Disney Debunked Snow White's Age Gap Rumor - But There's Still A Big Problem
Snow White is the victim of many tragedies. In Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," a film with a dark history, the young princess (Adriana Caselotti) is accosted by a jealous and violent queen (Lucille La Verne) who insists that anyone her magic mirror says is prettier than she is should die. As the movie is nearly a century old, and based on a tale far older still, audiences know well that the evil queen's repeated attempts on Snow White's life are foiled. But modern viewers aren't as concerned with her villain as they are with her happily ever after, because Snow White is a child ... and Prince Florian (Harry Stockwell) is not.
In a viral, now-deleted 2019 tweet, @diordeux claimed that, according to their math, Snow White was 14 and Prince Florian was 31, a pair of numbers that are separated by a staggering 17-year gap. Even if the X (formerly Twitter) user wasn't the first person to make this claim, they were certainly the most publicized to do so, and their words became something similar to canon. Disney never directly responded to the myth, but the studio has published evidence suggesting that Prince Florian's age is far younger than what fans might now believe. According to "The Art of Walt Disney," a frequently revised book by Christopher Finch that chronicles the studio's history, Prince Florian was written to be 18.
Is that better than 31? Absolutely. But "The Art of Walt Disney" also confirms that the internet was half-right because Snow White was written to be 14, which means that her relationship with the prince is still ... distressing.
Disney's got an age gap issue
To make matters more uncertain, Snow White's and Prince Florian's ages are approximate, not official. Along with providing the ages, "The Art of Walt Disney" describes the princess as a "Janet Gaynor type" and the prince as a "Doug Fairbanks type." This is confusing for a few reasons, but the primary one is that Fairbanks was born 23 years prior to Gaynor, meaning that the two real-world talents were never the same age at the same time. And the age gap between Fairbanks and Gaynor does nothing to defend Disney against the accusations of creating predatory characters framed as heroes.
On one hand, neither Snow White's nor Prince Florian's age is ever discussed in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," so viewers may apply their own headcanons if they so choose. On the other, Disney's got a track record. Across the board, Disney's prince characters, like Prince Eric (Christopher Daniel Barnes), the Beast (Robby Benson), and Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi), are all supposedly older than their romantic counterparts. Exact ages differ from various accounts, but the consensus remains the same.
But Disney doesn't seem too bothered by it. "Snow White" was released almost a century ago; there's even a live-action "Snow White" remake in the works. If the studio really wanted to clear the air, it would have done so by now.