Little Snow White is one of the subjects of my seminar, Leadership in Literature. The story, like so many of those the Grimm brothers gathered, originates somewhere back in time. There is also a Celtic version of this story. It is titled, Silvertree and Goldtree. The plots in both stories are the same, i.e., the devouring mother, a detached father, and a daughter that outshines the mother. In Silvertree and Goldtree, a well or a pond, with a talking trout, is substituted for the talking mirror.
I love the talking trout, as I love telling this story. You can see my recorded version here.
The theme of these two stories is about evil that devours beauty, and how beauty needs protecting. Indeed, we see this issue up close and personal as terrorists destroy paintings and statues, whilst they censor time tested literature, all in the name of their cause. Their cause, by the way, is to change the world over, into their way of thinking. The progressives have a vision, and they demand you become a part of it. Or else. These terrorist create nothing of beauty, nothing to fulfill humanity’s stomach, nor anything that would give a body a reason to get up in the morning. They are destroyers: Nothing more, nothing less.
Some folks say the destroyers, aka, the woke, are mentally ill. Is Snow White’s mother mentally ill? Is Silvertree? Is Putin? What about those individuals in Iran who arrested a young woman for not covering her hair? If we place all those bitter, angry people in mental institutions, will they get better? If we give them a hug, how will that work out?
It will work out as well as it did in these stories. It didn’t work out. Which is to say, the remedy is to smash evil. Because the only good devouring mother, is a dead devouring mother.
The latest devouring mother can be found in Hollywood, at Disney, to be more exact. I admit, I have a real irritation when it comes to Disney, and what that company has done to history and mythology. That aside, at least they bring the stories to people’s attention. My irritation is that the Disney folks tone down the dark stuff, and do not give us the proper heroes. Because the hero in Snow White is not the Prince. The Prince is basically a chap who gets fixated on a catatonic, lovely young woman. The real hero in this story, is the guy who moves the body, which then dislodges the poisoned apple. None of this kiss and wake up business. The Prince is passive, and the working guy is active, busy doing his job. He solves the problem, not the Prince.
Should the princess marry the working guy? In the seminar, we will discuss that very question.
Back to the subject; the dwarfs. The dwarfs in Snow White are working guys. Miners. Now here is the interesting twist in this saga of Disney’s current production of Snow White. It is not an animated film. And that has brought on a new set of issues. A casting problem. So the question for the creative team, became, is it woke to use actual dwarfs to play the seven dwarfs?
I kid you not.
The movie biz has never had this problem before. Because they were not woke before. Thank the gods for that. Now here is the conundrum. One of the sticking points of the actors guild strike is this idea that AI will use their image, but not their physical selves, to act in films. That actors will be made irrelevant by CGI (Computer Generated Images.)
When I first read that story about CGI, I thought, no way. But then another story was brought to my attention by a friend, concerning the new version of Snow White. The creative team on this project, supposedly, questioned the idea of using, real live dwarf actors in this production.
Am I kidding? Nope.
Essentially, their enlightenment is like all current progressive enlightenment. Let’s erase people that we are uncomfortable with. So the creative team came up with this harebrained idea to use one dwarf actor to play all seven. That means that all the dwarfs would be CGIs.
Here is how Newsweek put it:
“Instead of hiring individual actors with dwarfism for the roles, Disney cast Martin Klebba to play all seven parts, using CGI for scenes with the dwarfs together.”
The reason actors are concerned about CGI/AI, is because they have a reason to be concerned. Nonetheless, the question I would put to Disney is this: In the new Snow White, did you exclude the dwarfs because of the money, and the woke thing is your excuse? Or are you, the creative team, against equity of salaries for all the actors in this movie? Is that why you don’t include the dwarf actors? I mean, one actor to portray all those characters? Where is your devotion to diversity?
The woke are full of their own ignorant shit.
Let’s look at a bit of the history of dwarfs in the West. Firstly, they have been around for thousands of years. And they were contributing members of their civilization because of their size, not in spite of it. In Snow White, those 7 guys, Disney gave them those cute names, not the brothers Grimm, were men doing a rough job. Mining has always been a high risk endeavor. As in men get killed in mining accidents. The dwarf male was valued because he could go places the average sized Joe could not. Meaning the small men in the story were not “cute” but contributing members to their society.
Those men are also the protectors, make that, active fathers, to Snow White. What the movie does not show is how they caution her to not let any strangers into the cottage.
BTW, the other man in this story, and I don’t use this term lightly, is the huntsman, who refused to kill Snow White. And the king, Snow Whites’s father? Where the hell is he?
Dwarf men were also the court jesters, to monarchs. These were the smart and savvy men, who learned to walk a fine line, politically. Women dwarfs were also employed by the wealthy. Many a dwarf reared a royal child. The idea behind this is that their children had an adult companion that was nearer their size. Many a princess grew up with her dwarf nanny, forever a part of her family.
Was this an equitable situation? Not always, no. What is important, in the study of history, is that one earns stuff that is useful information. About people. Good and bad. Looking at this with perspective, having a job in a wealthy household is a whole lot better than mining, or going hungry. Some of the positions the dwarfs had were crap. Some were fantastic. It is a universal situation. Today, we believe in treating all human beings with dignity. Well, some of us do. Those progressives do much talking about dignity, but fail the smell test.
My theory on the woke is that anything they champion is a part of their loathings. Their own sins haunt them, so instead of fixing themselves, they want to fix the world. It is the hypocrisy complex. They want to remove the speck in our eyes, whilst keeping the beam in their own. They desire to be saviors. Like Stalin and Hitler, and imams in Iran. They are megalomaniacs. They make Trump look like a choir boy, with his ideas on making America great again. The MAGAs are naive. The MEGAS are out for blood, with their take no prisoners, attitudes. If they cannot get you dead, physically, getting you dead socially will do just as well. Either way, you are out of their life, and now they can move on to others.
The important aspect is their lust for power. If one wants to change the world, one has to be a Napoleon or a Stalin or a Castro. Running roughshod over people is what they do. They don’t just want followers. They want worshipers, soldiers and whores.
It is a good thing that others are having their own woke experience. Like the actors who are dwarfs. All actors walk political tightropes. So do writers, directors, and producers, and the many technical people the movie industry employs. It always was a strange industry, this offshoot of the theatre arts. It’s a small world, with too many people chasing too few jobs.
Acting jobs for individuals with dwarfism, are even more scarce. And losing out to a computer is the highest insult of them all.
The release for the new movie on Snow White, has been delayed, twice. Its new release date is March, 2025. Hopefully, the creative team gets the message, and hires seven dwarf men to play the parts. And, maybe, just maybe, they will use the original ending the Grimm brothers gave us; it is not the prince that awakens Snow White. It is the working man.