Snow White and the polar bears in the age of global heating: a reading of Mark Anthony Jarman's "My White Planet"

Abstract

Set in an age when globalization goes on a par with the rise of ecological perils, Mark Anthony Jarman’s “My White Planet” (2008) relies on a parodic subversion of the Brothers Grimm’s “Little Snow White” to consider the responsibility human beings incur when introducing changes in the environment that will have repercussions on the whole planet. If fairy tales do not mimetically reflect how human beings inhabit the world, but instead propose interventions that lead to a better adequacy between the two, their retellings are endowed with great ethical relevance during periods of historical mutation when the old ways no longer offer guidance and the future seems uncertain. The present essay will show that Jarman draws upon the resources of the fairy tale genre to encourage a critical revision of Canada’s northern myth and the manifold forms of exploitation it has encouraged.