Source: Existential Comics #667
Transcription:
Evil Queen: Mirror mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?
Mirror: Snow White.
Evil Queen: Hmmm …
Evil Queen: Mirror mirror on the wall, does that mean there is an objective standard of beauty?
Mirror: Uhh … yeah sure …
Evil Queen: So how did you determine your answer? What is the objective standard that you used to determine this?
Mirror: Oh you know, she is just the woman most people would think is most beautiful.
Evil Queen: What? But that’s not objective!
Evil Queen: If that were true I don’t even have to kill Snow White, I just have to kill enough people who have the hots for her to tip the scales for me.
Mirror: Okay fine, then it is her pale skin.
Evil Queen: That’s it, pale skin?
Mirror: Yeah paler the skin, the more beautiful the girl.
Evil Queen: You know … that almost sounds a little racist, mirror on the wall.
Mirror: And another thing, there are too many immigrants …
What is easier, killing one little girl, or killing thousands who have the hots for her?
The little girl is royalty. The thousands are peasants. Different scales.
Why, you’d have to do it all sneaky-like. Like, have a trusted accomplice take her out in the woods and kill her. Of course, you’d want evidence to be sure, so you’d ask the accomplice to bring you back some essential internal organ, to confirm the kill.
She’s a queen, she can easily order both things.
Except she did order someone to kill Snow White and it didn’t work. Hence the whole hag-and-apple routine.
You wouldn’t expect it, but apparently the latter.
Doesn’t fair mean light skinned?
Yeah, the Queen asked who is pale as fuck, mirror responds with <pale-ass-bitch>. The Queen then decides that means <pale-ass-bitch> is most beautiful and moves the goal post. I’d probably start being a snarky ass mirror by panel 4 as well.
Yeah, this comic is poorly written. First she literally asked who was the “fairest”, second I’m side eyeing the idea that she’d care about those concerns and would be the “good one” between her and the mirror. Sure, there’s a bunch of story villains that are actually more relatable than the heroes of their stories but the queen from Snow White was just a cartoon villain. And a despot that orders the assassination of a young girl for daring to look better than her isn’t raising what looks like leftist (or at least social liberal) talking points about beauty standards and racism.
Based on this, I think this might be conservative propaganda dressed up as “woman can’t be wrong” propaganda.
It’s not conservative, it’s Existential Comics. Their whole deal is using comics as a vehicle to discuss/make fun of philosophical concepts.
Or it is just a comic that isn’t very good
Yeah, and that’s probably more likely, since this isn’t likely going to be making a big impact either way.
Not entirely true it was only the white skin, she also had black hair and very red lips.
I’ve always seen it as her uniqueness that was considered attractive, not particularly her skin.Black hair is not a typical trait of people who have very white skin, I guess you could have a similar story about a dark skinned woman with fair hair.
But that would not be an image the Brothers Grimm readers would as easily imagine in their heads, and would be more likely for a story written somewhere where that would be more likely and identifiable.Aren’t there African stories that have beauty standards about being as black as a black stone?
So the mirror likes goth chicks.
The Queen is also not asking the mirror who is the most beautiful, she is asking who is the palest mf around. It’s the Queen’s problem that she conflates that with beauty.
In the 1812 German version (and German versions since then), the queen asks who is “schönste” in the land. That’s definitely pretty, beautiful, or attractive, rather than pale, white, or brilliant.
Or snow white was the only one with a face not full of blemishes from a plague or two in the environment.
I’d actually love to hear a twist on the story where the mirror is the baddie. Maybe it’s an imprisoned demon who convinces the Queen that Snow will brutally overthrow her. Having little sides that show it also is a racist to emphasize that it’s evil and biased would be fun
Wish?
I just have to kill enough people who have hots for her
Well that’s one way of doing it.
