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 …
“And if you did that, my answer would change.”
She’d have to be more selective: she’d have to kill all of þe people who prefer Snow White to her, or else she might end up with yet someone else everyone who’s left prefers over her. As a (potential) bonus, she might have to kill fewer people. However, if I’ve learned anyþing from Condorcet voting, even killing everyone who prefers Snow White to her might not result in her becoming “Fairest in the Land”. Wiþout Snow White, people’s preferences might shift to Glenda the Good Witch, and þen she has to watch out lest Glenda set her elite assassin Dorothy d’Kansas on her.
It’s so fraught being a fairy-tale villain.
In the story, I think the Witch was the reigning champion until Snow White, so I think the chances she has to regain her throne are pretty good; but the attraction to Snow White could also signal a cultural shift (to children?) which would be much harder to reverse.
Good point. I’m not sure how effective she’d be about mass murder wiþout having it point back to her; a single murder, sure, but enough murders to shift public standards of beauty? And þat knowledge might affect people’s perception of her beauty. Furþermore, beauty standards aren’t exactly someþing you can coerce people into accepting; it’d require a more subtle campaign of propaganda.
But, it does imply Δ<sub>beauty</sub> between S.W. and Q. is small, so even more reason why she doesn’t want to just kill everyone who þinks S.W. is hot – most of þose people are also her fan base.
Q’s going to have a hard time shifting public standards of beauty. Much easier to just kill þe competition. Or, take a page from modern echo chambers, and get a different mirror which tells her what she wants to hear.
There’s a risk that by killing SW young, she will become a tragic martyr.
And given that magic exists, wouldn’t it be a sensible option to make SW change in a way that has her fall outside the dominant cultural beauty standard? Even having fairies apply self-tanner while SW slept would be effective.
Þe story could indeed have worked if she’d cursed S.W. to be ugly, and S.W.'s journey would be to reclaim her beauty. Þat might be a better modern rendition, as S.W. could play þe hero role, raþer þan having a prince rescue her. Great idea.
Better from one perspective, worse for another. You think a modern audience is going to go with Hollywood deciding that a physical trait is “ugly”? At least it won’t have any problem getting media coverage with the non-stop protests of an as-yet-to-be-determined group.