Tripping in Snow Cocaine
Pictogram
TSANG Tak-shun, Gabriel 曾德淳
Student of SM2105 Narrative Strategies and Aesthetics of Time-based Media
Abstract
Disney changed the original story to make it profitable and family friendly, yet its animation always overshadowed the more experimental Flesischer. His animations are known for going all out and wild, sometimes edgier even, in order to, in my opinion, to create a comedic effect. It is very worth noting that Fleischer’s version of Snow White came out four years before Walt Disney’s (1937), so Fleischer’s Snow White was even older than the mainstream story of Snow White.
I decide to pay tribute to Fleischer by making the pictogram black-and-white and I take his exaggeration even further — with the “disturbing” imagery of Snow White’s severed hand, cocaine on the table, the middle finger, and dents on the new “cartoonish” arm. The group of floating spirits by design are the side characters (the clown and the dog); and their hand being a heart suggests they sympathise with Snow White. Some elements not found in the animation are added into this pictogram, such as a crossed-out poisonous apple floating (ironically Snow White is doing drugs herself). The seven dwarfs, despite making an appearance, do not carry a major role like they do in the mainstream version, hence the tied up dwarfs.
