Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Saw this one on Channel 5 last night and decided to write about it on grounds that it was cinematically important. This had, I promise, absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my planned choice, Alan Bennett's The Lady In The Van - a film about a lonely, cantankerous old woman who cries whilst listening to piano music that absolutely, utterly and in no way whatsoever struck a nerve.

Anyhow, Disney. They're arseholes, aren't they? Getting better, admittedly, but I still don't entirely trust them not to be lulling us into a false sense of security prior to another world domination attempt. Have you seen Elsa from Frozen? We now have pretty much the entirety of our younger female generation worshipping at the altar of a perfect Aryan princess. I'm telling you, we need to be seriously afraid here.

Another Disney sin is the perpetration of the lie that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated feature film. It wasn't - that was an Argentinian film called The Apostle, of which there are sadly no remaining copies. For the longest time - up until last night, in fact - I believed the lie, which, I have to say, is pretty much the only reason I turned the damned thing on in the first place.

I watched, though, for the first time in a couple of decades, and I have to say I now find myself in two minds. On the one hand, pretty much everything about it is dodgy, but on the other, it's an awfully handsome piece of work, with painterly backdrops, theatrical composition and silky-smooth motion animation that passes the test of time, if not outright surpassing it. The attention to detail here is astonishing, with dozens of moving items onscreen at any given time, and I couldn't help but admire the sort of effort that had to have gone into creating such a polished piece.

On the other? Well, I could point out that it's hardly a feminist opus, but plenty before me have said that already. True, our protagonist is valued purely for being attractive and doing housework, but can we step back and take a look at our love interest for a second? It's not often, after all, that fictional necrophiliacs are referred to as charming. Once again, I find myself forced to wonder whether the film isn't simply ahead of its time.

Once you take a moment to contemplate the titular seven dwarfs (is that really an accepted spelling of the word?), however, it all gets rather nasty again. If you choose to lay accusations of ableism aside (I was more or less able to accept them as a fictional species but I wouldn't blame you if your mileage varied), there's still the question of how they represent the male gender, namely unwashed children basically incapable of civilised existence without a mother figure to worship.

So, here's a thought: perhaps the film isn't so much misogynistic as outright misanthropic. Perhaps - and bear with me here - it was written by a secret cabal of deranged animal rights fanatics. Look at the evidence: the animals on display are all attractive, clean and kindly, and the only ones who can ever really see through the evil queen's wiles. Heck, perhaps it was the animals who wrote the damned script in the first place.

Sleep well, children, and don't have nightmares.