The Brothers Grimm's Snow White was... unexpected. It was definitely not the typical Disney princess story. I found this German fairy tale to be vulgar, a little grotesque, and not as "kid-friendly" as the Disney version. When the evil queen commanded Snow White be killed with her lungs and liver brought back as proof, I was kind of disturbed. It was barbaric and violent, but at the same time undoubtedly built up the queen's wicked and cruel character - something that the "Disney-fied" version lacks.
Another difference I found between Disney's Snow White and the Brothers Grimm's Little Snow-White was Snow White herself. Disney depicted Snow White as a kind and gentle princess who is a little naive. However, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm made Snow White really really ditzy. I can understand her falling for the queen's disguise once, but THREE times?? Wow, she must be seriously lacking in the brains department... I was quite disappointed that the only thing she's good at is cooking and cleaning. #genderstereotypes
I was a little outraged at how the princess was portrayed as an object. The prince merely sees a beautiful female and falls in love with her - personality does not even come into play. When the princess awakens from her poisoned slumber, the prince declares he "loves her more than anything else in the world." Does no one else see the flaw in this?? Also what about the fact that this random dude wants to take a corpse just because the dead girl is beautiful (some kind of weird fetish?). If this happened in real life, I'd be running as fast as I could away from the creepy prince.
The dwarfs in this story were given roles of less importance than in the Disney movie. They were referred to as numbers rather than names. I think Disney did a good job in developing the dwarfs' individual characters and giving each of them a unique trait reflected by their names. The cruel death of the queen was also not very G-rated and I preferred the way Disney decided to eliminate her character. Burning hot iron shoes combined with dancing was brutal whereas death by nature (lightning) was a little more appropriate for the young audience.
The Brothers Grimm redefined fairy tales for me. I've come to see that they can include casual cannibalism (queen eating liver and lungs like it's no big deal) and barbaric methods of torture (iron shoes in burning coals and dancing until dead). Weirdly, I felt more intrigued by the Grimm fairy tale more than the mellow Disney version.
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