The Queen, after all, is a ruler. Her word is law. Why would she turn herself into a hideous crone in order to get to Snow White, whom she could just have arrested and, if she so preferred, executed. Tudor Era queens Mary and Elizabeth both did in women and girls who got in their way. Neither one of them splashed their own faces with acid in order to do so.
I think it ultimately works because so much of the movie is based on dream logic. In a dream you can be getting chased through the woods by a bear who is also at the same time your high school algebra teacher. The character's terrifying forward impulse takes the lead, and the faces ultimately fade into the background.
1 comment:
Yes, Snow herself was a little boring but the point was her vulnerability and weakness. The story always belonged to the Evil Queen, the one who wanted the most: the most beauty, the most power. She wanted it so badly that she’d change her shape, she’d maim, she’d kill. She understood desire, and embraced it.
In the original Brothers Grimm tale*, the Evil Queen was made to dance on hot coals at Snow White’s wedding not because she had wild desires, but because she made wild decisions. We think about desire in terms of what it makes us to do: overeat, cheat, steal, abandon, poison, kill. Yet desire itself isn't dangerous - the feeling itself isn't something to fear. We simply must do as children do and learn to distinguish between the imaginary and the real.
* I wish I still had my copy of #17 of the Five Foot Shelf of Books (Aesop, Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson - the original stories).
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