Taking your kids to Disneyland may no longer be a fun time, but a slippery ethics test. The ultimate target of the cancel culture it has the faces of the Prince and Snow White and the hint of a saving kiss. In the hushed world of the Disneyland playground in Anaheim, California, a controversy has erupted about a “non-consensual” kiss: the one the prince gives Snow White to awaken her from the spell of the poisoned apple, a wicked gift from the evil witch.
The controversial scene is part of the new techno animation presented in the Californian playground, reopened after a four-hundred-day lockdown for the Covid pandemic. The carousel dedicated to Snow White, entitled “Snow White’s Scary Adventure“, Has been renovated with the use of bright colors, phosphorescent lights and dreamlike effects, and renamed”Snow White’s Enchanted Wish”, The enchanted desire of Snow White. Was that desire the kiss? The problem arises there. As the seven dwarfs emerge from the darkness to greet visitors, the music of Someday my Prince Will Come wraps the rooms as the tourist train passes by and Snow White has always been wearing the same colors for eighty years, royal blue and lemon yellow, at a certain point on one side of the setting appears the iconic scene of the prince bending over a Snow White asleep.
The scene generated controversy. A review made on the Sfgate website, the San Francisco Gate, on May 1, opened the case. After defining the show as “really beautiful”, and acknowledging the merit of respecting the charm of the original carousel born in ’55 and inspired by the ’37 film, Katie Dowd and Julie Tremaine raised a problem: that final kiss to Snow White did not all right. “He gives her a kiss without her consent” they write “while she sleeps. It cannot be true love if only one of the two is aware of what is happening ”. “We do not all agree” they add “that teaching children that kissing, when one of the two is not aware, is it not okay?”. The review sparked a number of comments. There are those who accused the organization of having ruined the techno narrative by proposing such an obsolete solution. Someone asked the managers of Disneyland to adapt to the new rules and remove the scene: an unsolicited kiss cannot be considered “magical”. Okay, but how to wake Snow White without losing the hook with the true kiss who made the history of cartoons? It will be the end of the old happy ending? The question had already been asked three years ago, with no answer. For others, however, depriving the fairy tale of its magic would be tantamount to emptying it of meaning. Disney, for the moment, has not commented. While waiting for news, the prince can continue to bend down to kiss Snow White, as he has done since the evening of December 21, 1937, when the fairy tale was first released in American cinemas.
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