How Beauty shaped Snow White’s Precarity

Written by: Sara Ligtvoet

Originally Published June 2025

Once upon a time, there was a princess named Snow White, and she was exceptionally beautiful—as women, especially princesses, are expected to be. But as nice as it is to meet this standard, it also meant a great danger awaited her, as the queen could not bear to be surpassed in beauty.

For the course Transnational Literatures and Cinemas, I studied how female beauty causes Snow White’s life precarity in the original 1857 German story (Grimm and Grimm), the 1937 Disney adaptation (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), and the recent 2025 Disney adaptation (Snow White). I found it really interesting how the transfer from words to audio-visual material asks for so many more details: characters get a voice, shape, face, and emotional depth; landscapes need to be created; and more time that needs to be filled. For my research, I did a close reading of the three versions and then analysed it with the help of the following 4 key concepts: beauty, Life precarity, neoliberalism, and work.

In Snow White, female beauty operates as a double-edged construct—while it is idealized and rewarded, it simultaneously creates precarity for Snow White by making her the target of the jealousy, control, and violence of the evil queen. Snow White’s risk starts early on as she is born from a wish for idealized beauty—“white as snow, red as blood, and black as ebony,” which then actively endangers her as she surpasses the queen’s beauty, both in appearance and in kindheartedness (Grimm and Grimm 264). This dual function reveals that beauty, far from being an innocent or purely positive trait, is a socially constructed marker of feminine value that enforces gendered hierarchies. This gendered hierarchy is visible in the queen gaining power by marrying the king and from the magic mirror. The mirror is also very interesting, as it doesn’t have a gender in the text by the Brothers Grimm but has a male voice in both Disney movies. And because the mirror decides who the fairest is, a man again has power over these women. Across different cultural and historical versions of the tale, shifts in the portrayal of beauty reflect evolving yet persistent expectations that tie a woman’s worth to her appearance, reinforcing her vulnerability within patriarchal systems.

Precarity can also manifest itself in dependency (Kirsten 24); this is visible as Snow White depends on the help of male figures to survive. In all three versions she gets help from the seven dwarfs, and in the recent version also from the bandits. In the most recent version, Snow White is also no longer a passive character, but she actively fights against the evil queen. This got a lot of negative comments, but the recent adaptation is a product of the current time and culture. Women no longer have to wait for a man to be saved but can take matters into their own hands. But social expectations on women to be beautiful remain, and the value based on female beauty shaping gendered precarity stays, albeit in a different form. Which does not mean we don’t have to challenge this, and I think the film is proving that by working together in unity, evil can be defeated. No matter how powerful the authorities are, with hope and unity you can fight the ruling power.

Sources:

Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. ‘53. Sneewittchen (Schneeweißchen)’. Kinder- Und Hausmärchen, 7th ed., vol. 1, Realschulbuchhandlung, 1857.

Snow White. Directed by Marc Webb, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2025. www.disney.my, https://www.disney.my/movies/snow-white-2025.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Directed by William Cottrell et al., Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Productions, 1937.