Talk:Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)

GA Reassessment

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Issues unaddressed. Hog Farm _talk 04:35, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Lots of uncited text, as well as an "additional sources needed" and an "expansion needed" orange banners. Z1720 (talk) 02:14, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 16 March 2025

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film) → Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – While I am aware that there was a relatively recent requested move on this topic, I believe my reasoning is different enough to make this a worthwhile request. This is going to be a lot of text but please bear with me and read it through and click through the graphs.

Opposition to the previous RM was primarily based on the premise that the fairy tale has also often been called that. I do not believe this is true. I strongly suspect that the term "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was not used for the fairy tale prior to the 20th century, and that any usage of the term for the fairy tale is primarily derived from it being the title of the 1937 film. The original 1812 fairy tale was called Sneewittchen or Schneewittchen in German, which directly translates to "Little Snow White" in English, and English translations of the fairy tale have almost exclusively used the title Snow White. Neither the fairy tale nor anything else has ever been called "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", as best as I can tell, prior to a 1912 Broadway play. The play appears to have functionally been the origin of that term, somewhat similarly to how the term "Snow White and the Huntsman" was later originated by the film a century later. As seen on Google Ngrams, the term has nearly no usage prior to the release of the play. The term "seven dwarfs" has some minor usage, as would be expected because that phrase does appear in the fairy tale, but it noticeably begins appearing with regularity upon the release of the play. This is exactly what would be expected if the term "seven dwarfs" suddenly began appearing in the title of the play and had not previously been used as the title of the fairy tale. Both then spiked significantly after the release of the 1937 film, and stayed consistently fairly high afterwards, showing the lasting nature of the film. This is not the case for just Snow White, the actual name of the fairy tale, which appears with consistency prior to the play. Admittedly, this next part is speculation, but I suspect the Disney film's title came from this play also; Walt Disney was inspired to adapt Snow White due to having seen the play's film adaptation, and he obviously would have learned of the play's existence during the making of the 1937 film at the very latest. That, plus the fact that the name would have been functionally unheard of prior to the play, means that the film's title is almost certainly pulled from the play and not directly from the fairy tale. This doesn't say much about the film itself, but it does perhaps indicate the sheer lack of usage of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" when referring to the fairy tale.

Because the usage of the film's title to refer to anything basically started in 1912, I do not think the original fairy tale is a major contender by the long-term significance criterion of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the term "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". The fairy tale itself has enormous long-term significance, but it has not historically been associated with this title, was functionally never referred to by this title for the majority of its existence but rather simply "Snow White", and is still overwhelmingly referred to as Snow White, not as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Not only this, basically the only reason anyone calls the fairy tale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" today is specifically because of the association with this movie, and this has also been true for the entire period of the film's existence. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is not really an alternate name of the fairy tale, and it never was. Of the other possible choices, the 1937 film is clearly the primary topic. I probably don't even have to explain why, but just in case, here's the rundown: first cel-animated movie, first animated Hollywood movie, highest grossing animated movie inflation-adjusted, at one point second highest grossing movie ever, first feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, basically single-handedly the reason Disney as a company currently exists. This is one of the most important films of all time. By long-term significance, it is the primary topic for the term "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". Ladtrack (talk) 17:00, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. I still would prefer to either error on the side of the current status quo, or change this redirect to point to Snow White (disambiguation) instead. Like I stated in the previous RM, when I still do a general Google search (with no Google Ngrams) of snow white and the seven dwarfs, yes the first few results are about the 1937 film, but there is not overwhelming results about it, as I start to get links about the general Snow White fairy tale, plus those about the current Snow White (2025 film). As the last paragraph of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC basically says, if there is a conflict between a topic of primary usage and one of primary long-term significance, consensus determines which, if any, is the primary topic. And IMO, the current usage today in 2025 is not sufficient enough to override claims that the phrase specifically points to the long-term significance of the 1937 film. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:55, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

  I would warn against using straight Google search results. Google hits are personalized by user, meaning that what you see when you google it may not be what I see when I google it. This makes it exceptionally unreliable as a metric, since it varies person to person. But, addressing the rest: the 2025 film results I would discard entirely. I understand that usage and long-term significance are going to differ sometimes but this is a case where the current usage is massively inflated by the fact that the other film is coming out in a week. Exactly how many pageviews the remake will get in a couple years is difficult to ascertain but it will certainly not be this high. What I am certain of is that in two years, the 1937 film will still be the first cel-animated movie, first animated Hollywood movie, highest grossing animated movie inflation-adjusted, at one point second highest grossing movie ever, first feature film by Walt Disney Animation Studios, and basically single-handedly the reason Disney as a company currently exists. I understand wanting the encyclopedia to be current but hopefully not this current, otherwise we would have had to move the 2021 Macbeth film to just "The Tragedy of Macbeth" and then back a year later once the play caught up again. For a few Disney examples, The Lion King, Dumbo, and Lady and the Tramp are all at the animated films even though the remakes outpaced the originals in view count when they came out; the original films are now on average higher, six years later. Aside from long-term significance, the likelihood of this occurring was part of the reasoning for leaving the animated films at the basename. This is the same situation, and the same reasoning should apply.

  As for Google results of the fairy tale: I can only speak to my own results, because as I mentioned Google personalizes search results, but perhaps yours will be similar. I searched for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In the results I got, the first page had a section about the fairy tale, headlined by the words "Based on the book". As in, the film you're searching for is based on this fairy tale, which has a different title. It isn't a unique search result. That's a feature Google offers, which you can see in many movies based on a book, regardless of title. Similarly, if you google Blade Runner, you get "Based on the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". Obviously, the novel is not titled Blade Runner, and it isn't an actual search result for that query, just a built in feature Google has, just like for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Aside from that, there is not one result pertaining to the fairy tale in the first ten pages of results. Not one. There is no significant usage for the fairy tale. Ladtrack (talk) 09:13, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

  Google Ngrams results also have their own potential bias as well, because they may also be skewed the other way toward years- or decades-old concepts and terms that may not be frequently used now in 2025 -- note that you can currently only go to 2022. The issue here is that "Snow White" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" are too similar to the point that the latter phrase could now also be used among a general audience as a generic long-term version of the former phrase. We should not astonish our readers, so again I still would prefer to error on the status quo or redirect it to the disambiguation page instead. Zzyzx11 (talk) 14:41, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  Do you really think they're that similar? "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is over three times the length of "Snow White" and I still maintain that the fairy tale is not widely referred to as that. If it was, the fairy tale would at least show up on Google when you search "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", but it doesn't. Seriously, try it. A hatnote to the fairy tale could solve the most obvious problem, and as for similarity frankly there are like a dozen movies with closer titles to the media they're based on than this one, and all of them manage to get by just fine with the hatnote. A reader that wanted the fairy tale but for some reason searched through the film's title would just have to click on "For the Grimm brothers fairy tale, see Snow White" at the top of the page. Any reader that makes this mistake really shouldn't be astonished, as the movie is very important and iconic and the fairy tale literally has a different title, but in the event that it happens the hatnote is there to service them. Meanwhile, the far greater number of readers that want the film could be spared going to a different page, whether it be the fairy tale's page or the disambiguation page.

  As for bias towards long-term topics, I don't think we need to worry about that too much. As I detailed in the previous comment, there are considerable concerns with the remake's ability to stay high in usage in even a couple of months from today; additionally, keeping the original film at the basename is consistent with other Disney remakes. But even aside from that, the remake can't be a contender for "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" because it isn't even called "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". It's just called Snow White, same as the original fairy tale. The remake shows up on Google searches because a. it's very recent so it will show up anywhere remotely related for now and b. it is a remake of a movie called "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". But it isn't called that and would never be titled that. Even if it was an original movie and there were no other contenders for the name, the Wikipedia page would still be titled "Snow White" because that is the name of the movie. So how could it be an issue with a different film being titled something else? Ladtrack (talk) 16:54, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. The nom presents a plausible case but it is not definitive. I accept that references to the seven dwarfs rose dramatically and remained steady since the release of this tremedenously well known and influential film. It is equally plausible that this film is so influential that some (many?) people now use Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to refer generically to the original fairy tale, in the same way people sometimes use the shortened form Snow White to refer specifically to the 1937 film. There's just no way to know, at least not from what's been presented. This Ngram really can't tell us much. Surely a published work about the 1937 film will contain the phrase Snow White far more often than it spells out the full title. I trust that reliable sources are careful to distinguish between the 1937 film, the fairy tale, the character, and related properties. But in determining primary topic by usage or long-term significance and whether to disambiguate, we have to consider what topic readers are thinking of when they start typing a particular search term. Ultimately, the evidence and arguments here are largely inference and supposition. The references to how Disney live action remakes are handled are irrelevant. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 19:21, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  I guess it is possible that occasionally some people refer to the fairy tale as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". I haven't seen any proof that it occurs with any frequency, but I suppose it is possible. What I am sure of is that it almost certainly occurs much less than people calling this movie Snow White. After all, that's shorter, and people tend to use shorter names to refer to longer titles for convenience. It's like how John F. Kennedy is often referred to as JFK, but John Ronald Reuel (Tolkien) is very rarely spelled out. For that reason, your point about references about the movie just calling it Snow White is correct, although one can't imagine that that frequently happens the other way for the fairy tale.

  Moving this article would have one big upside and one big downside, from a readers' perspective. The downside is that if anyone wants to read about the fairy tale and erroneously goes to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (I haven't seen any proof that this would happen much at all, but let's suppose that it does), they would find the film and have to click a hatnote to get to the correct page. The upside is that people that want the movie and type "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", which is the actual, proper title of the film, actually get the movie they want, instead of the current setup, which is being sent to the fairy tale and then having to pick the Disney movie out of the mention in the lead. There have gotta be more people in the second group, right? After all, the movie has averaged more views for like eight years now as it is, and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is the real title of the movie, and not a possible alternate name like it is for the fairy tale. So this would be a net benefit to readers. Ladtrack (talk) 21:13, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  I see your point, and I think you may well be correct, but where I get stuck is that we just don't have real proof either way. The current scheme seems perfectly appropriate given the large number of properties similarly named and the reality that at least some people use the generic term to refer to the specific film while others use the longer title to refer generically to the fairy tale. The statement on the disambiguation page even introduces the list by saying Snow White or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs may also refer to… Now I acknowledge that the mere presence of that statement does not prove anything, but it is consistent with my impression that some proportion the public does use these terms flexibly, interchangeably, and imprecisely. I also acknowledge that "my impression" is a weak argument but impressions, inferences, and extrapolations are the substantial basis for this and the prior RM discussion.

  As for user/reader experience, when I type Snow White into the Wikipedia search bar, the fairy tale is the first suggested result and the 1937 film is the third. When I type Snow White and the 1937 film is the first suggested result. Wikinav indicates most people arrive at this article from search, ≈10% from Snow White (2025 film) and ≈3% from Snow White. The 2025 film is sure to decline in popularity, as you've pointed out. I'm not saying that it doesn't matter whether we get the title "right" because suggested search will sort it out. But I'm not convinced we don't already have the right title. The current system of article titles does not appear broken. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 22:03, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, try as I might, I cannot seem to coax Wikinav into giving me older data so I can get results that aren't skewed by the 2025 film. If you happen to know how to do that I would be very grateful. But of the results that we have, which are from February: 2.8% of people that visited this article came straight from Snow White, which at 71.5k monthly pageviews is 2,002 people. Not all of these will be because they ended up at the wrong article, but most probably are, because why else would someone click a link on or search for "Snow White" or "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and then immediately go to the animated movie? A very conservative estimate is perhaps a third, and a very generous estimate would be 100%. The right answer is probably somewhere in the middle. A further 0.75% come from Snow White (disambiguation), and apparently 72.29% of those are from Snow White, which would come out to 388 people (Feel free to check my math, by the way, I think this is right but I may have made a mistake). So the total number of people in a year tripped up by this is conservatively 12,664 people or generously 28,680 people. I of course can't say what your threshold for broken is, but in my opinion that seems high enough. Plus, that page says "On the other hand, if something is slightly broken in a way that you care about, and fixing it improves the encyclopedia a little, then feel free to fix it." Perhaps something worth considering? Ladtrack (talk) 00:40, 19 March 2025 (UTC)