MovieChat Forums > Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) Discussion > Why was Snow White drawn to look like a ...

Why was Snow White drawn to look like a 12-year-old?


She's making out with a grown man at the end!

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She was about 12 years old in the original fairytale. They married very young in those days. Snow White in this version is 14 years old. Sometimes she looks older to me in later scenes of the movie.

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So Disney thought it was okay for a barely-developed 14-year-old to be carried off by a grown man at the end? Eew!

One thing about movies made during the height of the Production Code, they had to be extremely sneaky about getting perversity in.

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[deleted]

It's not Disney's fault. It's historical fact. It really happened in past and was acceptable to society. The movie was set in the Middle Ages. Fairy tale love followed the same suit. Although not completely, otherwise every story would have been like Game of Thrones - Marriage for Convinence, not for love. Oh don't know. Perhaps they drew her that way to match her personality. Sweet, innocent, youthful, girl-next-door.

Also I made a mistake about Snow White's age in the original fairytale. And with this I agree with you on the matter. In original fairytale, she was 7 years old! Based on that I think Disney knew audiences wouldn't accept a child bride so they made her older but not too old and not womanly in order to keep her innocent.

The Prince is only supposed to be a few years older. Not a massive age gap like Flynn/Eugene and Rapunzel - Flynn is 26 and Rapunzel is 18 but looks like a little girl.

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[deleted]

She was 14 in this, plus, she was probably developed but was small for her age had a small chest. Which happens to a lot of girls.

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Where did you hear she's officially 14?

And what do you think of grown men who kiss 14-year-old girls and carry them off into the sunset?

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It's possible that the prince is a teenager himself....probably 17 or 18.

After all, we know very little about him!

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Well I think that my opinion is worthless when it comes to a case where something was just normal back in another era...

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No, even in the1930s it wasn't normal.

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Is the story set in 1930? Nope. It's obviously not even set in our world but more in a fantasy world. Nevertheless, the way house are built, the way the characters are dressed and the general passing suggest that the story is set in a past... Far past. Before the "electricity" kind of past. And before the 1900s, yes, it was normal.

And then, in case you were referring more to the fact that even showing it on screed wasn't normal, I have to contradict you a little bit. Of course it wasn't socially "normal" even back then. But, showing it on screen wasn't necessarily perceived as "bad taste" as it would be today. People, back then, weren't such PC pussies like we are today. It's not like if we would had seen Snow White being raped by the seven draws. We simply talk about an innocent kiss.

To prove you my point, think about Gone With the Wind made in the same decade. It won 9 Oscars, achieved a cult status, praised by almost any critics even today and showed a new standard (color picture) which two decades later became the basic way to shoot movies.

Now... Do you know that Scarlet O'Hara is meant to be... 14 at the point we start the story? And when we start it she's about to have her THIRD husband (unless my memory plays tricks on me). Today, people would go bat shit about how inappropriate this movie is based on this little detail while ignoring the fact that what surrounds it is one of the biggest and most innovative masterpieces of all time.

So yeah, my point stands... Different times, different people.

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Scarlett was 16 at the start of the story, not 14. I've read the book, and the author pointed out that rich Southern girls finished what little education they had by 16 and set out to find a husband at that age. And that after being widowed at 17, Scarlett went back on the social circuit after a while, and found that a widow of 19 (with a kid) was no longer the belle of the ball, all the younger girls were! This was carefully outlined for readers of the 1930s, who obviously had different expectations for young women.

I'll tell you the story of a girl who did marry legally at 13, in the 1930s. Ever see "Gypsy", the story of burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee, and her sister June Havoc? Well June did marry at 13, married legally. She got sick of vaudeville and her monstrous stage mother, and married the first boy who asked, just to get away. She was still a vaudeville "child star" at 13, her family thought of her as a little girl, and they were horrified to find out that the state they were in allowed children of 13 to marry legally. They were as far from well-educated or high class as could be, and Rose the horrible stage mother had married at 16 in the 1910s, but even they were aghast to find out that it was legal for kids that age to marry in the US.

I read the autobiographies of both sisters, fascinating reads. And BTW when June married at 13 to a boy of 14 or 15, they didn't have sex for a couple of years... because neither of them knew what to do when they were alone together! Unlike today, nobody talked to 1930s kids of that age about sex, much less expected them to be getting married.

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Well okay I didn't expect such a long answer for my comment just to prove me wrong but okay... Whatever...

The two next paragraphs weren't really necessary but okay.... And come on, don't be so ignorant... Everyone, by instinct, "knows" about sex from the moment they reach the age of puberty. Of course we don't know how it works or what consequences might come with this. But in a way or another, when two people get intimate they don't need a guide to discover how it's done even without any education.

Well at least prior to my first time I had sex, the only somehow "useful" education I had about it, came from porn. Sex ed classes were total horseshit in my school (and apparently the whole city). They sure gave us a little trauma by showing graphic picture of STDs... But that was pretty much the only remotely handy information we received.

However, my first time I didn't need a guide to instruct me what to do, and I did it at a pretty early age.

My point being, "they didn't know how sex was done" is utter bullshit.

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I'm not saying that people in the 1930s didn't know how sex was done, I'm saying that one person wrote in her autobiography that neither she nor her husband knew how sex was done when they married as teenagers in the 1930s.

They had a baby a few years later, so they did figure it out.

And if I am going on an on, it's because I'm interested in varying sexual attitudes through history.

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OMG I am SO sorry for this confusion. Of course between the time she was 14 and 16 she became a full grown woman! So yeah sorry, thid makes this whole story way less creepy by today's standards!

*rolls eyes*

Now to be serious: what is your fucking point anyways? 14 or 16 there not a big difference, she was still a retarded fucking child dating a 30+ years old guy.

So I guess you came with this argument to legitimize the fact that you are a 40+ years old creep who's fucking a 16 years old child thinking that "she is SUCH an adult".

Your intervention was pointless so shut the fuck up moron.

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You are a strange, sad, little man.

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I don't think she looks like a 12 year old at all. She looks about 16.

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She does, but apparently she's only 14.

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She doesn't seem THAT young to me. but for the sake of argument:

The Disney artists did not know how to animate a realistic human female. To get the proper proportions they put a football helmet on a model's head and filmed her doing Snow White's moves for reference. They did a cartoon called "Goddess of Spring" before Snow White where they attempted to do a realistic woman but they didn't quite pull it off so they knew they needed live action reference material for the animators to learn.
Some of these animators were attending art classes in the evening but many were largely used to "rubber hose" animation and characters like Minnie Mouse. Disney was adding new artists all during production of this movie.

As someone else also noted, age gaps were more common back then but some assumptions I'm reading about the Prince being waaaaay older don't really fit. I think he was intended to be a couple of years older, but not in his twenties or thirties. The voice actor's singing voice may sound very low but as is often the case with animated cartoons, voice actors are cast to play a role a certain way. Disney was very aware of the role music needed to play in this film and the most important thing was probably to have a guy who could sing.

Addendum: According to this article, she was intended to be a 14 year old
https://www.distractify.com/entertainment/2018/08/14/1BLf2p/disney-princess-designs

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A 14-year-old being carried off by a prince at the end is still gross!

Ew ew ew ew ew.

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Yeah. I guess fairy tales are pretty messed up sometimes. Lol.

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Ever read "The Robber Bridegroom" from the Grimm Fairy Tales?

Girl finds out her fiancée is a cannibal highway robber, and outs him at their wedding. No, really. Because yeah, some fairly tales are REALLY messed up.

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Some of them are full on horror stories. They weren't written to sell plush toys, but to warn youngsters of the kinds of people that could prey on them as they got older.
In that regard, Snow White holds up pretty well.

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Gross in your world. Punishable, even. Not in theirs.

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You do realise that Snow White was first published in 1812? Things were different in those days (not saying it was right).

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Because if they drew her to look like a 9 year old prince charming would have to have been Muslim.

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I never believed Snow White was just 14 years old. She's more like 16 or 17 in my eyes.

Either way, still a huge improvement over her age in the original story.

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She does not look or sound like a 12 year old, especially compared to all the small dwarves.

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