"Snow White": The new generation awakens

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 6/2/12

It is hard to grasp the nature of subliminal things when Twitter has made that traditional agent of in depth understanding, the compound sentence, obsolete. And the conservative blogosphere, sautéed in sociology and political science, does not believe mythical substructure and psyche are "real." But then they don't believe Bob Dylan is real. So Snow White is a reach. But I hope Mitt Romney takes his grand kids to see “Snow White and the Huntsman” because as a fan of “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games” he alone seems to get the rising generation: Those still in high school today that will rise to make the century. “Snow White and the Huntsman,” released this weekend, figures in this.

So here then is a thought just for Romney: Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Snow White. These will form the collectivity or in the phrase Toynbee used, "the collective unconscious" of the rising generation. And please don't call them Millennials. They think you are talking about their older brothers. These kids are still in high school.

They came late to Harry Potter and it was their older brothers' fun, but what Harry did was complete the work of Winston Churchill and provide a British fairy tale for American children. Kids are like Conrad Lorenz's geese and imprint on the first thing they see when they are young. So as my friends and I busted through the Smokies to Texas with Davy Crockett, Harry's generation sees its origins in England again much as the colonials did. Psychologically we are still English, so to answer the question the Washington Post asks this weekend, should America have a queen? We still have one. She still lives in England.

All history or at least a lot of it should be looked at as a war between the Red Queen and the White Queen as it is in the symbolic war of chess. This is “Twilight” and the Red Queen is actually named Victoria, suggesting of course, Victoria, the great queen between the Elizabeths I and II. In “Twilight” she gets her head chopped off. “Twilight” is an American creation myth, in which the White Queen (Bella) in alliance with Native America, takes back the ground yielded back to England and Europe in Harry Potter. The old queen must be killed so the new generation can awaken. So it is with “Snow White.”

Key to the telling of “Twilight” is the symbolism on the book covers: On the first is an apple, the symbol of new creation, on the latter one, “Breaking Dawn” is the White Queen chess piece, indicating victory for Bella and her rising generation. For each generation must fight for its existence. If necessary, with real arms, like Katniss.

And here she is in “Snow White and the Huntsman.” This time there are eight dwarfs, as there should be, because the dharma is eight-fold. And she chooses neither light nor dark husband. Like Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, who founded Protestantism, the modern age and conquered the world, she takes no husband. Robert Graves suggests in “The White Goddess” about the ancient history of Britannia which in our time very much includes America, the Red Queen brings the cycle to twilight and to death. An odd thing to consider at Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. Then the White Queen - a warrior queen dressed in armor like Joan of Arc - begins the creation again. She brings the new generation and potentially, like Elizabeth I, she brings the ages.