November theme: The Persistence of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Guest curated by Christopher Holliday

Deadline: October 27th, 2017

 

As the first feature-length cel-animated film produced by the Walt Disney Studio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand, 1937) occupies a central place within the history of global animation. Based on the German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, the film announced the animated cartoon as an industrial art form, becoming the first feature to be released under the Walt Disney Productions company banner. Disney’s version of Snow White not only set in motion the Golden Age of the Hollywood cartoon, but established a dominant template for Disney Feature Animation, continuing to endure as the best-remembered entry within the studio’s classical output. Since its initial theatrical run, the film has been re-released on multiple occasions (in 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975, 1983, 1987 and 1993), and was the first video in the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection. Snow White remains the only animated film to feature among the Top 10 at the U.S. office, and is a film whose commercial and critical repute is matched only by its cultural significance and prominence within international film history.

November’s theme invites posts that focus on any aspect of Disney’s Snow White that interrogates the enduring qualities that have marked its animated legacy. Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Snow White’s importance to Disney Feature Animation (house style, corporate history, production culture);
  • Connections to early Disney short programmes (Laugh-O-Grams, Alice Comedies, Silly Symphonies, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit);
  • Snow White and the landscape of Golden Age Hollywood animation (MGM, Warner Brothers);
  • Animation and/as technology (Rotoscoping, Multi-plane camera);
  • Snow White and the evolution of the animated musical (musicology, sound design, soundtrack);
  • Snow White as animated fairy-tale/fantasy;
  • Snow White and the Disney Princess franchise;
  • Merchandising and marketing the Snow White phenomenon (theme park attractions, video game, Broadway musical);
  • Snow White and adaptation studies;
  • Snow White and theories of childhood;
  • Snow White and film genre;
  • Stardom and performance (Adriana Caselotti, Lucille La Verne, Harry Stockwell);
  • Gender and sexuality;
  • Snow White’s animated ecology and the natural world;
  • Animation, aesthetics, art;
  • Adaptations of Disney’s Snow White (newspaper comic strip, Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, Snow White with the Red Hair);
  • Walt Disney and Snow White;
  • Snow White and its audiences (fandom and critical reception);
  • Snow White and Disney Home Media (relationship to the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, Disney’s Platinum Editions, Diamond Editions, Walt Disney Signature Collection Line);
  • Snow White and animation studies.

Posts of between 600 and 900 words, which discuss any aspect of the above topic are welcome. Contributors are encouraged to include clips and at least one image to support their posts. Please also include a short bio to accompany the post and 3 keywords. All permissions are the responsibility of the contributor. Please contact the guest curator Christopher Holliday (christopher.holliday@kcl.ac.uk) and the editors Nichola Dobson (nichola_dobson@yahoo.co.uk) and Cristina Formenti (cristina.formenti@unimi.it) with submissions or questions.