Snow Job

I don’t know if you’ve been following the saga of the Disney remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs [Er, yes … Ed.], but it’s instructive in several ways.

In brief, the old legend that launched the Disney empire has, at long last, been remade by Hollywood as a semi-live-action film, starring a vociferous and petulant adolescent named Rachel Zegler in the titular role. Having finished the film cinematically, Zegler has opted to “finish” it at the box office as well, primarily by dissing the original myth as “weird” and “creepy”. In the process, she seems to have managed to sink her own career prospects.

I’m not going to add to the pile-on. There are hilarious comments already posted by cynics following the release of the trailer. Now, apparently, the whole film is out … not without more than a little trepidation and risk on Disney’s side. The public seems ready to pounce, and to give it the fierce beating that a woke remake of a beloved classic is bound to deserve. But I needn’t contribute to that body of commentary; it’s not likely to subside any time soon.

No, what interests me more is the status of the film as an alleged “remake”. For those who recall the original legend and film, it cannot escape your notice that its longevity and belovedness are products of having tapped into deep archetypes of the human psyche. Yet these very archetypes are some of the most hated values of woke-ism and feminism; so anything that purports to be a “remake” is really up against the wall when it comes to saving any part of the original Disney magic.

For example, take virginity. Heck, it’s in the title: what do you think “snow whiteness” is supposed to signify? Purity as well, of course, and beauty and simplicity. In contrast to her is the Queen, (presumably) a non-virginal femme fatale who unrealistically expects to retain the appeal of virginal beauty forever, and spitefully conspires to achieve this by poisoning the dawning beauty of her perceived rival by disguising herself as a witch and deceiving the poor naif. Her plotting is subverted and destroyed when the masculine hero, “the prince” intervenes and blesses the somnolent beauty with a kiss that dislodges the queen-witch’s plot, rescuing the helpless maiden, who then rides off in custody of the handsome prince for a “happily-ever-after”.

Can you see anything at all in that plot that a feminist would like?

But if none of the profound archetypes in Snow White are fit for retaining, as Zegler and others have insisted, in a woke feminist ethos, then in what sense is the new film a “remake” of the original at all? It is, in fact, a whole new film, one that unimaginatively cannibalizes the classic, perhaps, but nevertheless retains nothing of the essence of the original. The punch, the profundity, the legendary-lastingness of the story is gone. It has all been replaced with the shallow nagginess of modern feminist cant. Audiences will go to the theater to be lectured, rather than to be moved by vibrating to the resonances of deep archetypes; the latter have been expunged to make way for PC nattering and haranguing. Enjoy paying your $20 for that.

The big takeaway, though, might be this: it is possible to substitute profound truths and realities with the “progressive” political dogma of the present day; but it all rings false. In the end, there are deep truths that resonate with the human soul, realities too deep to be expunged by the mere wave of the Hollywood wand, and too enduring to be glossed over. They echo though the caverns of all our history and never fail to move the human soul — regardless of their current appeal or lack thereof to the madding crowd of the modern left.

The Bible is like that: it’s not remotely contemporary, modern or PC, and doesn’t try to be. What it speaks of are the deep archetypes and realities of all existence, for all time. It is the Word by which the universe itself came into being. No amount of modern frippery is ever going to silence the long, deep notes of its resonance in the human soul. It is what we need. Amid the many calls to “make it relevant” or “bring it up to date”, we do well to take a lesson from Snow White; there are some things it never does to mess with. Be they palatable to our present age or not, they will never go away.

Our job as the church is to remember that.