About the shadows living in the mirror

Well, I did it. I went to see Snow White and the Huntsman (warning: there may be a couple of spoilers ahead). The movie in general wasn’t as good as it could’ve been, but not as bad either, I’d say 5 out of 10. I have to admit, though, that the visual effects were gorgeous, and they did make one of the cutest Troll I’ve seen lately (yes, very cute). They did change the story quite a bit, and they had to, otherwise, this would’ve lasted no more than thirty minutes; it is a fairy tale, after all. But in the remake they managed to do something all the other versions (in my opinion) failed to do: They humanized the “Evil Queen,” and part of this achievement, of course, is thanks to Charlize Theron, but he writers did a very good job with her character, too. So, I’d like to take a closer look at what the writers and Charlize did with Ravenna.

The Evil Queen is usually portrayed as a very unidimensional character: A retelling of Narcissus’ myth. Who was Narcissus you want to know? Glad you asked. There are two stories about Narcissus; the first is about a beautiful flower Zeus (the boss of bosses in Olympus) created to help his brother, Hades, King of the underworld, kidnap, sorry I meant “sweep off her feet,” the woman he had fallen in love with, Persephone (another interesting story I might write about later). So, Zeus designs the cute, little, fragrant flower and poor Persephone has the terrible luck of seeing it by the river bed one day. She was so mesmerized by the flower, she had to have it. Unfortunately, before she could take it, the ground opened and a black carriage kidnapped, I mean brought, brought her to her lovely future and loving husband, King of the Underworld and hopeless romantic, Hades.The first time I read this I was left with this uneasy feeling of “beauty is dangerous and you can manipulate that danger to control other people’s lives” feeling, which is why Snow Withe’s Evil Queen reminds me of this; she, too manipulated her beauty to control people, and became very dangerous while doing it.

The second story about Narcissus is very different, but is probably the most popular one (or at least the one I’ve heard about the most in pop culture). Narcissus was a beautiful man who never considered any maiden or nymph good enough for him (there’s a beautiful and heartbreaking story of a nymph called Echo, but I’ll write about her later). He left scores of young scorned lovers dedicate to praying to the gods to punish him. This went on for years, until finally Nemesis (whose name means “righteous anger,” I love that) decided to take matters into her own hands, and give Narcissus a taste of what he was putting others through: She cursed him to see his reflection in a pool of water. What was Narcissus’ reaction? Here’s a hint: Where does the word “narcissist” come from? Exactly. The moment he saw his reflection, he fell in love with it and couldn’t bear to part from it. He lived out the rest of his days staring at his reflection in the water. It is said that where he died, grew a patch of a beautiful flower which the nymphs called “narcissus” in his honor. In this case, too, Narcissus fell victim to beauty (this time his own).

Both versions of Narcissus’ story are cautionary tales against the power of beauty, just like Snow White’s Evil Queen. Specially the second one, with the reflection in the water versus the Queen’s mirror. This is the classical, traditional take on the Evil Queen: A woman who uses beauty as a source of power, like Zeus and Hades did, and later a woman who succumbs because of her obsession with beauty, like Narcissus, the man, did. Now, the writers of the movie went beyond these ideas. They started exploring the price the Evil Queen paid for her obsession with beauty and even more, they made some very interesting social commentary when they addressed the origins of her obsession with youth and absolute beauty.

Ravenna, aka the Evil Queen, wasn’t always evil. She was once a little girl whose village was destroyed by invaders. Another woman (probably her mother), put a spell on her to grant her absolute beauty that became the source of her magical powers. Unfortunately for Ravenna, the spell could only be broken by beauty greater than hers. This is why she was obsessed with being the most beautiful woman of the kingdom: it was the only way she could hang on to life as she knew it. This last bit is what got me: For this woman, the only way to keep the life she has is to comply with society’s (represented by her mother, a figure of authority in charge of educating her) demand that she remain “beautiful,” regardless of what she needs to do to remain so. And the saddest part is that Ravenna feels she has to do whatever it takes to remain beautiful, lest the mirror tells her she’s not “the fairest of them all” anymore and life as she knows it ends.

The mirror is the tool that creates the expectations (it shows her the image she needs to pursue), and also what compels her to act, by reminding her that there’s someone out there who’s prettier and potentially more powerful. The mirror is telling her what she should become, and Ravenna, in turn, feels the need to comply. She becomes a slave to the mirror and the ideas it puts in her head. But this is all a fairy tale, right? Then, why am I thinking about, oh, I don’t know, teenagers and fashion magazines, celebrities and fashion designers, women obsessed with their body weight and plastic surgery, trying to hang on to eternal youth and beauty? Weird ... The thing I loved most about the way Ravenna was portrayed is that she was a woman subjected to very modern pressures.

For centuries, women have been expected to live up to the whole archetype of beauty. This is why we wrote fairy tales and princesses are always pretty and find a handsome prince, and live happily ever after, because we’ve come to believe that beauty is good, beauty is wise, beauty is fame, beauty is success, beauty is power. But we fail to remember the dangers of beauty: The kind of beauty that can lead us to hell if we pursue it blindly, like Persephone did, and the kind of beauty we become so obsessed with, that our lives become an endless chase for it, like Narcissus’. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look good, and feeling attractive, but it becomes a problem when we begin to feel it is our obligation to comply with a certain cannon of beauty or our life will not be what we want to. When we do that, we give control to the shadows that live inside the mirror, like Ravenna did, and we all know how that ends.

The ending of the movie, though, is somewhat different form the traditional fairy tale, and it has a lot o do with the way they portrayed Snow White but I think I’ve rambled long enough today, so, I’ll save it for the next time, but I will leave you with this: