An Idea My Sister and I Had for a Snow White Film

[Winter]

This was back in 2012 when Kristen Stewart's Snow White and the Huntsman was released and with the upcoming SW Live-Action remake coming up it popped into my mind again. See we've been into fairy tales since we were kids and would always talk about how we would tell a story and something both of us often do is go for color blind casting. That led to an interesting idea for Snow White as her being white as snow is a major part of her character, it's literally in her name and we began bouncing ideas around on that.

I had the idea of SW being Japanese or Chinese but my sister had an interesting idea that I just fell in love with, have Snow White as a Black Woman with White Hair. Yes the idea was borrowed from Storm from X-Men but it's one that I just loved the idea just for how it would look in a poster.

Just imagine it, a young woman, about 15 or 18 years old, standing alone in the poster. She's looking off into the distance while wearing a dress reminiscent to the one from the animated film. The background is black as night as her pure white hair flows behind her where the title of the film is shown "Snow White".

Common you have to admit that would be an AWESOME Poster!

[hammerofglass]

That's a cool image.

The version from me snd my sister was looking at the description on her "lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow" and saying "definitely a vampire".

[Madner Kami]

This was back in 2012 when Kristen Stewart's Snow White and the Huntsman was released and with the upcoming SW Live-Action remake coming up it popped into my mind again. See we've been into fairy tales since we were kids and would always talk about how we would tell a story and something both of us often do is go for color blind casting. That led to an interesting idea for Snow White as her being white as snow is a major part of her character, it's literally in her name and we began bouncing ideas around on that.

I had the idea of SW being Japanese or Chinese but my sister had an interesting idea that I just fell in love with, have Snow White as a Black Woman with White Hair. Yes the idea was borrowed from Storm from X-Men but it's one that I just loved the idea just for how it would look in a poster.

Just imagine it, a young woman, about 15 or 18 years old, standing alone in the poster. She's looking off into the distance while wearing a dress reminiscent to the one from the animated film. The background is black as night as her pure white hair flows behind her where the title of the film is shown "Snow White".

Common you have to admit that would be an AWESOME Poster!

That's not colour-blind casting though, is it? It's inserting a black-actor into an explicitly white character, with a crowbar. Now, hear me out for a moment. There are times when twisting the narrative can lead to an interesting story and whether that's the case here is kinda questionable, because what does a white-haired black girl add to the story, other than diversity? The idea of making her a vampire changes the premise and even though I am not sure where you'd go with that, it's a changed narrative. Just having her being black does not and adds an odd element into the world-building you'd need to explain.

Now here's a radical idea for getting black actors into fairy tales: Tell (black-)african fairy tales. There are thousands and I remember having a book full of them when I was a child in the Eastern Bloc. Why are there no movies about Anansi? There are more stories of his exploits than of Loki and you love Loki, don't you? Or one of the thousands of animal-stereotype-based stories? We have east-asian stories, amerindian stories, arabian/iranian stories, but a distinct lack of black stories. Can we try telling those, before we keep white-facing black actors?

[clearspira]

This was back in 2012 when Kristen Stewart's Snow White and the Huntsman was released and with the upcoming SW Live-Action remake coming up it popped into my mind again. See we've been into fairy tales since we were kids and would always talk about how we would tell a story and something both of us often do is go for color blind casting. That led to an interesting idea for Snow White as her being white as snow is a major part of her character, it's literally in her name and we began bouncing ideas around on that.

I had the idea of SW being Japanese or Chinese but my sister had an interesting idea that I just fell in love with, have Snow White as a Black Woman with White Hair. Yes the idea was borrowed from Storm from X-Men but it's one that I just loved the idea just for how it would look in a poster.

Just imagine it, a young woman, about 15 or 18 years old, standing alone in the poster. She's looking off into the distance while wearing a dress reminiscent to the one from the animated film. The background is black as night as her pure white hair flows behind her where the title of the film is shown "Snow White".

Common you have to admit that would be an AWESOME Poster!

That's not colour-blind casting though, is it? It's inserting a black-actor into an explicitly white character, with a crowbar. Now, hear me out for a moment. There are times when twisting the narrative can lead to an interesting story and whether that's the case here is kinda questionable, because what does a white-haired black girl add to the story, other than diversity? The idea of making her a vampire changes the premise and even though I am not sure where you'd go with that, it's a changed narrative. Just having her being black does not and adds an odd element into the world-building you'd need to explain.

Now here's a radical idea for getting black actors into fairy tales: Tell (black-)african fairy tales. There are thousands and I remember having a book full of them when I was a child in the Eastern Bloc. Why are there no movies about Anansi? There are more stories of his exploits than of Loki and you love Loki, don't you? Or one of the thousands of animal-stereotype-based stories? We have east-asian stories, amerindian stories, arabian/iranian stories, but a distinct lack of black stories. Can we try telling those, before we keep white-facing black actors?

The main reason for race and gender swaps is because those franchises come with an in-built fanbase. They would rather leech off that pre-existing audience for instant money even if it means destroying it than invest in trying to get an actual black or female character off the ground. It also provides an instant excuse if the film fails although I think even normies at this point are very much wising up to the ism or the ist or the phobe card when it comes to swaps.

[Winter]

This was back in 2012 when Kristen Stewart's Snow White and the Huntsman was released and with the upcoming SW Live-Action remake coming up it popped into my mind again. See we've been into fairy tales since we were kids and would always talk about how we would tell a story and something both of us often do is go for color blind casting. That led to an interesting idea for Snow White as her being white as snow is a major part of her character, it's literally in her name and we began bouncing ideas around on that.

I had the idea of SW being Japanese or Chinese but my sister had an interesting idea that I just fell in love with, have Snow White as a Black Woman with White Hair. Yes the idea was borrowed from Storm from X-Men but it's one that I just loved the idea just for how it would look in a poster.

Just imagine it, a young woman, about 15 or 18 years old, standing alone in the poster. She's looking off into the distance while wearing a dress reminiscent to the one from the animated film. The background is black as night as her pure white hair flows behind her where the title of the film is shown "Snow White".

Common you have to admit that would be an AWESOME Poster!

That's not colour-blind casting though, is it? It's inserting a black-actor into an explicitly white character, with a crowbar. Now, hear me out for a moment. There are times when twisting the narrative can lead to an interesting story and whether that's the case here is kinda questionable, because what does a white-haired black girl add to the story, other than diversity? The idea of making her a vampire changes the premise and even though I am not sure where you'd go with that, it's a changed narrative. Just having her being black does not and adds an odd element into the world-building you'd need to explain.

Now here's a radical idea for getting black actors into fairy tales: Tell (black-)african fairy tales. There are thousands and I remember having a book full of them when I was a child in the Eastern Bloc. Why are there no movies about Anansi? There are more stories of his exploits than of Loki and you love Loki, don't you? Or one of the thousands of animal-stereotype-based stories? We have east-asian stories, amerindian stories, arabian/iranian stories, but a distinct lack of black stories. Can we try telling those, before we keep white-facing black actors?

Well, this discussion got awkward in a hurry.

Honestly it was mostly the idea of the poster I wanted to talk about as it was just something that always stuck with me (always been a sucker for visuals) and was just something that I decided to share. I would need more time to go over the idea of why SW would be a different race and how that impacts the story though I think of one right away. The Queen Remain German and set the film during the 18th Century though maintaining the fantasy elements which allows it to deal with the subject of slavery and even racism (in case anyone was uncomfortable enough). It still about a Queen who's jealous of a young girls beauty only now you could argue the jealously has a deeper meaning due to the subject of race.

Hell this could even hold a greater impact on the relationship between Snow and her Dwarfs, their all outcasts and the for the first time in her life she is interacting with people who treat her with kindness outside of the Prince. Even the relationship with the Huntsman could be explored with this as he shows himself to be better by choosing to spare Snow and let her leave because he cannot bring him to kill her because he doesn't share the Queens needless hatred of the young girl. He sees a young girl who is just a kid who doesn't deserve to die.

Same story but it's explore at a new angle by either indirectly or directly addressing the characters race-lift.

Would this a master piece of Cinema? Well it's me we're talking about here so most likely yes. All jokes aside there's a lot that can be done by changing the race of the character IF the storytellers are willing to explore it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the sign of a bad story is the writers bringing up any hot topic and if, by some weird turn of fate where someone at Hollywood reads this and goes "Hey, that sounds like a interesting idea let's hire this girl to make this film a reality" I would explore it as I've described. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is, at the end of the day, a story of someone escaping an abuser and finding family and love in the most unlikely of places and what is slavery if not the greatest form of abuse? What is love but finding those who see you for the true beauty you are versus those who hate for imagined or outright idiotic reasons?

So, yeah, this is a lot more awkward then I thought it would be so here's a video of a Dog Shocked at a Kitten being in his bed to distract everyone and move on to more fun topics.

SAVE ME BIG PUPPY AND LITTLE KITTY!!!


youtu.be/DlUyHogoyvE

Switching gears and going over to what hammerofglass said.

That's a cool image.

The version from me snd my sister was looking at the description on her "lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow" and saying "definitely a vampire".

I like that idea and it would be fun to see but focusing on the description tying that to the whole poster idea I would have the tagline of my version Snow White be, and this is just me and my sister didn't like this part of the idea, I would have it be "Eyes Red as a Rose, Skin Black as Ebony. Hair White as Snow".

My sister doesn't like the idea of the red eyes and I get it but I think it would be a cool image but that's just me.

[Madner Kami]

Well, this discussion got awkward in a hurry.

And that surprises you? Look, I am not even against race-swapping characters, as long as it makes sense within and adds to the narrative, but there are things that just boggle the mind, like this:

The Queen Remain German and set the film during the 18th Century though maintaining the fantasy elements which allows it to deal with the subject of slavery and even racism (in case anyone was uncomfortable enough). It still about a Queen who's jealous of a young girls beauty only now you could argue the jealously has a deeper meaning due to the subject of race.

Why? Just why? Black slavery in Germany in the 18th century? I mean, you'll find the odd black servant here and there and there were quite a number of Germans involved in the New World Slave Trade, but it's so far out there as a theme, to have a black slave here during that time, that it's just mind-blowing. If you insist on a black slave, transpose the story to the Mediterranean or Spain, heck, southern France, but Germany of all places? This country is distinctly busy with itself at this time and the only larger scale slavery you are going to find in the post-medieval german states is maybe Slavs (the eastern european people) on the easternmost fringes of the Reich and even there it's almost exclusively as serfs and not slaves. Heck, outside of Scandinavia, Germany is the one place in post-renaissance Europe, where you are the least likely to find a slave in the first place, much less a black one...

See that's the kind of history-bending that gets people up in arms. I feel it comes from a source that is desperately looking for a common, inclusive history of a disparate people, which neither have a common history nor mythological background, much less an inclusive one (or, rather, the parts that are common history, nobody really wants to recollect). You know the term "cultural appropriation"? That's what's happening there and not in the stupid sense of "oh that non-black girl wears dreadlocks", but in a quite literal meaning. In the desperate quest to create an inclusive history and myth, you Americans take a multitude of racially-induced backgrounds and bend and twist them to fit a narrative of a world that never existed and in the process, trample all over the cultural heritage of everyone involved. And then you're surprised, why people are upset? I mean, come on... You don't see that coming? That's not on the level of a white child dressing up as an indian or a zulu warrior or black child dressing up as a Disney Princess (everyone can freely wish to be whoever they are and should have the right to express themselves that way). That's on the level of declaring Cleopatra to have been a black woman of nubian descent or Martin Luther King to be a white man. It's just mind-blowing to me.

Now, in all honesty. I get this drive to create a common history and myth. America seriously needs that in spades. But please, don't do that by trampling all over everyone else's. Create your own... And nothing prevents you from taking stories from all over the world, but don't make them something they are not. You're such a rich nation in terms of culture. You can literally draw from everywhere and yet you collectively decided to take from background A and force it onto background B. That's bad you know? Cheerish the history and take it into consideration, rather than trying to rewrite it...

And it's not even like you can't write a story about a mother being deathly jelous of her (adopted) daughter, then being spirited away and later getting revenge on the evil (step-)mother. Just don't call it "Snow-white" when your main character is black. I mean, you could do that as you described, but then you'd need to find a reason why that character is the way it is, so it makes sense within the narrative of the story and that's what's lacking from your idea. You find it cool because she's black. But what does that really add to the story?
Instead, let's go this way: Plantation. One of the servant-girls is black with odd-coloured hair (red? blonde? white for all I care). This fascinates the son of the plantation-owners and he falls in love. His parents obviously don't want that to happen and thus either try to sell or spirit her away or murder her. Through some twists and turns she ends up with an Indian tribe or a group of escaped slaves or is spirited away into a dream-realm inspiried by Voodoo or somesuch, where she learns to be more assertive and self-reliant, learning her own worth as a person rather than a slave or something and work it out from there. Maybe the parents figure it out and try to kill her, which works out in predictable ways. Something like that. Heck, you could even let them succeed and the son then bringing her back to life (though I suppose you'd want more agency of herself in the story, rather than being a tool for the white man). Or you could do it Tarrantino-style and let her kill everyone who has done her wrong, including the son, because he still treated her like property.

Or make it an american story. Girl is sold into slavery in Africa, because the mother was jelous of some distinct feature. She finds her place and a new life in the Americas and later finds her mother sold into slavery herself. Work it out from there...

P.S.: Because it just went through my head and I felt I needed to express that. Every story and every myth is part of every human alive today, in the past and in the future (and at some point possibly even aliens). The story of the Jade Emperor is just as much your history, as is the Dreamtime mine. Just somewhere down the line, we collectively decided that black-facing isn't a good idea. Let's stick to that. Take the core of one of humanity's many stories and focus on retelling that.

P.P.S.: Dug up the book. Not sure why, but felt I should share. Just shy of 200 pages of african fairy tales. None of them were ever made into a movie, as far as I can tell. Well, outside of Mr.Nancy in American Gods. A series which features a black actor portraying the norse god Baldr and nobody cares, because it makes sense within the story.

[stryke]

Why you'd want to set such a fantastical story as Snow White in a real world historical setting is beyond me. Go whole hog with it and do a non-white Maleficent too as that's by far the most entertaining and memorable character. Have her be Indian or something, and really mix things up.

[Winter]

And that surprises you? Look, I am not even against race-swapping characters, as long as it makes sense within and adds to the narrative, but there are things that just boggle the mind, like this:

The Queen Remain German and set the film during the 18th Century though maintaining the fantasy elements which allows it to deal with the subject of slavery and even racism (in case anyone was uncomfortable enough). It still about a Queen who's jealous of a young girls beauty only now you could argue the jealously has a deeper meaning due to the subject of race.

Why? Just why? Black slavery in Germany in the 18th century? I mean, you'll find the odd black servant here and there and there were quite a number of Germans involved in the New World Slave Trade, but it's so far out there as a theme, to have a black slave here during that time, that it's just mind-blowing.

I think you're a little too invested in this argument. It's an idea I had about a poster based on an old conversation my sister and I had literally over a decade ago. Also it's a fairly tale, what does it matter? Snow White is called such because her skin is white as snow and the thought I and my sister had was if we were to cast a black woman in the role how would we go about her having the name Snow White. Hence White hair and given this was a fairly tale which we figured it wouldn't be out of place.

A little while ago I posted a Fan Casting idea where I suggested that Hunter Schafer to play as Stephanie Brown aka Spoiler in another film or show (personally I think Anna Lore over on Gotham Knights (the show not the game) isn't all that good though the show as a whole REALLY doesn't seem to get Steph so I don't put the blame solely on her). Yes Schafer is a trans woman but that doesn't really matter to me as she looks like Steph and has the right personality for her too.

Race and Sexual identity doesn't matter. I mean look at the Much Ado About Nothing which casts Denzel Washington as Don Pedro or in Thor when he cast Idris Elba as Heimdall who is described as "the whitest skinned of the gods" in Norse Mythology.

If, again, by some random chance of the comedic winds of fate this somehow became real, that it was decided to have a Snow White film where the title character was played by a black, Asian, Indianian or trans woman I'd to base my opinion on whether I felt the story was good or bad NOT what is, at the end of the day, a minor change. Snow is a princess with a cruel step mother who's adopted by her seven dwarf men, has an allergic reaction to eating a cooked apple and is woken up by her boyfriend giving her a good morning kiss.

[Thebestoftherest]

This was back in 2012 when Kristen Stewart's Snow White and the Huntsman was released and with the upcoming SW Live-Action remake coming up it popped into my mind again. See we've been into fairy tales since we were kids and would always talk about how we would tell a story and something both of us often do is go for color blind casting. That led to an interesting idea for Snow White as her being white as snow is a major part of her character, it's literally in her name and we began bouncing ideas around on that.

I had the idea of SW being Japanese or Chinese but my sister had an interesting idea that I just fell in love with, have Snow White as a Black Woman with White Hair. Yes the idea was borrowed from Storm from X-Men but it's one that I just loved the idea just for how it would look in a poster.

Just imagine it, a young woman, about 15 or 18 years old, standing alone in the poster. She's looking off into the distance while wearing a dress reminiscent to the one from the animated film. The background is black as night as her pure white hair flows behind her where the title of the film is shown "Snow White".

Common you have to admit that would be an AWESOME Poster!

That's not colour-blind casting though, is it? It's inserting a black-actor into an explicitly white character, with a crowbar. Now, hear me out for a moment. There are times when twisting the narrative can lead to an interesting story and whether that's the case here is kinda questionable, because what does a white-haired black girl add to the story, other than diversity? The idea of making her a vampire changes the premise and even though I am not sure where you'd go with that, it's a changed narrative. Just having her being black does not and adds an odd element into the world-building you'd need to explain.

Now here's a radical idea for getting black actors into fairy tales: Tell (black-)african fairy tales. There are thousands and I remember having a book full of them when I was a child in the Eastern Bloc. Why are there no movies about Anansi? There are more stories of his exploits than of Loki and you love Loki, don't you? Or one of the thousands of animal-stereotype-based stories? We have east-asian stories, amerindian stories, arabian/iranian stories, but a distinct lack of black stories. Can we try telling those, before we keep white-facing black actors?

I don't know, maybe they want a story about an old white woman jealous of the beauty of the young woman of color. Might be nice since fiction has a happen of characters going to a world of non white and go on and on about how much prettier the white women are. Code of Honor from tng and from Stargate: Emancipation.

[ProfessorDetective]

That's a cool image.

The version from me snd my sister was looking at the description on her "lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow" and saying "definitely a vampire".

Huh, someone is doing just that. Saw this a few hours ago (mild NSFW warning): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/co ... eastsnow1/