Voyeurism, Humor and Fairy-Tales Lacaille 1

Voyeurism, Humor and Fairy-Tales LaCaille 1

Voyeurism, Humor and Fairy-Tales: A Closer look at Snow White and her Seven Dwarves

Have you ever thought about how a work of art could change over time? Have you ever wondered why it is so easy for us to relate to a fairy tale and/or film? Have you questioned why what makes us laugh, makes us laugh or why we see what we see?

I. Introduction: Snow White is the tale of life that was almost lost. The story is ultimately dark and twisted dealing with jealousy and death yet also uplifting with thoughts of beauty and love. Most fairy-tales have that affect. They “reflect typical, generally human situations and fates1” allowing us, the viewer and/or reader, to relate to the story and become the character through what Mulvey and Freud would describe as ego libido2. A fairy-tale is therefore dark and twisted because humans are inherently evil. Most people grow jealous at times and wish evil upon another. It is the job of the fairy-tale to exaggerate our horror, sorrow, and evil to make the end re- sult greater and happier. Many tales such as Snow White, though dealing with a large theme such as life almost lost, need some sort of outside source to keep the audience intrigued and buying into the story. Most people will not want to watch a film or read a story that is, though relative to our lives, ultimately depressing. Humor is this cohesive effect3. Though you may not think of Snow White as a necessarily humorous film, there is small bits and quirks of humor laid throughout the film, even in the most serious versions of this fairy-tale that films have tried to portray. This paper intends to explore voyeurism and humor as it is shown through different versions of the Snow White fairy-tale, Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Picha’s Blanche Neige: La Suite and Thompson’s Snow White: The Fairest of Them All.

1 Seifert VI

2 Mulvey 122 and Freud 83

3 Morreal 115 Voyeurism, Humor and Fairy-Tales LaCaille 2

II. Voyeurism in Snow White The idea of how voyeurism should be portrayed has most definitely changed over time. It was once believed that women are the images made for men to look at. She is there to be beautiful, to inspire. As shown in Mulvey’s article, Budd Boetticher states: What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance. Disney’s version of Snow White, created in 1937, shows this old-fashioned view of women.4 Snow White is beautiful. She is looked at. She does not do the looking. She inspires men, the seven dwarfs and prince charming, to help her. In herself, she is not important. This idea holds true for Thompson’s version of Snow White as well, however Snow White questions this idea. She is constantly questioning why people treat her the way they do, why they want to help, why they care for her. She questions what makes beauty beautiful, stating that the queen is beautiful but her heart is not and that she does not want to be considered beautiful if that is what beauty means. She attempts to stop the dwarves from helping her, claiming that it is her problem not theirs and that she does not wish harm to come to them from helping her. This version of Snow White, created in 2001, begins to masculinize the heroine, attempting to take her out of the stage of helplessness that heroines were stuck in for many years. Picha’s version of this fairy-tale then throws Snow White back into the stage of helplessness. Snow White becomes the stereotypical housewife such as the Snow White portrayed in Disney’s version. She is sweet. She is innocent. Men and ogres look at her as an image of beauty. She does not look at them. However, Picha’s portrayal of Snow White is that of a mockery. He is poking fun at the idea of women being represented as such by being as crude and obnoxious as possible. Also, Snow White is not completely helpless. She saves Tom Thumb from the ogre who then falls in love with her. Voyeurism is also shown in Thompson’s version of Snow White as it offers to the audience the aspect of “scopophilic instinct (pleasure in looking at another person as an erotic

4 Mulvey 116 Voyeurism, Humor and Fairy-Tales LaCaille 3 object).5” In this film, whenever the step-mother asks her mirror who the fairest of them all is, the fairest of them all will pop out of the mirror and state “I am, I am the fairest of them all.” This became somewhat repetitive and that is when scopophilic instinct came into play. The beautiful step-mother was laying in bed with her mirror asking the question and Snow White popped out of the mirror, kissed her, and said “I am.” I imagine this would be somewhat erotic for a male spectator to view and so both Snow White and the step-mother became erotic objects within the film. III. Elements of Snow White A. Characters 1. Snow White In all three versions of this fairy-tale, Snow White is portrayed as the epitome of how a woman should be through chauvinistic ideals. She is radiant and fair. She cooks and she cleans. She does what she is told. She is rarely, if ever the bearer of the look and laughter is caused by the actions she takes. It could be argued that Snow White, in both Thompson’s and Disney’s version did bare the look at one point in the film. She looked at Prince Charming and noticed how handsome and dashing his is. However, if a woman does bear this look on a man, something will go terribly wrong as she is not supposed to be the bearer of this look. After Snow White bears this look upon Prince Charming, her step-mother notices. Thompson’s version offers this bearing of the look as directly causing the step-mother to take her course of action throughout the rest of the film, thus by being the bearer of the look upon Prince Charming, she was doomed, something terribly wrong had to happen to her. 2. Step-Mother The step-mother in both Disney’s and Thompson’s version of Snow White represent evil and jealousy. In Picha’s sequel to Snow White, the step-mother is non-existent and so the good fairy takes her place as the representation of evil and jealousy. This evil and jealousy is caused by the step-mother or good fairy by being the bearer of the look. If she were not bearing the look on Prince Charming, she would not be chasing after him, as displayed in Thompson’s and Pi- cha’s versions of Snow White and would therefore not be jealous. She also bears the look upon

5 Mulvey 122 Voyeurism, Humor and Fairy-Tales LaCaille 4 herself as well. She is constantly looking into the mirror for assurance of her beauty. She bears this look upon herself within the mirror because she lacks self-esteem and is dependent on validation.6 This breeds her envy, hate and arrogance which she then pushes onto Snow White who is claimed to be fairer than she. The queen, unknowing, does not realize that part of why Snow White is more fairer than she is because she does not bear such looks and therefore has self-validation or does not need it. These characters, the step-mother(queen) and good fairy, represent how a woman should not be. Though she is beautiful on the outside, she is not beautiful inside. Picha goes a step-further and makes the good fairy somewhat grotesque with huge, sag- ging breasts and a beer belly thus showing her inner beauty, or lack thereof, on the outside. 3. The Dwarves The dwarves were not present in Picha’s version of Snow White, however, they are very important characters to the fairy-tale itself and the other two versions. In Disney’s version of Snow White, the dwarves give the audience a sense of comic relief. They are the primary male role in the film as well. It was earlier stated that fairy-tales reflect human situations. Humor is a great part of human interaction and therefore no fairy-tale can be left without it. These dwarves are shown as the comical characters because Snow White could not be. She is a woman and therefore not portrayed as important enough in the film to be the humorous character, in that time period. However, in Picha’s version, which was made 70 years after Disney’s film, does allow for Snow White to be humorous and the dwarves were not necessary for that role. Thompson’s Snow White attempts to make the dwarves humorous characters as well. They bicker with each other and make fun at each other. They also make a joke at the end of the film saying something along the lines of, next is sleeping beauty. Although the dwarves were in set in humorous roles, this did not mean Snow White could not be funny herself. Hence the kiss scene with her step-mother. This scene would be considered humorous because it plays on the idea of unexpected repetition.7 This film was trying to form a relation between the dwarves and Snow White as equals. People bear looks upon them based on their outward appearance. Snow White is Beautiful. The dwarves are short.

6 Seifert 77

7 Morreall 69 Voyeurism, Humor and Fairy-Tales LaCaille 5

4. Prince Charming Prince Charming in all three versions of Snow White was inspired by Snow White to make him act the way he does. In Picha’s version, women in general inspired Prince Charming. Blanche Neige: La Suite actually took a very different approach to fairy-tales and the story of Snow White as opposed to the other two versions of Snow White. In this film, we follow Prince Charming around. After having saved Snow White, he brings her home to his boudoir and as Snow White describes it, he “puts his little thing in her special place.” He then leaves the next day on horseback to do what it is that men do during the day while the women are at home doing housework. What it is he does during the day was not specified. We then see, however, that what he did during that day was get inspired by both Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella to act like a hero and save them. B. Focus The focus of Disney’s Snow White was to accurately portray the fairy-tale in a feel-good way. This film was meant to be light and so it focused on the dwarves more so than Snow White while still dealing with the fairy-tales ultimate theme of life almost lost. Thompson’s film took a more serious approach to the fairy-tale and offered light humor every so often to keep the audience from becoming depressed. This film focused upon the question of what beauty is. Picha’s film took a crude and obnoxious course in attempt to dismantle the fairy-tale. This film was meant as a mockery of the idea of Prince Charming. IV. Humor in Snow White As there are two forms of voyeurism, scopophilic and ego libido, there are two forms of humor displayed through wit, tendency wit and harmless wit.8 The different versions of Snow White offer examples to both of these. The wit displayed in Picha’s film is strictly tendency wit. It may appear like harmless wit because of the suggestive, obnoxious and crude ways it is shown but it is most definitely tendency wit and not harmless wit. After all, the reputation of prince charming is being harmed. The wit shown in this film is purposive as tendency wit is. The purpose of this wit is to make a mockery of Prince Charming, as stated before. For example, after taking Snow White back to his

8 Piddington 200 Voyeurism, Humor and Fairy-Tales LaCaille 6 boudoir, he wants to have sex with her and tries to do so. However, right before penetration, a squirrel pops out and bites his groin. Snow White says “I think he was searching for nuts.” Prince Charming explains, “I think he’s found some.” This may appear as harmless wit when taken out of context of the film as a whole because it is about sex and sex, in general, is funny.9 Therefore, this could be considered as being wit for its own sake but when taken in account with the context of the film however, this is not wit for its own sake.10 This is wit to undermine how charming prince charming actually is. It is meant to undermine the idea of male as hero. Disney’s Snow White offers harmless wit, or wit for wits sake. Dopey constantly walk- ing into walls and doors does not serve any purpose other than to characterize him as dopey. In fact, none of the humor coming from any of the dwarves serves a purpose other than to characterize these characters and make the film more uplifting by causing humor. Humor in Thomp- son’s version is also harmless wit. It deals with the humor of repetition. The dwarves offer this humor by repeating sayings in different forms. One dwarf will say goodbye, another will say bye bye, another will say au revoir and so on. Humor seems to be more apparent in this set of characters as opposed to anyone character because humor is a social phenomenon. As Morreall states: Laughing together unites people. those who hold the superiority theory of laughter often point to the fact that groups unite in laughter against outsiders as evidence of their theory. But ridicule is not the only kind of group laughter that has a binding effect. To laugh with another person for whatever reason, even if only at a piece of absurdity, is to get closer to that person.11 This is why Snow White becomes so close to the dwarves. They have bonded over humor. They have joined in group laughter against the grumpiest dwarves, Wednesday in Thompson’s version and Grumpy in Disney’s version, at times. The queen or step-mother does not offer humor to any of the three versions of Snow White discussed within this paper. This is because, as stated earlier, the queen is unhappy with

9 Barrecca 150

10 Piddington 200

11 Morreall 115 Voyeurism, Humor and Fairy-Tales LaCaille 7 herself, she needs to find validation. Because she has not learned to trust herself, she is unable to joke or appreciate a joke.12 V. Conclusion Through different versions of the Snow White fairy-tale, Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Picha’s Blanche Neige: La Suite and Thompson’s Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, it has been shown in this paper it has been shown that even the unlikeliest of stories will support the ideas of voyeurism and humor in film. A film should not be without either, even the most serious of films. A film could have a lot of voyeurism and little humor or little voyeurism and a lot of humor but it will never be without both, even in fairy-tales such as Snow White, where you would quite expect either parties to be involved.

12 Barreca 125