Plot:
Mirror Mirror (2012) is a live action of Snow White, adapted from its original story. In this film, Snow’s evil stepmother, except for envying her beauty, wants her prince. This time the biggest difference is, when Snow is exiled to the forest, she is trained into a strong and intelligent woman by those seven dwarfs. They rob from the royal, help and save the people from troubles. And this time, it is the kiss of the princess that brings the prince out of the curse he was casted by the queen. In the end they go back to the castle, managing to take back Snow’s kingdom and defeat the queen. Hard as it is, they succeed.
Comment:
As all those princess films in the 21th Century, men characters become increasingly unimportant, princesses are taking the role to save others. In Mirror Mirror Snow does not passively wait for the prince to save her; but she becomes a leader, a fighter. She inherits the good parts of the old her, which is beauty, helpfulness and kindness; yet she is better than the old her, for she is intelligent, strong and powerful from both inside and outside. She earns the trusts by using her wisdom and helping other; she finds the courage to fight against the evil queen and defeats her by a surprise move; she regains what belongs to her for she is a persistent princess of strong will. The old weak princess Snow White no longer exists.
This film’s celebrating the power of women and overthrowing the out-fashioned princess image symbolizes now the society starts to see women as important and powerful as men. Moreover, women can take control of their own life. And it does not just refer to Snow White. In the film even for the evil queen, she is ambitious and do not need to cater men. She is in the decisive place when dealing with her compulsive relationship with the prince; she decides the way she looks and everything of her imaginary wedding.
Though the film seems to change the original plot a lot by almost completely reversing the places of men and women, it intention to put women in a more initiative social status and to encourage women to control their own life actually sets a good example for young girls who wants to become princesses. This inspires them that only those girls who are independent and dare to fight for happiness can finally win the kingdom and become a real princess.