Fairy tales are a big thing no matter how old you are. We all have a strong fascination with them, and who could blame us? With all of the fun dresses, fairy godmothers, and magical stories, they’re pretty awesome. Most of us have grown up with fairy tales in some form or another, but the most common is, of course, Disney.
Lately, the big discussion online is just how true Disney follows its inspiration and all of the wild things that actually happen in the stories. Many of the original stories are just plain dark, and, in my opinion, wonderful, but they sure aren’t Disney material. Since, SNEAK PEAK, Common Room will be doing a feature on Once Upon a Time and its similarities and differences to these classic tales, I am going to be taking a look at the origins for this installment of Twice Upon a Time. Let’s see just how different our beloved Disney films are from three classics
Let’s see just how different our beloved Disney films are from three classics Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty!
Are You There Fairy God Mother? It’s Me, Cinderella
If you want to see a closer adaptation of the real Cinderella story, a good place to start is Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. He follows the story pretty close, but it is still a creepy little tale that is very different from the Disney film we all know and love. First of all, the infamous fairy godmother is actually a tree where Cinderella’s mother is buried. She wants to go to a festival at the local palace, but we all know how that goes. Cinderella’s evil stepmother says if she does various chores, she can go, but in the end, the stepmother doesn’t allow for it at all. Cinderella decides to go to her mother’s grave to ask for help when the festival approaches. She plants a seed and gets a few different dresses to choose from before setting out for a few wonderful, magical nights.
Well, she dances with the prince, and everything is wonderful, but she keeps running away when the night winds down. After she ran away a few times, the prince got pretty upset and wanted to trap her. This is where she loses her shoe, but it isn’t simply from running down a few steps and being clumsy. Can you guess what happens? It’s pretty easy if you know Into the Woods. (Seriously. Sondheim follows the original decently!) The prince decides the only way to catch this mystery gal is to spread pitch on the floor to trap her. The princes of the fairy tale world were pretty cunning and mostly devious, weren’t they?
Anywho, she still gets away, and the scene of the prince going throughout the kingdom looking for the owner of the shoe begins. When he gets to her stepsisters, one cuts off her toes and the other her heel to fit into the shoe. Gross, wouldn’t you say? But I guess marrying royalty was a huge thing back in the day, and no one wanted to be left out. A few of Cinderella’s bird friends point out that there is blood pooling in the shoe, which then alerts the previously cunning, yet apparently not as bright prince. Eventually, he finds Cinderella and they live happily ever after. But first, the birds aren’t finished with the stepsisters. In fact, the birds decide to straight attack them and peck their eyes out, blinding them forever. The birds aren’t singing mice, but it seems like they can get the job of revenge done pretty well.
Rose Red Lips and Snow White Skin
The Disney adaptation of Snow White is a little closer to the original story than most of Disney’s other films. There is an evil stepmother witch who really hates her stepdaughter, and wants a huntsman to take her out to the forest and kill her. The witch asks for her heart and liver, and we find out later just why. The reason (and liver) is conveniently left out of the Disney film, but I think that is because no one really wants a kid movie where an evil queen wants to eat a human being’s heart and liver. That’s right. After the huntsman decides to let Snow White go, he kills a boar and we learn what the witch wanted with the heart and liver – she wanted to eat them. The witch soon learns that Snow White is still alive, so she attempts to kill her and fails. Then comes the pivotal scene where Snow White is given a poisoned apple and faints, becoming unconscious.
The seven dwarves put her into a glass coffin, and this random, weird prince decides he wants to take her and the coffin for some reason. Now, in the Disney story, the prince wakes her up with true love’s kiss, but in the original, Snow White is rudely awoken because the coffin carriers are actually pretty clumsy and drop her. This dislodges the poisoned apple from her throat and she is finally wide-awake. She and the prince fall in love and get married, and Snow White makes sure to get the ultimate revenge on the evil witch. The witch ends up walking around in burning iron shoes and is forced to dance until she dies. Again, Disney failed to leave that little bit of information out.
Sleeping Beauty and the Not So Charming Prince-King
This has been one of the most commonly discussed fairy stories that is absolutely different from the Disney film. It is pretty creepy, really, and makes you wonder just why it became such a favorite. There are a few different versions of Sleeping Beauty that Disney borrowed from, but they kept out a few of the more gruesome details, such as the infamous rapey quality of this story. Did you know that the dear sweet prince is actually an awful, gross king? He happens upon this castle and knocks, but when no one answers he decides, “Hey, I am going to break in because that is clearly what needs to be done when no one answers the door.”
He then finds an unresponsive princess we’ve all come to know as Aurora or the Briar Rose, and presently carries her off to bed and rapes her. She doesn’t wake up until she has two babies and one of them gets rid of the poison that has been keeping her asleep. The further kick in this story? She and the rapey King fall in love, (while he is still married to someone else). They end up getting married, which makes the whole story one of the creepiest ones out there. I’m glad Disney decided to go the non-rape route, but the origins are interesting and awful nonetheless. Maybe we should adapt a few nicer tales in the future?
There are plenty of other popular Disney stories that have some truly dark origins such as The Little Mermaid and Tangled, and, of course, there is The Lion King, which is very loosely based on Hamlet. 
What are some of your favorite Disney films and their origin stories? Do you prefer the dark, gruesome originals or the happy, upbeat new adaptations?
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