Probably because of the use of the heroine of "Twilight", this film seems to be labeled as a brainless Mary Sue from the beginning. As for what this story wants to express, it seems that no one paid attention to it at the beginning, and it is considered to be unimportant, because the whole story has been changed to something that has almost nothing to do with the original except the name. In fact, this is not the case if you look closely. The addition of political struggle clues is an accurate and profound excavation of the connotation of the original work, while the main body of the story of Bimei, a woman in the original work, has been retained in form and has become a metaphor. In the film, the interpretation of the political struggle story is often followed by the lines of the original story, which is precisely to emphasize the relationship of this contrasting interpretation.
Take the keyword "Beauty" that runs through the whole film as an example, which is the clue that runs through the whole film and is also the focus of the battle between the queen and the princess. But does its connotation really mean "beautiful" as it literally does? This is the case, and more than that, and it is not even the spiritual beauty and moral beauty that some audiences take for granted (although the former queen said that your beauty is in your heart). Its true meaning in the film, its metaphorical connotation, in fact, at the beginning of the story, "When a woman is always young and beautiful, the world is hers". In other words, the essence of "beauty" is power.
Beauty is power This is a recurring line in the play. Power (power) and power (power) are puns, but this power appears more in the form of the former in the plot. When the Queen first said "My magic is starting to fade", it was a young man trying to assassinate her. The intention of this plot is obvious. The people or the old and young of the previous dynasty are dissatisfied with the queen's rule, and their grievances have developed to the point of violent confrontation. The decrease in magic power corresponds to the loosening of power.
The measures taken by the Queen to maintain her beauty (consolidate power) are to deprive others of their youthful beauty. Considering the previous assumption that beauty = power, it is easy to think of the actual actions she took. The Queen practices coercion within the kingdom, consolidating her own power by dispossessing others, and the means she relies on are interpreted as magic in fairy tales and force in reality. This can be confirmed from the dialogue in the women's village later. In order to avoid the queen's "jealousy", the women took the initiative to scratch their faces. They said to Snow White: You must make the same sacrifice. This kind of sacrifice is the surrender to tyranny, sacrificing one's legal rights (especially the right to speech) for the sake of survival, sacrificing one's own opinions, and becoming an incomplete person with no opinion and spirit of resistance (in the male theme is often compared to eunuchs in his works). The women asked the princess to give up her rights to avoid political persecution.
When it comes to Snow White's rights, of course it's also her rights, the former being her right as the rightful heir, the latter being her right to rule the kingdom. The mirror mentioned to the queen that the reason for the weakening of the magic power is because another more beautiful girl appeared, why is this happening? There is no doubt that this is based on the consistent characteristics of power. One mountain does not allow two tigers, and no other political center can appear outside the centralization of power. Otherwise, it will inevitably form a diversion and weaken the power of the centralizers. This also explains the other sentence in the play, the magic spell that can make people undefeated, "By fairest blood it is done, by fairest blood it can be undone" - one who has power is always undone by another A power man replaces.
Legitimate power and natural political centripetal force are the innate beauty of Snow White. It is not won through human factors such as talent and hard work, but is a blessing from God. To put it more bluntly - "the divine authority of the emperor". In contrast, the queen's beauty is maintained through witchcraft, just as her power is maintained by conspiracy, her beauty is not true beauty, and her power is also false power.
Regarding the divine empowerment of the monarch, two plots are specially set up in the film to express. The first is that a white deer appears and salutes Snow White. The story does not use the unicorns that are common in fantasy literature to express the purity of young girls, and the white deer does not unguardedly express its closeness to the princess after its appearance. It can be seen that this plot is different from the ordinary girl and the unicorn plot. The second episode is the discussion among the dwarfs. Since meeting Snow White, her waist is no longer sore, her legs are no longer sore, and her legs and feet no longer have cramps. During the coronation of kings in the Middle Ages, there was a procedure in which the king would touch some patients, and these patients would miraculously heal after being touched by the king. The performance of this miracle also belongs to the right of the Pope. It can be seen that there has been a tradition of conferring sanctity on the monarchy since ancient times.
If you see that the assumption of beauty=power is still in doubt here, then there is an example to show this more clearly. When the eight dwarfs first caught the princess, although one of them also said "she is so beautiful", the others were still very hostile to her. At this time, Snow White's "world-shattering beauty" did not play a big role. After that, the princess didn't do anything to move the Three Realms. It was just that after hearing about the identity of the princess, the attitudes of the other dwarves immediately took a 180-degree turn. At least on the surface, they showed respect and stopped hanging the princess upside down. It seems so disrespectful. Obviously it is not the face but the background that conquered the dwarfs.
So here comes the core issue of the plot. In the original work, the reason why the queen persecuted Snow White was because she was jealous of her beauty, which also became the place where this film was madly complained. Everyone thinks that the female protagonist is far from the queen who was born as an Oscar queen in both appearance and temperament, and there is no IQ, emotional intelligence, and personality charm that can conquer all kinds of men and all kinds of animals in the film. But they followed the heroine so unconvincingly, so everyone scolded the screenwriter Mary Sue.
To be honest, in reality, the power of the orthodox halo is only surpassed by that of the Mary Su halo. Don't you see that the old and young of the past dynasties pay homage to various emperors. This nostalgia complex is so stubborn that Machiavelli has repeatedly emphasized that the blood of the previous ruler must be wiped out in order to be stable. On the other hand, Snow White took the trouble to ask everyone she met whether she was still fighting under her "father's banner" rather than her own. Since it's not her own banner, why should she be a banner herself?
But if orthodoxy is decisive, does that mean that personal qualities have absolutely zero political appeal in the eyes of orthodoxy? Nor is it the case. If there is more than one orthodox competitor, then obviously ability, emotional intelligence, these things can help people win in the competition. But there is still another quality that matters when you're the only legitimate heir, so important that it can even affect your legitimacy - and that's stance.
In "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Lu Su once persuaded Sun Quan to fight the battle of Chibi. In the context of a monarchy, power is the property of an individual. A person has the right to hold, defend, give up, and give to others. If the monarch does not pursue his own power, then it is equivalent to him giving it away. As the women in the village said, the princess can also not fight, but can scratch her face, give up her birthright, and only ask for it. Gou all life. Then she no longer has beauty or power. Taking a stand is easier said than done. Power is a double-edged sword that attracts followers and brings disaster. Whether you can really persevere in the face of pressure and whether you can have the courage to fight the fear that arises in your heart is still a test for people. In the play, the embodiment of this fear is the Black Forest.
So now, looking at the so-called gap in appearance between the two heroines, we have to think that maybe this is a deliberate setting by the director. The beauty of the queen played by Theron is indeed dazzling, but just like power itself, it is only an appearance. Maybe she used to be beautiful, but time has taken it away, and now the beauty is maintained in an unnatural and unconventional way. and its unstable state. Just like the reign of a queen, it looks powerful on the surface, but it is fragile. Snow White's beauty looks less glamorous but it's real, strong, and most importantly, she's as hungry for power as the Queen. Just as she saw what the Queen saw and knew what the Queen knew, so she could finally defeat the Queen. This is a curse of power that can only be undone by the blood of the most beautiful people.
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