Colour Symbolism in Fairy Tale Film Adaptations. Mirror Mirror and Snow White & the Huntsman

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject American Studies - Literature grade: 20 Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt language: English abstract: Once upon a time - 200 years ago to be precise - two brothers put down a collection of previously orally bequeathed wondrous and fantastic stories that would continue to amaze children and adults all over the world. These so-called folktales or fairy tales with their simple stories magical characters and educational morals fascinated people for hundreds of years. The stories written down by the brothers Grimm represent the sociohistoric and cultural context from their time. As the world changes old styles of oral storytelling give way to newer ones particularly technologically advanced ways of narration: books CDs DVDs video games cinema et cetera. Although there are numerous newer fantastic stories such as Star Wars The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter the fairy tales' timeless themes like good versus evil love friendship fear and bravery still reappear in contemporary narrative media. Today these fairy stories are still engaging for children teenagers as well as adults. However one may not find them very often being told in gloomy fire-lit spinning rooms or read aloud at children's bedsides any more but rather on a huge screen with surround sound special visual effects in 3D and lots of popcorn and candy to nibble. One of the most popular of Grimms' folktales is S(ch)neewittchen (KHM 53) internationally known as Snow White Snow Drop Blanche-neige or Blanca Nieve. No doubt Snow White is die beliebteste meistillustrierte meist-verfilmte aber auch vielfach parodierte und verkitschte Figur der Kinder- und Hausmärchen [der Gebrüder Grimm]. The tale of Little Snow White has been transformed into many media during the last 200 years however Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from 1937 is supposedly THE classic feature-length animated fairy film par excellence. Since the