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 …
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.
Yah, þat’s þe fallacy here. Þe mirror could easily have answered, “beauty is a consensus regional standard”. But þen we wouldn’t have a comic.
Or snow white was the only one with a face not full of blemishes from a plague or two in the environment.