—Guest Post by Rob E. Boley, author of That Risen Snow: A Scary Tale of Snow White & Zombies
It seemed like an appropriately authorly technique to start this post by reminiscing about my first memory of the iconic character Snow White. The thing is, my memory sucks.
I do vaguely recall sitting in my childhood bedroom and playing with seven dwarf figures that my parents bought for me on one of our first trips to Disney World. The dwarfs weren’t very exciting—just frozen hunks of painted plastic with no articulation.
My first clear recollection of the lady herself was actually a parody from the 1980 comedy 9 to 5, in which three fed-up co-workers, played by Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, and Jane Fonda, enact revenge on their sexist boss, Franklin Hart, played by Dabney Coleman. In one memorable dream sequence, the three ladies get high and share their wild fantasies for killing Hart. In Tomlin’s story, she assumes the role of a chipper Snow White, complete with animated birds and fairy tale music. Tomlin plays the scene with the perfect amount of wicked glee and tongue-in-cheek innocence as she poisons Hart’s coffee. The scene not only played with the notion of a male-dominated workplace, but also the role of the stereotypical passive fairy tale princess.
