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Queen (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)
Encyclopedia
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
and the main antagonist
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
in the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White
"Snow White" is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm...
, collected by the Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
and adapted by Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
into an animated film
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...
.
The Queen is beautiful, but narcissistic
Narcissism
Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...
and cruel and a very powerful sorceress
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
. She marries a widowed king who has a daughter called Snow White from his first wife. The Queen envies Snow White's beauty, and so tries to have her killed, setting the story in motion.
Brothers Grimm version
The German fairytale was collected by the Brothers Grimm in their 1812 Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales"Grimm's Fairy Tales
Children's and Household Tales is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales .-Composition:...
). In the first edition, though not the subsequent ones, the Queen is Snow White's biological mother, not stepmother.
In the Grimm version, the Queen orders her huntsman to take Snow White (or Snowdrop, as she is called in the first edition) into the forest, and bring back her lungs and liver as proof that he has killed her. The huntsman takes pity on Snow White, and instead brings the Queen the lungs and liver of a boar, which she eats, believing them to be Snow White's.
The Queen eventually discovers that Snow White has survived by questioning her magic mirror
Magic Mirror
Magic Mirror is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which was first printed in January, 1946.It depicts a mirror standing vertically on wooden supports on a tiled surface. The perspective is looking down at an angle at the right hand side of the mirror. There is a sphere at each...
. She dresses in a disguise in her later attempts to kill Snow White. First, she visits the dwarfs' house as an old peddler woman, and sells Snow White laces for a corset
Corset
A corset is a garment worn to hold and shape the torso into a desired shape for aesthetic or medical purposes...
; but laces them too tightly, to asphyxiate her. When that fails, she returns as a different old woman and tricks Snow White into using a poisoned comb
Comb
A comb is a toothed device used in hair care for straightening and cleaning hair or other fibres. Combs are among the oldest tools found by archaeologists...
. Finally when the comb fails to kill her, she visits again as a farmer's wife and gives Snow White a poisoned apple.
After Snow White and the Prince reveal her true nature, she is invited to their wedding, where she is forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and "dance until she dropped down dead."
Disney version
The film version of the Queen was often referred to as Queen Grimhilde in Disney publications of the 1930s, and was voiced by Lucille La VerneLucille La Verne
Lucille La Verne was an American actress known for her appearances in silent, scolding, and vengeful roles in early color films, as well as for her triumphs on the American stage....
. Her appearance was inspired by the character of Queen Hash-a-Motep from the 1935 film She
She (1935 film)
She is a 1935 film produced by Merian C. Cooper. The film is based on H. Rider Haggard's novel of the same name. It stars Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott and Nigel Bruce, with music by Max Steiner...
, played by Helen Gahagan
Helen Gahagan
Helen Gahagan was an American actress and politician. She was the third woman and first Democratic woman elected to Congress from California; her election made California one of the first two states to have elected female members of the House from both parties.-Early life and acting...
. The Queen ranks #10 in the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's list of the 50 Best Movie Villains of All Time
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains is a list of the 100 greatest screen characters chosen by American Film Institute in June 2003. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series. The series was first presented in a CBS special hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger...
, the highest-ranked animated villain.
A vain and proud beauty, the Queen gained her royal position by marrying a widowed king who departed soon after marrying her, leaving her as current ruler of the kingdom. She was jealous of Snow White
Snow White (Disney)
Snow White is a fictional character and the main protagonist from Walt Disney's first animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,...
's beauty, so she made Snow White a scullery maid. The Queen had a magical mirror with which she could look upon whatever she wished. The Magic Mirror shows a haunted, smoky face which replies to the Queen's requests. She regularly asks the mirror who is the fairest in the land ("Magic, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?"), and the mirror always replies that she is.
One day, the mirror tells her that there is a new fairest woman in the land, her stepdaughter, Snow White. After observing the handsome prince, singing a love song to Snow White, the Queen, in a jealous rage, orders her faithful huntsman Humbert to take the Princess deep into the forest and kill her. He is ordered to bring back her heart in a box to prove that he had done so. Humbert could not bear to kill the young princess, so he tells Snow White of the Queen's plot and tells her to run away and never to return. In order to escape the penalty, he returns with a pig's heart and gives it to the Queen. When she questions her mirror, it again replies that Snow White is the fairest in the land, and that she is living at the cottage of the seven dwarfs.
Furious that Humbert tricked her, the Queen goes down into the dungeon laboratory and mixes a potion that turns her into a hag. Her beauty is shrouded in ugliness and age. This appearance of the Queen is commonly referred to as The Witch or The Old Hag. She then conjures a poison apple which will cause death-like sleep and proceeds to leave the castle. She is sure that no one would know or perform the counter-curse to her spell, and believes the dwarfs would bury Snow White alive, thinking her dead. The Queen comes to the cottage, followed by two vicious buzzard
Buzzard
A buzzard is one of several large birds, but there are a number of meanings as detailed below.-Old World:In the Old World Buzzard can mean:* One of several medium-sized, wide-ranging raptors with a robust body and broad wings....
s, and finds Snow White baking a pie for Grumpy the dwarf. Somehow, Snow White's animal friends realize that the old hag is the Queen. After an unsuccessful attempt to warn Snow White by attacking the Queen, they go to warn the dwarfs of the Queen's arrival. The Queen tricks Snow White into letting her inside the cottage and eating the poisoned apple, telling her that it is a magic wishing apple. Snow White takes a bite and falls to the floor, apparently dead.
The Queen rejoices in her victory, but is soon discovered by the seven dwarfs, who chase her deep into the forest as a great storm begins. She climbs up into the mountains, where she stands upon a precipice that overlooks a seemingly bottomless canyon, and attempts to push down a large boulder to crush the dwarfs. Just then, a lightning bolt strikes between her and the boulder, destroying the precipice and sending the Queen (along with the boulder) down the cliff, screaming while she falls to the jagged rocks below. As the dwarfs look wide-eyed over the cliff's edge, they cannot see her. The buzzards fly past, to eat the evil Queen's corpse. Her castle is taken over by the prince and Snow White, after his kiss revives her.
Other appearances
The Queen has made other appearances in various Disney media. She went on to make frequent appearances in Disney comics, where, under the alias the Witch, she regularly antagonized Disney characters like Chip 'n DaleChip 'n Dale
Chip and Dale are two chipmunk cartoon characters created in 1943 at Walt Disney Productions. Their names are a pun based on the name "Chippendale"...
and Tinkerbell
Tinkerbell
Tinker Bell , is a fictional character from J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and its 1911 novelization Peter and Wendy. She has appeared in multiple film and television adaptations of the Peter Pan stories, in particular the 1953 animated Walt Disney picture Peter Pan...
. There was even an Italian story explaining how she had survived her apparent death in the movie, and why she could not change back to her normal self.
In the night-time fireworks and visual hydrotechnic show Fantasmic!
Fantasmic!
Fantasmic! is a Disney nighttime show at Disneyland in the Disneyland Resort, Disney's Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World and Tokyo DisneySea in Tokyo Disney Resort. The show features fireworks, live actors, water effects, fire, music, several boats, decorated rafts and projections onto large...
, the Queen is the main villain and the leader of the Disney Villains that appear near the climax of the show. In the "The Disney Villains Mix and Mingle" stage show in Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party
Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party
Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is a separate-admission Halloween-themed event held annually during the months of September and October at the Magic Kingdom theme park of the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, outside Orlando, and at Disneyland Paris Resort outside Paris,...
, the Queen is one of the villains led by Maleficent
Maleficent
Maleficent is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Walt Disney's 1959 adaptation of Sleeping Beauty. She is the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil" who, after not being invited to the baby's christening, curses the infant Princess Aurora to "prick her finger on the spindle of a...
that appear during the Cinderella Castle Forecourt Stage.
She was featured in television specials like Our Unsung Villains
Our Unsung Villains
Our Unsung Villains was a one-hour television special that aired in 1956 as part of Walt Disney Presents. The program has Walt Disney handing over the hosting duties to the Magic Mirror, who promptly decides to do a show devoted to the Disney Villains...
and Disney's Greatest Villains
Disney's Greatest Villains
Disney's Greatest Villains was a one-hour television special that first aired on May 15, 1977 on The Wonderful World of Disney. It was a somewhat updated version of 1956's Our Unsung Villains, and was also used to feature Madame Medusa, the villain in the then-upcoming Disney animated film The...
, and segments of the Queen's appearance are shown in Disney's Halloween Treat
Disney's Halloween Treat
Disney's Halloween Treat is a 47-minute Halloween-themed clip show which first aired on The Wonderful World of Disney in 1982 and featured a compilation of Disney animated shorts involving spooky or supernatural themes as well as excerpted segments from Disney feature films. The credits also...
and in A Disney Halloween
A Disney Halloween
A Disney Halloween was a 90-minute Halloween-themed television special that included portions from both Disney's Halloween Treat and Disney's Greatest Villains featuring classic short cartoons and excerpts of various villains from Disney feature films...
. The Queen also makes a cameo in Mickey's House of Villains
Mickey's House of Villains
Mickey's House of Villains is a direct-to-video film produced by The Walt Disney Company. It is a film adaptation of the Disney Channel animated television series Disney's House of Mouse, starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Daisy Duck and Disney Villains that have appeared in...
, and is seen sitting with Lady Tremaine in her queen form, and with Madam Mim and Witch Hazel in her witch form. She also makes a cameo in her witch version in Toontown in Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters...
.
The Queen is also one of the four Disney Villains that appear in the Disney's Villains' Revenge
Disney's Villains' Revenge
Disney's Villains' Revenge is a video game produced by Disney Interactive for PCs or Macintosh computers, released in 1999. The gameplay is a simple interactive "point-and-click" method in various forms, featuring the player helping Jiminy Cricket save the happy endings of several of the Walt...
video game. Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket is the Walt Disney version of "The Talking Cricket" , a fictional character created by Carlo Collodi for his children's book Pinocchio, which was adapted into an animated film by Disney in 1940...
and the player venture into the worlds of the stories to correct the happy endings, which have been altered by the villains themselves. In the altered story, the Queen has built a giant house resembling her infamous poisoned apple and has put Snow White to sleep and intends to do the same to the seven dwarves.
In the video game Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix and Disney for the PlayStation Portable, serving as the sixth installment in the Kingdom Hearts series. The game was released on UMD in Japan on January 9, 2010, in North America on September 7, 2010 and in Europe on September...
, she plays out the same role as in the movie, only this time recruiting Terra to kill Snow White and bring back her heart in return for allowing him to use the Magic Mirror to locate Master Xehanort. Terra, like the huntsman, ultimately does not go through with this, and the Queen, learning of his betrayal, orders him executed by the mirror, but Terra manages to fight the mirror off. The Queen begrudgingly asks the mirror of Master Xehanort's whereabouts, and the mirror directs Terra to the Keyblade Graveyard. Later, she disguises herself as an old hag to give Snow White a poisoned apple and send her into a deep sleep. On the way, she drops the apple, and Ventus mistakenly returns the fruit to her. She thanks Ven kindly, but notes that she previously met a man with a weapon very similar to Ven's who threatened her into helping him find someone called Xehanort. She succeeds in poisoning Snow White, but is never seen or heard from again. As the dwarfs are seen grieving at Snow White's side later on in the game, and since she does not appear elsewhere in the series, it is implied that the Queen suffered the same fate as in the film.
The novel Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen takes a comical look at how she became the villain in the film, much in the style of Wicked
Wicked (musical)
Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , a parallel novel of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard...
, with the Magic Mirror, here possessed by the spirit of her abusive father, having been a corrupting influence. The book was published by Disney Press
Disney Press
Disney Press is a department of The Walt Disney Company specifically used to produce books of various genres and for various age groups . Many of the books Disney Press produces are picture books based on Mickey Mouse and friends and other characters from many popular Disney animated features...
.
In a related Disney special hosted by Dick Van Dyke
Dick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
, the queen was played by Jane Curtin
Jane Curtin
Jane Therese Curtin is an American actress and comedienne. She is commonly referred to as Queen of the Deadpan.First coming to prominence as an original cast member on Saturday Night Live in 1975, she went on to win back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on the 1980s...
, while the mirror was played by Sherman Hemsley
Sherman Hemsley
Sherman Alexander Hemsley is an American actor, most famous for his role as George Jefferson on the CBS television series All in the Family and The Jeffersons, and as Deacon Ernest Frye on the NBC series Amen. He also played Earl Sinclair's horrifying boss, a Triceratops named B.P...
. She also appears in one of the Disney Princess books called My Side of the Story with her stepdaughter Snow White and in the Queen's side, she appears to have a nice-looking face.
It has been rumored that the Queen will make a guest appearance in the upcoming video game Soulcalibur V
Soulcalibur V
is the upcoming sixth installment in Namco's Soul series of fighting games, and will be released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012. The game will take place 17 years after the events of Soulcalibur IV. The main protagonist is Patroklos, the son of Soul series veteran Sophitia, while her...
under the name Queen Grimhilde.
A Tale of Terror version
In the film Snow White: A Tale of TerrorSnow White: A Tale of Terror
Snow White: A Tale of Terror is a 1997 horror film based on the Snow White fairy tale. It stars Sigourney Weaver, Sam Neill and Monica Keena. The original music score is composed by John Ottman...
, the character is not a Queen, but rather a noblewoman named Lady Claudia Hoffman played by Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver is an American actress. She is best known for her critically acclaimed role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition .Other notable roles include Dana...
, and is partly portrayed as a tragic character.
She marries widower nobleman Frederick Hoffman. She tries to befriend his daughter, Lily, giving Lily a puppy, but Lily rejects her. On their wedding night people of the manor bless Lord and Lady Hoffman's marriage bed so that their consummation might be fruitful. Lily, instead of offering her blessing, throws the holy water
Holy water
Holy water is water that, in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and some other churches, has been sanctified by a priest for the purpose of baptism, the blessing of persons, places, and objects; or as a means of repelling evil.The use for baptism and...
at Claudia. Lily runs away and finds her way into the Lady's quarters. When her nanny comes to look for her, Lily hides under the bed. There is a mirror in the room, treasured by the Lady. It opens for the nanny and Lily watches the nanny having a heart attack after looking into the mirror.
From that, her comments about casting the runes
Runic alphabet
The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter...
early on, her mentioning that "they" hate her and her mother's kind, and that Snow White is a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
fairy tale, it is impied that she might be a holdout of Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...
hiding in a Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
world.
By the time Lily is a teenager, she and her stepmother despise each other. By the ninth year of her marriage to Lord Hoffman, she is pregnant with a son. The night of the celebratory dance, she offers Lily the dress she had worn as a maiden but the daughter refuses. When she arrives at the dance, she wears her birth mother's dress and dances with her father. With Frederick Hoffman, and all the others, turn away from his wife for his daughter — and his first wife's memory — the enraged Lady Claudia suffers such a severe rush of stress that she collapses and goes into childbirth. The baby, however, is stillborn
Stillbirth
A stillbirth occurs when a fetus has died in the uterus. The Australian definition specifies that fetal death is termed a stillbirth after 20 weeks gestation or the fetus weighs more than . Once the fetus has died the mother still has contractions and remains undelivered. The term is often used in...
.
Driven mad by grief, she turns to her magic mirror for reassurance, but sees her reflection distorted and deformed. The mirror blames Lily for the baby's death and with that Claudia plots her stepdaughter's assassination. Lily goes to play in the forest, and Claudia sends her mute, inbred
Inbreeding
Inbreeding is the reproduction from the mating of two genetically related parents. Inbreeding results in increased homozygosity, which can increase the chances of offspring being affected by recessive or deleterious traits. This generally leads to a decreased fitness of a population, which is...
brother to kill her. When she escapes, the brother kills a pig and gives his sister the organs of proof of the deed. Lady Claudia serves part of the organs as a stew which she eats with cannibalistic relish. When her mirror tells her that her stepdaugher is alive, she uses her black magic to murder her brother by means of forced suicide.
On learning Lily's whereabouts by means of her ravens, Lady Claudia tries to kill her and the seven miners with whom she hides by means of her witchcraft. She first buries a bird in the falling sand of an hourglass to cause a cave-in
Cave-in
A cave-in is a collapse of a geologic formation, mine or structure which typically occurs during mining or tunneling. Geologic structures prone to cave-ins include alvar, tsingy and other limestone formations, but can also include lava tubes and a variety of other subsurface rock formations.In...
at the mine. She fails to kill Lily but succeeds at killing a miner. Later she pushes over and breaks her husband's statues of the Saints to make the trees in the miner's forest home fall over and hopefully crush her stepdaughter. She fails and instead kills another miner. She then takes the mirror's advice; that advice being to kill her stepdaughter with the Serpent's
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
fruit: the apple
Apple (symbolism)
Apples appear in many religious traditions, often as a mystical or forbidden fruit. One of the problems identifying apples in religion, mythology and folktales is that as late as the 17th century, the word "apple" was used as a generic term for all fruit other than berries, but including nuts...
. Using magic to disguise herself as an old woman, Lady Claudia poisons Lily, placing her in a coma.
With Lily thought dead, Lady Claudia turns her attention inward, trying to seduce Lily's fiancee, Peter Gutenberg, and raping her husband as a prelude to human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
in an attempt to revive her dead baby. The actual ritual itself is performed inside the manor chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
, Lady Claudia bringing her sacrificial victim before the image of the crucified Jesus Christ in order to profane Christian soil. She also bewitches every last servant of the manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
, turning them into her minions. When her stepdaughter at last is healed, she, Gutenberg, and Will, the chief miner, confront Lady Claudia. Peter is killed and Lily finds her father crucified upside-down
Cross of St. Peter
The Cross of St. Peter or Petrine Cross is an inverted Latin cross traditionally used as a Christian symbol, but in recent times also used widely as an anti-Christ symbol .-In Christianity:The origin of this symbol comes from the Catholic tradition that Simon Peter was crucified upside...
opposite the figure of Jesus on a life-sized crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
now hanging upside down by a chain from the manor chapel's ceiling.
After seeing this, Lily confronts her stepmother. A fight ensues during which a fire breaks out. Lily ultimately kills her stepmother by stabbing her image in the mirror, causing Claudia to rapidly age. As Claudia screams in horror, the mirror explodes and the shards of glass strike her, who screams in horror and blunders into the flames, catching fire. She flails around in agony until she is finally crushed by falling debris.
GoodTimes adaptation
In the GoodTimes EntertainmentGoodTimes Entertainment
GoodTimes Entertainment, Ltd. was a home video company that originated in 1984 under the name of GoodTimes Home Video. Though it produced its own titles, the company was well-known due to its distribution of media from third parties and classics...
adaption of Snow White
Snow White (1995 film)
Originally released directly to video in 1995, Snow White is a 46-minute animated film based on the classic story, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by the Brothers Grimm...
, the story follows mostly the same as the original story, only the Queen uses magic to disguise herself, turning into an old peddlar woman and trying to strangle Snow White with laces, then as an old peddlar man who gives her poison comb, then as a young girl selling apples. The Queen believes she has finally killed Snow White, until the day she leaves for a wedding being held in the city. Before she leaves, the Queen asks her mirror who the loveliest woman in the kingdom was, and she is horrified to learn that it is Snow White, still alive, whose marriage is the very one she was about to attend. In a fit of rage, the Queen begins to smash all the mirrors in her throne room, before throwing a hand mirror at her magic mirror, when the magic mirror sucks the hand mirror in. The voice in the mirror begins to suck the horrified Queen in, taunting her for her attempts to murder her stepdaughter and telling her she will never see her own face again. The Queen is last seen banging on the other side of the glass before disappearing.
The Charmings
Portrayed by acclaimed British actress Judy ParfittJudy Parfitt
Judy Parfitt is a BAFTA-nominated English theatre, film and television actress who began her career on stage in 1954.-Life and work:...
, Queen Lillian "Lily" White returns after several years, cursing Snow White and her family. This curse banishes them (including the Queen herself and her Magic Mirror played by Paul Winfield
Paul Winfield
Paul Edward Winfield was an American television, film, and stage actor. He was known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark film Sounder which earned him an Academy Award nomination. Winfield also portrayed Dr....
) into the modern world, where they live as the Charmings
The Charmings
The Charmings is an American fantasy sitcom that aired from March 1987 to February 1988 on ABC.-Synopsis:The opening voice-over set-up the premise:...
. The name coming from the fact that the prince who rescued Snow White is often called 'Prince Charming.' The Queen is forced to live with her family, while trying to find a way to return herself back to their own world.
Queen of Fables
The Queen of FablesQueen of Fables
Queen of Fables is a villain who has battled the Justice League, Wonder Woman and Superman. Based on the character of the Queen from Snow White, the Queen of Fables is the living embodiment of all evil in folklore...
is a witch from DC comic books. She was a scheming villainess who in her youth wrought Hell on Earth until she was trapped in a book by her own stepdaughter, Snow White. Centuries later, she was freed accidentally by Snow White's descendants and has since faced many Justice League superheroes like Superman and Wonder Woman who she thought was Snow White due to her great beauty.
Cannon Movie Tales
Snow WhiteSnow White (1987 film)
Snow White is a 1987 musical film based on the classic fairytale and released as part of the "Cannon Movie Tales" series. Diana Rigg stars as the Wicked Queen.The film was released straight to video...
is one of the nine Cannon Movie Tales
Cannon Movie Tales
Cannon Movie Tales is the collective name for a series of films created in the late 1980s by Cannon Group producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, associate producer Patricia Ruben, and executive producer Itzik Kol. Filmed principally on location in Israel, these stories are generally fairy tales...
fairytale musicals produced in the 1980s. The film was released in 1987. Diana Rigg
Diana Rigg
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE is an English actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Emma Peel in The Avengers and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service....
starred as the Wicked Queen. The plot follows the story of the original fairytale including the three attempts by the Queen to kill Snow White (a tight bodice, a poison comb, and finally a poison apple).
Christine White
In the 2000 miniseries The 10th KingdomThe 10th Kingdom
The 10th Kingdom is an American epic fantasy miniseries written by Simon Moore and produced by Britain's Carnival Films, Germany's Babelsberg Film und Fernsehen, and the USA's Hallmark Entertainment...
the main villain is Christine White, portrayed by Dianne Wiest
Dianne Wiest
Dianne Wiest is an American actress. She has had a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Wiest has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award.-Early life:...
. After the events in the story of Snow White, the Evil Queen, who is left to die, flees to Earth where she meets Christine Lewis, a jealous, adulterous madwoman who is addicted to prescription drugs. After almost killing her daughter in a psychopathic
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...
rage, Christine accompanies the Queen to the realm of the Nine Kingdoms to be groomed by the undead
Undead
Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased and yet behave as if alive. Undead may be incorporeal, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as vampires and zombies...
Evil Queen (now known as the Swamp Witch) to be her successor and her instrument of revenge. Christine insinuates herself into the House of White, first as the nanny of Snow White's grandson, Prince Wendell White, and later as Wendell's stepmother, after having poisoned his mother. Prior to the events of the miniseries, Christine is finally imprisoned for the subsequent poisoning death of Wendell's father. As The 10th Kingdom
The 10th Kingdom
The 10th Kingdom is an American epic fantasy miniseries written by Simon Moore and produced by Britain's Carnival Films, Germany's Babelsberg Film und Fernsehen, and the USA's Hallmark Entertainment...
begins, she escapes to cause further destruction, and at the climax of the series she is killed by the main protagonist, her daughter, Virginia.
Snow White (TV film)
In the 2001 TV film Snow White: The Fairest of Them AllSnow White (TV film)
Snow White, released in the U.S. as Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, was a television film, made in 2001, and based on the Snow White storyline. It was made by Hallmark Entertainment and directed by Caroline Thompson. It deviates in several places from the original Brothers Grimm story and...
, the Queen is a self-loathing and spectrophobic
Spectrophobia
Spectrophobia is a kind of specific phobia involving a morbid fear of mirrors and one's own reflections.Catoptrophobia is the fear of mirrors...
hag named Elspeth, one of a race of strange humanoid creatures. She is transformed into a beautiful queen by her brother, the Green-Eyed Granter of Wishes. In this adaptation she is driven more by insecurities than vanity. As in all versions of the story she grows to envy her stepdaughter, Snow White but rather than disguising herself as an old crone she disguises herself as a young woman resembling Snow White's mother and succeeds in poisoning the young princess with an enchanted apple. She also has a habit of turning dwarves into stone statues with which she decorates her palace. Her fate is even more ignominious than in most versions of the tale. At the climax of the film she becomes a withered old crone once again and is later throttled to death by the numerous dwarves whom she had turned to stone who have now been released from her spell. It is implied that she is driven to evil by the Green-Eyed Granter of Wishes so that he can destroy her. Elspeth describes her brother as cruel and throughout the film he shows a remorseless joy in tormenting his sister.
Once Upon a Time
In the new ABC TV series, Once Upon a TimeOnce Upon a Time (TV series)
Once Upon a Time is an American fairy tale drama television series that premiered on Sunday October 23, 2011, on ABC. New episodes air Sunday nights at 8:00 pm ET/7:00 pm CT....
, the Queen casts a spell on all fairy tale characters making them forget their true identities in a parallel world and in the Real World becomes Regina Mills, the foster mother of Henry as well as the Mayor of Storybrooke. It is revealed that the Queen resided in a castle with her father, Henry, in the Enchanted Forest, when she decided to cast the Dark Curse on the world as a punishment to Snow White. When the Curse did not work, the Queen went to Rumpelstilskin, who told her that she had to cut the heart out of the thing she loved most to invoke the full power of the curse. She then proceeds to cut the heart out of her own father and gives the heart to the Dark Curse to fully invoke it.
The Evil Queen in pop culture
- In Woody AllenWoody AllenWoody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
's Annie HallAnnie HallAnnie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...
(1977), Alvie mentions that when he saw Disney's Snow White, he was attracted to the Evil Queen. He then daydreams an animated scene where even the Queen (voiced by Diane KeatonDiane KeatonDiane Keaton is an American film actress, director, producer, and screenwriter. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970...
) scolds him. - In Terry GilliamTerry GilliamTerrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
's fantasy filmFantasy filmFantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
The Brothers Grimm, Monica BellucciMonica BellucciMonica Anna Maria Bellucci is an Italian actress and fashion model.-Early life:Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy as the only child of Luigi Bellucci, who was born in the British protectorate of Zanzibar, East Pakistan...
plays a villainous character modelled after the Queen. Known as the Toringian Queen (also known as the Mirror Queen) she is extremely vain, obsessed with preserving her youth and beauty and being the fairest in the land and has a gigantic mirror in her chamber. - One of the main antagonists in the Sailor MoonSailor MoonSailor Moon, known as , is a media franchise created by manga artist Naoko Takeuchi. Fred Patten credits Takeuchi with popularizing the concept of a team of magical girls, and Paul Gravett credits the series with "revitalizing" the magical-girl genre itself...
mangaMangaManga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
and animeAnimeis the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
, Queen Nehellenia is based on many evil sorceresses from fairy tales, with a particular emphasis on the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Snow QueenSnow QueenSnow Queen may refer to:* The Snow Queen, an 1845 fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen-Adaptations of the Andersen fairy tale:* The Snow Queen , a 1957 Soviet animated film* The Snow Queen , a 1995 British animated film...
. Like the Snow Queen and the Evil Queen she has a large magic mirror and like the latter she is extremely vain and arrogant. - In Mirror MirrorMirror, Mirror (novel)Mirror, Mirror is an American novel published in 2003. It was written by Gregory Maguire. The novel is a revisionist version of the tale of Snow White.-Plot summary:...
by Gregory MaguireGregory MaguireGregory Maguire is an American writer. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children...
, the Queen and Witch are personified as Lucrezia BorgiaLucrezia BorgiaLucrezia Borgia [luˈkrɛtsia ˈbɔrʤa] was the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia, the powerful Renaissance Valencian who later became Pope Alexander VI, and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia...
. - This fictional character appeared in the 1961 film Snow White and the Three StoogesSnow White and the Three StoogesSnow White and the Three Stooges is the second feature film to star the Three Stooges after their 1959 resurgence in popularity. By this time, the trio consisted of Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Joe DeRita . Released by 20th Century Fox, this was the trio's take on the classic fairy tale Snow White...
. She was played by Patricia MedinaPatricia MedinaPatricia Paz Maria Medina is an English actress from Liverpool, England. Her father was a Spaniard and her mother was English. Medina began acting as a teenager in the late 1930s...
in the film. - Ellen ReidEllen ReidEllen Reid provides backing vocals, piano, keyboards and accordion for the Canadian rock band Crash Test Dummies....
's 2001 debut album CinderellenCinderellen-Track listing:#"Make You Mine" – 3:32#"Everything" – 4:26#"Bullet" – 4:34#"Send Me Home" – 3:50#"Mirror" – 3:47#"Anybody Will Do" – 3:29#"Get Into" – 5:35#"Force Field" – 4:14#"In Defence of the Wicked Queen" – 4:48#"True Love" – 3:47...
features the song "In Defense of the Wicked Queen", which tells the story from the Queen's perspective. - In The Berenstain Bears book Trick or Treat, Queenie dresses as the Wicked Queen for HalloweenHalloweenHallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
. - In the Family GuyFamily GuyFamily Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
Season 7 episode "Road to the MultiverseRoad to the Multiverse"Road to the Multiverse" is the first episode of the eighth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. Directed by Greg Colton and written by Wellesley Wild, the episode originally aired on Fox in the United States on September 27, 2009...
", StewieStewie GriffinStewie Griffin is a fictional character from the animated television series Family Guy. Once obsessed with world domination and matricide, Stewie is the youngest child of Peter and Lois Griffin, and the brother of Chris and Meg....
and Brian GriffinBrian GriffinBrian Griffin is a character from the animated television series Family Guy. He is voiced by Seth MacFarlane and first appeared on television, along with the rest of the family, in a 15-minute short on December 20, 1998. Brian was created and designed by MacFarlane himself...
go to a Disney Universe where the characters are as Disney characters, and HerbertHerbert (Family Guy)Herbert is a character from the animated television series Family Guy. He is voiced by writer and voice actor Mike Henry, who created and designed the character...
appears as the disguised Queen, saying "You want a nice shiny red apple to go with that pie?" (after the characters have just sung a song about pie). They all yell "No!" and throw pies in his face. - In Season Five of CharmedCharmedCharmed is an American television series that originally aired from October 7, 1998, until May 21, 2006, on the now defunct The WB Television Network. The series was created in 1998 by writer Constance M...
, the Queen appears as a Wicked Witch who uses fairy tales for evil. She asks the Magic Mirror; who is the most powerful witch of all? - In the 1962 film Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding HoodTom Thumb and Little Red Riding HoodTom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood is a 1962 Mexican film directed by Roberto Rodríguez.-Story:The film follows adventures of Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb and their friends, fighting against the wicked Witch Queen and her band of monsters.The film starts at the meeting of the evil...
she is the misstress of all evil and the queen of all monsters in the world. She has a green face like MaleficentMaleficentMaleficent is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Walt Disney's 1959 adaptation of Sleeping Beauty. She is the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil" who, after not being invited to the baby's christening, curses the infant Princess Aurora to "prick her finger on the spindle of a...
and dies when the Little Red Riding HoodLittle Red Riding HoodLittle Red Riding Hood, also known as Little Red Cap, is a French fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. The story has been changed considerably in its history and subject to numerous modern adaptations and readings....
tricks her to fall into a furnace-like shrine of SatanSatanSatan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
at her castle. - In a 1973 episode of The Brady BunchThe Brady BunchThe Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz and starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis. The series revolved around a large blended family...
, housekeeper Alice Nelson portrays the Queen when the Bradys and Sam the Butcher help Cindy stage a re-enactment of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. - In the 2007 film Sydney WhiteSydney WhiteSydney White is a 2007 teen comedy film starring Amanda Bynes, Sara Paxton, and Matt Long, and based on the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.-Plot:...
, Rachel Witchburn (Sara PaxtonSara PaxtonSara Paxton is an American actress, model and singer. She grew up in California and began acting at an early age, appearing in many minor roles in both films and television shows, before coming to wider renown in 2004, after playing the title role in the series Darcy's Wild Life and Sarah Borden...
) plays the role of the Queen. - In the Perform This WayPerform This Way"Perform This Way" is a song parody by American musician "Weird Al" Yankovic. It is a parody of "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga. The lyrics are told from the point of view of Gaga and describe her performance style and fashion sense...
video, Weird Al dresses up as the evil queen while dressed as Lady Gaga.