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About Snow White, The Prince And The Trauma (And Greta Gerwig Stuck In A Mirror)

Well friends, it has officially started. I have received requests to roast the new Live Action Snow White, the moment it appears and I don't even want to see it hahah. I have been working on a new video essay about the glorification of male abuse in Gerwig's movies, and I hope to release it before Christmas.

Here are my thoughts about the original animated Snow White from the 1930s and the fairy tale and the meaning of the prince. When I post this I have not seen Gerwig’s live-action Snow White and I don’t know if I have the stomach to watch another movie where she tries to shovel white feminism down my throat. According to the leading actress and the director, there is not going to be a prince in the movie, dwarfs are idiots and Snow White is a girl boss.

To be honest I don’t think Greta Gerwig cares at all about feminism or any of the original sources of her movies. I think she only cares about fame and money. The reason why I dislike white feminism or pop feminism, however, you like to call it, is because it is never about equality. It always tends to be more about misogyny. It is not about equality to all genders, body types, or races, it is all about ”I am superior to you”. When I heard that she was going to direct the live-action Snow White, my first thought was ” That is very ironic”, because at its core Snow White is a story about the destruction of narcissism, but when it comes to this live-action, all I see is Snow White messaging ”I am not the fairest of them all, am superior to you all”.

But what if I don’t want Snow White to be a girl boss? What if I like her just the way she is? with all those Beth March vibes and all.

The prince is not very present in the 1937 animation, which I think is a bit of a shame, he seems like a good guy. I would have given him more screen time. There is a German story called Richilde, which is an early retelling of Snow White and it is believed to have inspired the Brothers Grimm to write their own version. In Richilde after the prince saves Snow White, they actually start plotting together against the evil queen. It is quite nice that there is at least one version, where the prince is more active and I always support a couple getting to know each other before the wedding.

I always thought that the evil queen killed Snow White’s parents. We know that she wants power. Maybe she killed the first queen and tricked the king to marry herself and I guess she left Snow White alive, because killing her might cause suspicions and perhaps she wanted a free slave to herself.

When I think about the prince, I think he is a crucial part of Snow White’s recovery. Specifically recovery from trauma. Let’s imagine she is five years old when the queen murders her parents. Queen forces her to be a slave at her own home. She needs to do the laundry, cook her meals, and wash the stairs. Together with all that labour, she very likely experiences physical abuse and emotional abuse. You can not show this directly in a Disney film, but I’d say the scene where the old witch brings her the apple, is a very good example of emotional manipulation.

If you grow up in this kind of environment, where someone is a narcissist, there is always gas lighting. We know that Snow White likes to think the best of people, she might have thought something in these lines ”oh the queen didn’t think I was productive enough today, so she only gave me dry bread to eat, at least she remembered me”.

Small gestures of caring, might appear bigger in the mind of the victim, than they are in reality. She eats the apple because she feels sorry for the old woman, but also because the witch is pressuring her to eat the apple, and Snow White is conditioned from a very young age, to believe that abuse is normal.

Another 13 year old girl in the middle ages, might not have done the same, not if they recognized that it was manipulation. Narcissistic people play mind games, so much that they twist your views on reality.

It is possible that when Snow White lives in the palace, other servants were told not to be friends with her, otherwise the queen would punish them, which would also explain why we only see her having animal friends at the palace.

She has a kind heart, which is why the dwarfs like her and the prince falls in love with her, but if we think about her trauma,

this 13-year-old girl has faced years and years of emotional and physical abuse from the queen.

The queen killed her parents and made her to be her slave,

Snow White was forced to escape to the woods at night, which can be a scary experience even for an adult,

queen tried to kill her friends,

the queen tried to kill her more than once

the queen put her into a coma.

That's a lot of trauma. She is 13 years old. It’s child abuse.

The way I see it, the prince represents the possibility for Snow White to heal from the trauma. Sometimes you hear stories of people who have been abused as kids, and there are those who thrive, and those who are prisoners of their trauma, The people who thrive, are the ones who have at least one person in their life who helped them through the traumatic experience. It can be a spouse, a friend or a good therapist.

It would be very difficult for Snow White to find a trauma therapist from Middle Age Germany, but with the Prince, there is a promise of a better future, and him being stable person and someone who unconditionally loves Snow White, she can recover from these traumatic experiences and get that emotional support from him and truly live happily ever after.

P.S. Since the live action is a Gerwig film, bet your life, any form of male abuse is normalized and there is going to be a big speech from a leading lady, how the world is against her, because she is a woman. If instead of pop feminism, she would focus on trying to fix the unequal system that she is always complaining about, maybe her characters wouldn't have these problems..

but then she could not be the center of attention, could she?

@selkiesstories @heather-field @princesssarisa @fandomsarefamily1966 @thatscarletflycatcher @mysoftboybensolo @librarydame @rainbowmilk1996

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✧ In obvious ways they were strikingly different: Louis beginning to put on weight, Antoinette slim; he steady, she quick; he reserved, she open; he with few close friends, she with many; he awkward, she majestic; he seeing the dark side, she the bright; he a keen reader, she bored by books; he unmusical, she happy with harp and clavichord. But at a deeper level they possessed traits in common. Both had a lot of heart: they felt for those less fortunate than themselves, they loved their children and were happiest when with them. Both had a sense of duty and wanted above everything to do their job well. – Louis and Antoinette by Vincent Cronin

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Louis XVI being awkward, attentive and kind in Marie Antoinette (2006, directed by Sofia Coppola)

Part 1 | Part 2

I am convinced that if I had to choose a husband from the three brothers, I would still prefer the one heaven gave me. His character is steadfast and although he is awkward, he is as attentive and as kind as possible to me.

     - Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa in December 1775

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On the 19th of December the king said to me while dining:  "Fourteen years ago you got up earlier than you did to-day.“  I understood His Majesty at once.  "That was the day my daughter was born,” he continued tenderly, “and to-day, her birthday, I am deprived of seeing her!”  A few tears rolled from his eyes, and a respectful silence reigned for a moment.  

JOURNAL OF THE TOWER OF THE TEMPLE DURING THE CAPTIVITY OF LOUIS XVI. BY CLÉRY

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⌑ “The Dauphine ran to find the Dauphin…and embraced him tenderly, saying: ‘My dear husband, I love you more each day. The more I compare you with the others, the better I know that you are worth more than all of them.’” (1771)

⌑ “Kissing Mme la Dauphine, [Louis] said to her, “But do you love me?” [She] answered, ‘Yes, you cannot doubt it, I love you sincerely and respect you even more.’” (1773)

⌑ “[Louis] spoke to [Antoinette] in an infinitely…tender manner, saying amongst other things that he loved her with all his heart and that he could swear to her he had never had the least feeling or sentiment for any woman, but for her alone.” (1779)

⌑ “Above all [Louis] spoke of the Queen. ‘If they only knew what she is worth. If they only knew to what height of perfection she has raised herself since our misfortunes began, they would revere and cherish her.’” (1792)

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The noise and the sex of the infant, with which the Queen was made acquainted by a signal previously agreed on, as it is said, with the Princesse do Lamballe, or some error of the accoucheur, brought on symptoms which threatened fatal consequences; the accoucheur exclaimed, “Give her air—warm water—she must be bled in the foot!” The windows were stopped up; the King opened them with a strength which his affection for the Queen gave him at the moment. They were of great height, and pasted over with strips of paper all round. The basin of hot water not being brought quickly enough, the accoucheur desired the chief surgeon to use his lancet without waiting for it. He did so; the blood streamed out freely, and the Queen opened her eyes.

Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette - Madame Campan

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The relationship between Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette is often oversimplified and minimized into stereotypes or at best, overshadowed by the theory of the Dashing Romantic Swede Affair.

On the other hand, it’s important to understand the type of love they shared when we discuss the dynamic between Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

To quote Madame de Mackau in a letter written to her husband about potential nuptials between Madame Elisabeth and Joseph II:  “But, my friend, people up there don’t get married for happiness…”

And this holds true for the relationship between Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. They were not passionate lovers who fell swooning into each other’s arms and ran off to the local church to get married and start a life together; they did not fall in love at first sight, harps plucking and cupids dancing in the background.

At the first, they were two young teenagers who were paired together solely for political and dynastic purposes. Their relationship was founded not on love or even a mutual agreeable affection–it was founded on pure politics, politics which were uncaring of any feeling they might have (or develop) towards one another. They represented their respective countries, and their duty was to marry and reproduce in order to cement an alliance between said countries: their individuality and preferences didn’t matter.

Over time, however, they grew to appreciate and love one another. Marie Antoinette grew to respect–as she wrote–her husband’s “solid worth,” particularly when compared to his brothers. Louis XVI grew to adore his wife, so much so that he is often described today as describing her like a “mistress,” since it was the affection-chosen mistress–not the politically-chosen wife–who was the actual love of the king of France.

This type of love is somewhat difficult to approach from our 21st century conception of a loving marriage. It is not ordinary romantic love–for they did not love each other when they married–but a love that was nurtured between two people over years of shared experiences.

Their love was borne of a mutually shared position in life, a situation they never expected to realistically control. Marriage, for people in their station, was about alliances and duty. Love, if it happened between a political married couple, was a luxury. And love was certainly not something that every politically married couple enjoyed–George IV and his wife Caroline of Brunswick being just one strong example of a loveless political marriage.

Yet love did happen between this couple, who had practically opposite personalities, who faced immense pressure from the first moments of their marriage, who faced both internal and external stressors that created conflict in their personal and public roles as wife/husband and queen/king, and who ultimately decided to remain together with their children regardless of the danger than separate.

It was this love which guided Louis XVI to lament to one of his lawyers about the French people’s view of his wife and to bitterly say, again and again: “If only they knew what she is worth.”

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The Charity of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI

“My dear heart, our tenderness for this child should be stern. We must not forget that we are educating him not for ourselves, but for the nation. The first impressions of childhood are so strong that I am, in truth, frightened when I think that we are bringing up the king.” excerpt from letter of Marie Antoinette to Madame de Tourzel in regards to her son Louis Charles (Louis XVII)

More often, he [Louis Charles] accompanied his mother in her round of charity. When the queen visited the hospitals or the poor, she took her son with her, and was careful that he himself distributed the alms which she left in the garrets. Sometimes they went to the Gobelins; and the president of the district coming on one occasion to compliment her, she said, “Monsieur, you have many destitute; but the moments which we spend in relieving them are very precious to us.” Sometimes she went to the free Maternity Society which she had founded, where she had authorized the Sisters to distribute sixteen hundred livres for food and fuel every month, and twelve hundred for blankets and clothing, without counting the baby outfits which were given to three hundred mothers. At other times she went to the School of Design, also founded by her, to which she sent one day twelve hundred livres saved with great effort, that the rewards might not be diminished nor the dear scholars suffer through her own distress. Again, she placed in the house of Mademoiselle O’Kennedy four daughters of disabled soldiers, ― orphans, for whom, she said, “I made the endowment.”

Royal family at the foundling hospital, 1790

But that which most strongly attracted the dauphin, as if by a mysterious presentiment, was the Foundling Hospital. Marie Antoinette took him there often; and the gratitude of these poor children expressed itself in acclamations, which was most agreeable to him; they shouted often, “Vive le roi!” and not unfrequently, “Vive la reine!” The young prince always left the hospital with reluctance, and all his little savings were devoted to the relief of these little unfortunates.

One day his father came upon him as he was putting some écus into a pretty little box which had been given him by his aunt, Madame Elisabeth. “What, Charles,” he exclaimed with a look of displeasure, “you hoard your money like a miser?” The child blushed, but recovering immediately, replied, “Yes, father, I am miserly; but it is for the foundlings. Ah, if you could see them! They are truly pitiable!” The king bent over his son, and embracing him with an effusion of joy which he seldom experienced now, said to him, “In that case, my child I will help you fill your little box.”

Source:  The Life of Marie Antoinette, Volume 2, by Maxime de La Rocheterie; Translated from the French by Cora Hamilton Bell; New York, Dodd Mead and Company 1893. Pg. 68-69.

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Okay, everyone always talks about how tall G Wash was, but what about this bitch?!???? Dude was one inch away from being moose height and I didn’t learn until today?!????

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Had to draw the royal family ok I’m soft of Louis the science nerd and his wife, Marie the prom queen. Help me Jesus this game is swallowing me whole

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At the period of his grandfather’s death, Louis XVI. began to be exceedingly attached to the Queen. The first period of so deep a mourning not admitting of indulgence in the diversion of hunting, he proposed to her walks in the gardens of Choisy; they went out like husband and wife, the young King giving his arm to the Queen, and accompanied by a very small suite.

The influence of this example had such an effect upon the courtiers that the next day several couples, who had long, and for good reasons, been disunited, were seen walking upon the terrace with the same apparent conjugal intimacy. Thus they spent whole hours, braving the intolerable wearisomeness of their protracted tete-a-tetes, out of mere obsequious imitation.

–Madame Campan, Memoirs

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An adorable illustration of Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, and three of their children at the Hameau de la Reine, posted on the Instagram of the Chateau de Versailles.

Source

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“The Dauphin appeared to have more timidity than his little wife. He trembled excessively during the service and blushed up to his eyes when he gave the ring - [twelve had been made, so that one would be sure to fit]. When mass began and they presented him with a book, he looked quite relieved to have an excuse for not looking about him.

So Louis and Antoinette promised to be faithful to each other unto death and were pronounced man and wife by Archbishop de La Roche Aymon. Antoinette was a little nervous too and when signing the register made a blot with her pen.

Louis and Antoinette - Vincent Cronin

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Antoinette’s first reaction to Louis, we do not know. But we do have the view of the Duchess of Northumberland, who was staying with Choisuel’s friend, the Maréchale de Mirepoix , and like Antoinette had been given an unfavourable report of Louis.

“I expected to have found him horrid,” she noted in her diary, “But on the contrary his figure pleas’d me very well. He is tall and slender with a countenance très intéressant and a look of good sense, his complexion is rather pale and his eyes are large. He has a great quantity of fair hair which grows very well to his face.”

Louis’s first reaction to Antoinette was probably also one of agreeable surprise, for all those close to him were predisposed against Austria and had seized on any points against her. She was certainly a very pretty girl, with not very full breasts, beautiful arms and hands, eyes as blue as his own and a rose and white complexion. She was less tall than he:  “very little and slender”, according to the Duchess of Northumberland. “I should not have taken her to be above twelve years old. She is fair and a little marked with smallpox.”

Louis and Antoinette - Vincent Cronin

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He looked up suddenly and saw Antoinette. She was in a gallery close to the altar, and he saw that she was leaning forward and that she was quietly weeping.

He paused and she smiled at him through her tears, while many witnessed their exchange of glances, sensing their emotion and their affection in those long looks they gave each other. Some wept, and all applauded, crying: “Long live the King and his Queen!”

It was a moving moment, a departure from tradition; and never, it was said, were there a King and a Queen so devoted to one another as this King and Queen.

As soon as he was able he joined Antoinette. She held out her hands to him and lifted her face to his.

“We will always be together,” said Louis.

She nodded mutely, for she, who was much more easily moved than he was, had at this time nothing to say.

Flaunting, Extravagant Queen - Jean Plaidy

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……the King went up to the Queen’s bed, and said to her, “Madame, you have fulfilled my wishes and those of France: you are the mother of a Dauphin.” The King’s joy was boundless; tears streamed from his eyes; he gave his hand to every one present; and his happiness carried away his habitual reserve. Cheerful and affable, he was incessantly taking occasion to introduce the words, “my son,” or “the Dauphin.”

Memoirs of Marie Antoinette - Madame Campan