Pilvi Takala - 'Real Snow White' performance

Real Snow White, 2009, 9.15 min

The absurd logic of the “real character” and the extreme discipline of Disneyland become apparent when a real fan of Disney’s Snow White is banned from entering the park in a Snow White costume.

I absolutely love this performance as it tries to open our eyes on the unwritten rules that people follow in public places. Takala tries and expose these social structures, so we as audience realise how silly they are. Takala's performance consisted of her dressed in Snow White costume, just outside the entrance to Disney Land. Unsurprising the public reacted to her as they thought she was the 'real Snow White'. Children and adults posed with her in photographs and asked for her autograph until one of the security guards made it clear to her that she is forbidden to enter the park in the costume or a 'disguise'. Takala acted naive as though she didn't know this would happen. There was a long discussion between her and the guard until somebody higher came to talk to her. Even the onlookers became part of the conversation, saying she is not the 'real snow white' and she shouldn't be dressed like that, because their children thought she was real. The people who realised that she wasn't real started to see her as something negative. The camera that has filmed the interaction is invisibly present and is not detected by anybody. 

The answers to Takala's innocent questions are as funny as they are disillusioning. The bystanders became disappointed when it appeared that Takala is not the 'real Snow White'. Apparently the real Snow White is inside the park. In the video you can see that Takala is trying to question them too "But i thought that the real Snow White was a drawing". No one seems to realise how ridiculous it is to be speaking about 'real' when it comes to a fantasy character. Fantasy is no longer infinite when one is dealing with a commercial Disney character who brings in billions. The guard told Takala that they don't know what her intentions are, that she might do something that diviates from the Disney script or even worse, do something malicious. Even outside the gates to the park she is controlled by the rules of Disney. 

This made me think about the performances that i did just a month ago in the Walker Art Gallery and in university for the 'Instructions on the Label' show. In the Walker i put myself in an awkward situation by dressing like a child in school uniform and by sitting on the floor and mimicking how children draw. Also in the 'Instructions on the Label' the performance called 'Inside Out' i put the audience and myself in an awkward situation by asking the person to swap coats with me, which is a random thing to do when you meet a person. In a sense in both performances i explored boundaries too. This connection with Pilvi Takala's work was interesting for me and allowed for me to see my work from a different angle. 

Full length filmed performance

Some images of the performance:

I found this interesting interview with Takala talking about the 'Real Snow White' performance and how the idea came about.

Artist in Focus: Pilvi Takala

by Helen Homan Wu on November 9, 2010

link here

So when did this idea to be dressed up as the “Real Snow White” come up?
I was in Paris for a couple of months in the summer 2009 and I hadn’t been to Disneyland before. I almost went when visiting California a couple of years ago, but in Paris I finally had to go because I also though I might want to make work there. Before I have been making work in places like shopping malls, that are somehow seem public but are actually private and very controlled. Disneyland is really the ultimate example of control. The success of the park is based on how perfectly controlled everything is and Walt Disney also had very interesting ideas about how to organise society. He intended to build a real community in Florida called Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, but he passed away before finishing and now it’s just another theme park. It’s quite scary actually how well the parks work with so many visitors obeying all the rules and it’s even scarier to think how Walt Disney’s prototype for a real living community would be. He thought it’s impossible to fix the problems of the society, but it is possible to build a perfect community on empty land and have that as an example for the rest of the world.

There are so many Disneylands around the world, If you go to a different Disneyland, would you do the same performance?

I think the results would be more or less similar. They won’t let me in with that costume in any Disneyland. There can only be one Snow White at the time, and the girls who play her are all the same height and they all learn the same autograph. So if a kid goes to her twice s/he wouldn’t notice that it’s a different person. There’s no mistakes or things out of control in Disneyland, that’s very essential to the function of the park. I also think that in any Disneyland people would want a photo with me, whether I’m the Real Snow White or not.

In Paris there was one mother who was totally into the logic of the Real Snow White, she explained to me that I can’t enter the park because only the Real Snow White is allowed to dress like this and that her daughter thought I’m the Real Snow White. That was really funny, because I thought most people wouldn’t care as long as I looked good enough.

Disneyland is an extreme example of observing people’s behaviour in a controlled public space. And people are ’supposed’ to have a good time.
People do have good time, and they even go back the next year. So the magic works and it’s great to leave your critical mind behind and enter the magic kingdom.

Do most of your projects deal with public space?
Yeah, but often the space is not really public, kind of semi-public and the focus is in the unwritten rules that govern the place or situation.

~Ev