Snow White, the Later Years

A talk about the fairytales we grew up on, and how disturbing and mind-boggling it can be when you read them as an adult. There are always messages coming at us from the culture of our time - it’s not just fairytales of course, it’s films, television shows, things we learn from our families of origin, whatever is in the zeitgeist - those messages permeate everything. They are the water we’re swimming in. They help shape the ideas we have about ourselves, the world around us, and our place in it.

When you hear stories and see films again and again where there is a damsel in distress and a knight in shining armor who saves the day, or a prince who comes to break the spell with “love’s true kiss” it doesn’t occur to you as a child to question anything. You’re a little sponge. You’re being taught that girls and women need saving. You don’t stop to consider that Snow White is fourteen and comatose when the prince comes upon her in the forest, that he’s thirty-one, and that consent isn’t even in the mix. Sometimes you can reach the middle of your life and realize things don’t feel the way you thought they would, and your best bet is to start writing a better story. You have to be your own hero, and if you need saving, you’d better get busy saving yourself. You’re the only one who can.

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