Snow White & the Huntsman: Kristen Stewart gets a lot of hate in fandom

[scrollgirl]

After work today, I went to a community outreach event with high school kids from the Jane and Finch area who performed spoken word/poetry and dance and song, and who knocked my socks off with their performances and energy. A few were technically/artistically better than others, if we suppose art can even be objectively measured, but they were all

Comments

[buffyannotater]

A lot of peoples' problems with Kristen Stewart, as far as I have seen, is that not only is she flat and practically affect-less in the Twilight films (then again, I'm sure the writing doesn't help) but she's also rather surly and entitled in interviews, complaining about how much she hates being famous and how hard it is for her. I'm not holding out much hope that her acting will be particularly great in Snow White, because in all of the early trailers, they showed almost no dialogue for her at all (there still doesn't seem to be *that* much), which is usually a sign that they're trying to cut around a bad performance. On the other hand, I'm ridiculously excited for this film, because the art design and Charlize Theron look absolutely stunning.

[scrollgirl]

Yeah, I'm with you on salivating over the art design and Charlize Theron. And also THORRRR! *g* But I guess my position on Kristen Stewart has pretty much been to assume that she'll be great or at least pretty good because it's not like it'll increase my enjoyment or excitement to assume she'll be awful. Like, once I watch the movie and decide her performance disappointed my expectations, she's going to disappoint me regardless so I might as well have fun fangirling while I can, right?

But I suppose it helps that I never saw Twilight or her Twilight interviews--I can pretend none of that happened. The bits I've seen of her promoting SWATH aren't like that, so maybe she's got a better publicist now!

[dlgood]

What I saw of the Twilight movie would make it very hard to judge the acting skill of anyone in the cast on that alone.

[scrollgirl]

Exactly. You have to be committed to a script, I think, to really give your best performance. At least for me, if I hated a piece of music, I would never care whether I played to my best ability.

[ponygirl2000]

I thought Kristin Stewart was quite good playing a young Joan Jett in the Runaways movie. I'm really looking forward to Snow White!

[scrollgirl]

I'm glad to hear that! And now I'm curious about this movie... Joan Jett, the singer? *googles* Hey, I know these songs! Huh.

[cactuswatcher]

I have to say that I'm not much interested in yet another revisionist treatment of an old tale. Snow White is a nice enough story when it's just about the two women. Making the Huntsman or the Prince, for that matter, a more central figure just detracts from that.

Snow White, as we see it, is a bit tainted by Disney. What we see in it isn't false, but it does hide a different obvious interpretation of the original: That the queen's motivation isn't purely vanity, but understandable jealousy. Snow White really isn't a sweet young girl but a scheming young woman who either is the King's mistress or trying hard to achieve that position. The tale as we know it is then just the younger woman's view of it.

Making the huntsman more of a central figure opens up the possibility that Snow White seduced him rather than he was just feeling sorry for her. Then the business about the dwarves is just a cock-and-bull story about what she was doing before she reappears from exile, now with the prince. Too many cans of worms opening for me. ;

[scrollgirl]

Ahahah! Okay, you've got a really excellent point. I *am* relying too heavily on the Disney version. Honestly, I'm not sure I ever read a version that wasn't very black and white in terms of who was good and who was evil. I've certainly never considered Snow White as the king's mistress or an opportunist trying to oust the reigning queen!

Was Snow White a Brothers Grimm tale? Do you know the source?

[cactuswatcher]

It's the story called Schneewittchen (not the one with Schneeweischen!) collected by the Grimm brothers.

The story in the collection refers to a seven-year-old girl who is the step-daughter of the wicked queen:

But Snow-white was growing up and grew more and more beautiful, and when she was seven years old she was as beautiful as the day, and more beautiful than the Queen herself.

But even Disney could figure out that we shouldn't take that age literally. It makes much more sense if she's a lot more mature. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think she's more of a rival to the queen than her step-daughter could ever be. It's the story of Snow White, so naturally the queen is the villain not her rival.

[dlgood]

It's an old story with a bunch of origins, but yeah - bros. Grimm..

[maraceles]

Word to all of this.

As to K's acting ability, she's pretty good in her other films. Bella is pretty outwardly inexpressive in the books, so I'm going with people confusing the actress with the character. And I think the actress is just awkward in interviews, not surly nor entitled. I get the feeling that she doesn't like playing Bella, but that she doesn't want to say so.

(I hate Twilight, but this oh-so-typical female-character/actress hate is fucking annoying.)