“When all the world is a hopeless jumble,”1 we can nestle into fairytales with happy endings, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and others. One iteration of Snow White, however, seems to be stuck in the craw of critics. We're referring to the flap over a Disneyland ride with animatronic characters and other effects. The kiss planted on the sleeping princess's lips is the offensive action. There was actually no kiss in the Grimm Brothers' Snow White story.2 The kiss was spliced into Disney's 1937 Snow White film from the Grimms' other tale, Sleeping Beauty (“Briar Rose”). Disclaimer: We have not personally experienced the ride, called “Snow White's Enchanted Wish.” Significant portions of it can be seen online,3 especially the prelude to the happy ending, “True love's kiss awakened Snow White.”
Some critics say that the kiss constitutes a nonconsensual sexual advance, thereby claiming the moral high ground and stamping “canceled” on the ride. It seems they forgot to suspend disbelief, writing in SFGATE:
The new grand finale of Snow White's Enchanted Wish is the moment when the Prince finds Snow White asleep under the Evil Queen's spell and gives her “true love's kiss” to release her from the enchantment. A kiss he gives to her without her consent, while she's asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows it's happening.4
Other critics and journalists question whether Disney is promoting nonconsensual intimacy versus being “too woke” if they were to remove the kiss element from the ride.5 Here, we examine details of the 1937 movie that support an interpretation that the Prince's kiss was in keeping with a substituted judgment standard of consent.6 We argue that the wish in question was made (repeatedly and explicitly in the animated movie), constituting advance intent that the Prince make his move.
In the Grimms' story and the Disney movie, Snow White is the victim of her stepmother, the Queen, who cannot bear the prospect of a woman more beautiful than she. The Queen makes serial attempts to kill her, eventually luring her into biting into a poisoned apple. Later, the Seven Dwarfs, at the Prince's insistence, carry her glass coffin-enshrined, presumably dead body down the mountain. They stumble, dislodging the apple, which awakens Snow White (reanimation being a popular theme in the nineteenth century, for example, in Frankenstein). The Prince immediately knows they will marry. No kiss. The piece of “Sleeping Beauty” spliced into the Snow White movie is the kiss that awakens both princesses. In the Grimms' “Briar Rose,” the original sleeping beauty, there is a suggestion of impulsive behavior on the Prince's part: “There she lay, looking so beautiful that he could not take his eyes off her. He bent down and gave her a kiss” (Ref. 2, p 105). No consent and no information about what Sleeping Beauty would have wanted, but that is not the fairy tale at hand.
There are several pieces of evidence that, as we interpret it, constitute an understanding of how the 1937 Snow White viewed her relationship with the Prince, what her amorous intentions were, and how she would have wished him to behave when he found her in an ambiguously inanimate condition. These details exist in the context of a minimalist storyline, allowing the imagery of the first full-length animated film to shine and underscoring their narrative importance. Nearly all narrative development proceeds through movement, song, and conversation with animals, dwarfs, and a mirror. Thus, the sometimes subtle hints toward Snow White's intent for intimacy are actually firm plot-drivers. In fact, the overarching narrative for the movie is Snow White's wish to find the Prince, her one love. The following details of the movie are pertinent, with evidence for our argument marked with asterisks.
The opening musical number has Princess Snow White singing into a wishing well, “I'm wishing for the one I love to find me today,” with an audience of white doves. These are the doves who later anthropomorphically act out her wish for a kiss. While she sings this early song, the Prince rides up and overhears her, together singing the line “Today!” Self-conscious, Snow White flees, in rags, to her chamber and watches as he sings back to her, proclaiming his love for her as his “one love … only for [her].” A coquettish Snow White kisses a dove on the beak, sending it out toward the Prince, who approaches him, blushes, and then pecks him on the lips, as she shyly pulls back balcony curtains.* The dove, a metonymy representing Snow White, acts out her desire for physical intimacy with the Prince. Snow White finds herself dreamily happy, singing the Prince's song about his love for her.*
Meanwhile, Snow White's stepmother, the Queen, orders her assassinated after learning that she is more beautiful. After a failed hired hit by the Huntsman, aware of the love affair,* the furious Queen morphs into an old hag and sets out to assassinate her beautiful step-daughter. After collapsing in a nightmarish forest, Snow White reaffirms her bond and ability to communicate with animals, as she did with the doves. In need of lodging, the animals escort her to the Seven Dwarfs. Even as they jointly clean the dwarfs' home, she sings about love, easing her workload by pretending the broom is her romantic interest.
Despite an ongoing death threat, the short-statured bachelors make merriment with Snow White. Then, they ask her to tell a story: “a true story … a love story.” She admits that it is “very easy” for her to fall in love with the Prince.* When asked if the Prince stole a kiss, she says, “He was so romantic I could not resist,” thus sharing responsibility for their physical intimacy.* She sings “Someday My Prince Will Come,”* asserting her hope that they will meet again, and that her love is in fact the Prince she already met.* The Princess kneels at her bedside, praying for the dwarfs and that her “dreams come true,” a clear statement that this Prince will make it happen.*
The Queen prepares a poisoned apple to bring about a “sleeping death.” She also discovers a possible antidote: “The victim of the sleeping death can be revived only by love's first kiss” (spliced in from Sleeping Beauty). The animals know the Queen's unspoken, murderous intent and try to disrupt her plan, but the Queen tells Snow White that the fruit is a magic wishing apple: “One bite and all your dreams come true … Now make a wish and take a bite.” Snow White admits there is someone she loves, the Prince, who she wants to carry her away and with whom she'd like to live happily ever after.* She sinks her teeth into the fruit as another statement of intent to be with the Prince, before falling into the special death.* The dwarfs hold a candlelight vigil over the Princess. Too beautiful to bury, “even in death,” they make a glass coffin and maintain the vigil. The Prince learns of the situation, reprises his love song, finds Snow White in the coffin, and kisses her still-lifelike lips. She awakens, surrounding the Prince with open arms, as the soundtrack plays a choral rendition of “Someday My Prince Will Come,” a final iteration of intent.* Her friends, the animals and dwarfs, delight in their recognition of her dream for true loving being actualized.
Intimacy, such as true love's kiss, is judicially considered to be a private matter. The Supreme Court, permitting couples to have birth control, established a right to privacy within an intimate relationship against the intrusion of government, which Justice Douglas considered “repulsive to the notions of privacy” (Ref. 7 p 486).7 Courts later extended this right to include abortion, communication, family relationships, procreation, child-rearing, and education,8 and eventually to populations including juveniles9 and same-sex partners.10,11
The above cases establish a specifically guaranteed right to privacy on which we can examine the Prince's kiss as an intimate matter. Turning to the Prince's kiss, sexual assault may include instances in which the victim cannot consent: asleep, incapacitated physically or mentally, intoxicated, or underage. The concern that the critics have is that Snow White was incapacitated, either dead, asleep, or some liminal state, unable to affirmatively consent to the kiss.
Legal precedent, however, already carves out the ability for a person to provide consent in such instances. Throughout the movie, Snow White would appear to meet Chief Justice Benjamin Cardozo's 1914 delineation of “sound mind” as a requirement for determining “what shall be done with [an individual]'s own body” (Ref. 12, p 93), an opinion that began the lineage of judicial respect for self-determination even in cases of incapacity. The courts and legislatures have since proceeded through a series of decisions and laws enshrining individuals' right to determine what happens with their own bodies. They include cases of invasive medical procedures during coma, right to life, and end of life scenarios.6,13,14
Advanced directive documents permit individuals to give consent for what is done with their body when incapacitated. The Snow White character, in essence, made her wishes known, as tracked above: anthropomorphic doves, love songs, wishes, etc. We are thus able to use the principle of substituted judgment to assert Snow White's wishes. Substituted judgment has a long legal precedent6 and allows others to make decisions for a person unable to do so, in this case the dwarfs, who were Snow White's caregivers. This standard uses evidence of a person's own wishes to make the decision(s) that the person would likely make, not simply what looks best to an observer. Given the abundance of data we have for Snow White's wishes, it is likely that she would have accepted, if not sought, the kiss. Substituted judgment has even been proposed as a standard for determining the desires of a person with neurocognitive disorder, such as dementia, when unable to decide about intimacy.15,16 While the best-interest standard is inferior to substituted judgment, community norms for what would have been best for Snow White would support that it would be in her best interest to accept the kiss and awaken to a chance at a lifetime of happiness.
It is important not to invoke substituted judgment if a person is competent to provide or deny consent. Snow White, at the time of the kiss, however, could not have rejected the kiss, as she was in her sleeping death and unable to decide. In real life, one could consider whether the Prince knew her desire, versus merely taking advantage of her. He hears her singing for her true love and receives the dove's kiss from her, providing evidence of her desires.
Situations in which substituted judgment has been used erroneously have included marital rape (i.e., that marriage provides for continual sexual consent between partners) and rape of sex workers (i.e., that their line of work implies consent, rather than an act for payment). These are not applicable to Snow White, who lives as a simple maid, and then homeless attempted-murder victim, with one true love.
While the tale of Snow White has had numerous variations over the ages, the kiss is Disney's take on the story. A forensic take stands in contrast to the critique that one “cannot possibly” give consent in advance of a kiss, at least in a world where we have the well-founded standard of substituted judgment.
Footnotes
Disclosures of financial or other potential conflicts of interest: None.
- © 2021 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
