, part of the reason I’m so fascinated by the Disney princess line-up is because they’re the most ubiquitous collection of female protagonists in American culture—characters that just about everyone can identify by name. They’re a huge part of girl culture, but they’re not just consigned to girl culture either. They’re inescapable, especially with all the live action remakes Disney keeps foisting on us. And that all began with a girl in a butter yellow skirt who has more gumption than I gave her credit for.

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Next time: I’ll be back with a review of the new live action Snow White next week and a column on 1950’s Cinderella next month. In the meantime, I highly recommend checking out the Disniversity Podcast, which offers a really fascinating crash course in the history of Disney animation.

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