4. Snow White Is Painfully Sexist
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is the first animated film I ever saw, and it remains one of my favourites, despite the fact that in retrospect, it seems woefully sexist. Now, all films are of course subject to the mores of the time in which they are made, but many of these films drop out of popularity as a result, whereas this Disney classic endures as a sweet, beautifully animated fairytale for all ages. Snow White is sexist almost from start to finish; she begins as a domestic goddess, waiting on the dwarves hand and foot, before she succumbs to the famed poisoned apple, and falls into a deep sleep. This is at the hands of the Evil Queen, a powerful woman who is (arguably as a result) depicted as evil, while the passive, subservient Snow White is seen as the hero, who has to inevitably be rescued by a man, rather than forming her own agency to escape the situation. There is also a certain irony to the fact that so much of the film hinges on what Snow White
looks like, rather than who she is; she is killed because of her attractiveness, and then rescued because of it as well.