filed in Happy Ever After
Snow White as Suburban Housewife
The Vancouver photographer, Dina Goldstein, has created a great site, Fallen Princesses, as a showcase for her upcoming exhibit on what happens when Disney characters don’t meet with their happy ever after ending.
Fairy tales were my first contact with romantic lives to dream about, but never realize. Disney came next. Then TV sitcoms. In those days, I was too young to boycott. But as a grownup, romantic comedies are my beef, so I rarely see them. I can’t suspend my disbelief when the girl gets the perfect guy, especially in those movies when she has two perfect guys from which to choose. The way I know it, a man may be cute, but then he’s probably not successful and if he’s successful, he’s not smart, and if he’s smart, he doesn’t have integrity, and in any case, he doesn’t want to make a lifelong commitment with me. I did have two guys vying for me once in the nineties. But that was about sex. Don’t think that I’m complaining. I lived off that story for a year. In fact, if I can make a bad incident a colorful anecdote, it’s worth the experience.
Update:
Thanks to a reader (and writer) Mary, for reminding me of the relevance to this photo of Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Into the Woods. Here are lyrics from one of the songs that still reverberate for me so many years after first hearing them. On stage, a peasant wife has just been unexpectedly kissed by a prince in the woods, and then he flees. I love the last part, especially. “Is it always or, it is never and.”
Moments in the Woods
WIFE: What was that?
Was that me? Was that him?
Did a prince really kiss me,
And kiss me.. and kiss me..
And did I kiss him back?
Was it wrong? Am I mad?
Was that all? Does he miss me?
Was he suddenly getting bored with me?
Wake up! Stop dreaming,
Stop prancing about the woods.
It’s not beseeming.
What is it about the woods?
Back to life, back to sense, back to child, back to husband.
No one lives in the woods!
There are vows, there are ties,
There are needs, there are standards,
There are shouldn’t and shoulds.
Why not both instead?
There’s the answer, if you’re clever.
Have a child for warmth, and a baker for bread,
And a prince, for.. whatever..
Never! It’s these woods!
Face the facts, find the boy, join the group, stop the giant–
Just get out of these woods.
Was that me? Yes it was. Was that him? No it wasn’t..
Just a trick of the woods!
Just a moment,
One peculiar passing moment.
Must it all be either less or more,
Either plain or grand?
Is it always ‘or’?
Is it never ‘and’?
That’s what woods are for:
For those moments in the woods…
Oh, if life were made of moments,
Even now and then a bad one–!
But if life were only moments,
Then you’d never know you had one.
First a witch, then a child, then a Prince, then a moment–
Who can live in the woods?
And to get what you wish, only just for a moment–
These are dangerous woods..
Let the moment go..
Don’t forget it for a moment, though.
Just remembering you had an ‘and,’ when you’re back to ‘or,’
Makes the ‘or’ mean more than it did before.
Now I understand–
And it’s time to leave the woods.
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FIRST PERSON SINGULAR is a guide to surviving, thriving and sometimes just getting through a single day. Created by Wendy Braitman (more…)
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Great post Wendy 🙂
I am very passionate about the fact that “appearances are deceptive” – both in looking at people, and their lives, and in life generally (hence I’m a skeptic)
You never know what is really happening in people’s lives because rarely do they tell you everything, or the honest truth. And in the same way, there are things that we ourselves don’t share with others.
That wonderful photo reminds me of the Sondheim play, Into the Woods, about what happens after happily ever after. It’s one of my favorites.
Thank you for highlighting this photographer! Her work is so refreshing! (And I feel somewhat ironic saying that because the subject matter is so cynical, but it’s true.)