ABSTRACT
This chapter explores two well-known fairy tales. Fairy tales are stories with enormous staying power. It suggests that fairy tales both reflect psychoanalysts' beliefs and perpetuate them. "Cinderella" and "Snow White" alert them to issues that psychoanalysts' female patients of all ages are likely to struggle with. They are told over and over, handed down from one generation to another, throughout the world. "Cinderella" and "Snow White" are iconic fairy tales with striking similarities: in both, a beautiful young girl with a dead mother is badly mistreated by a selfish and evil older woman. The chapter focuses on two major Hollywood films about Snow White were released in 2012: Mirror, Mirror, and Snow White and the Huntsman. Many fairy tales are so widely told that they become basic knowledge shared by everyone within a culture. It shows that both of them change a key aspect of the story—neither film depicts a passive Snow White being rescued by the prince.
