Polar Opposites

Rammstein is a German heavy metal band. Here is their official video for the song "Sonne."

This version of Snow White is very different from what most people are used to. Where is the Queen? the King? The hunter? The Prince? All are omitted. Instead we are shown only Snow White and her dwarves, who interact very differently than typically. Here, the dwarves seem to fear her, and are pretty much her slaves. She takes the gold they mine and snorts it, forces them to polish her apples, and takes other drugs with capital provided by the dwarves. In the end it is a falling apple, not the Prince, that awakens her from her slumber.

With the absence of the Queen, it falls to Snow herself to provide the masculinity in this tale (in the original, the absence of the King forces the masculinity to the Queen). Instead of doing the housework while the dwarves work, Snow forces the dwarves to do the work and provide her with what she needs. In this way Snow is a much more dominant figure - a fact reinforced by how much bigger she is than her diminutive (Joel-sized, some might say) workers.

However the video keeps many of the images that we associate with Snow White: apples, dwarves, Snow's clothing, a comb, and of course, the glass coffin. The coffin is even placed at the top of a mountain, as it is in the original. In this way, Rammstein is reminding us that it is still the same story; only the interpretation has been changed. Instead of being a completely innocent, perfectly cute, and thoroughly uninteresting character, Snow White has been turned into someone with an almost over-bearing personality. She has presence. She is powerful. In many ways, she is the Queen, despite where she lives.

While I enjoyed watching this video for the experience, I do like the original better if only for the lack of drugs and the clever disguises of the Queen.