Snow White and the Bozeman Police Reports

As I was reading the wonderful Bozeman Police Reports from this past week, I was inspired to take the best reports I could find and construct a fairy tale around them. The following reports are the winners of the week, and provide the storyline for a retelling of Snow White.

•   A man reported receiving a text message stating, “Hey, I hid the body. No one will find it. Thanks for all your help. Delete after receiving.”
• A cell phone “covered in blood” found near an East Main Street bar was turned into police around 11:15 am
• A caller reported seeing a person who “looks under 12” driving a Dodge Durango on North 11th Avenue near Main Street around 4:30 p.m. The caller said the driver “could barely see over the dash."
• A bull rider in Helena said a woman claiming he was suicidal is not his girlfriend, described her as a stalker and told a deputy he’s filing a protection order against her.

Once upon a time, in a land known to many as Bozeman, there lived a beautiful mayor’s wife who was the fairest of them all. But one was destined to surpass her, as prophesied by the magical bathroom mirrors of a restaurant known as The Garage, and she was determined to kill the fair young lass. So, she hired the most courageous bull rider from a town known as Helena to track this Snow White down and put an end to her and her irritating good looks. The bull rider located Snow White with the help of an extremely nosy investigative reporter working for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, even though said reporter had a history of utterly muddling the correct facts as many employees at the Chronicle tend to do, and snuck up on her with a murderous intent. Alas, the bull rider was unable to kill Snow White because he had fallen in love with her, and instead, ordered her to flee from the jealous mayor’s wife. He murdered a local grizzly bear instead, for we all know how Bozemanites feel about grizzlies and he didn’t think anyone would miss it. The bull rider cut out the heart and lungs of this poor bear with the plan in mind to show them to the mayor’s wife and claim they were, in fact, Snow White’s. In order to fully cover up his tracts, the bull rider texted his reporter friend that he had hid Snow White’s dead body and thanked him for his help, just in case the reporter decided to blab to the mayor’s wife, for many Bozeman Chronicle reporters were quite blabby indeed. Alas, the bull rider’s plan was thwarted by the magical bathroom mirrors of The Garage, who informed the mayor’s wife that Snow White was still alive and had taken up with a troupe of underground street-racing dwarves. The mayor’s wife then attempted to disguise herself and murder Snow White all on her own, but upon her arrival at the underground street-racing dwarves’ house, she was recognized. The dwarves quickly stuck Snow White in their nitrous-boosted Dodge Durango, and escaped down North 11^th avenue, causing many concerned stares from locals who mistakenly believed the underground street-racing dwarves were, in fact, young children who could barely see over the dashboard. The mayor’s wife, undiscouraged, came up with a final plan to kill young Snow White. She would send the girl a poisoned I-Phone 4g, knowing such a popular and pretty young lady could not resist technology that allowed her to access social networking sites everywhere she traveled. Snow White was successfully tricked into picking up the poisoned I-phone, bled all over it, and fell into a deep stupor due to extreme blood loss. The underground street-racing dwarves placed her in a glass display case at the local Museum of the Rockies, hoping true love’s kiss could reawaken her. The head paleontologist at the Museum of the Rockies luckily had an affinity for pretty young girls, even though he was quite old, and kissed the sleeping Snow White, thus reawakening her. They married and lived happily ever after. Meanwhile, the mayor’s wife divorced the mayor for she had become obsessed with the bull rider from Helena. Because he was in love with Snow White, the mayor’s ex-wife became infuriated and attempted to kill him and frame it as a suicide. The courageous bull-rider successfully evaded her plot though, and filed a restraining order against the obsessed mayor’s ex-wife. The End.

Love, Pastorally

This depiction of Daphnis and Chloe is in fact a set design for the Michel Fokine choreographed ballet, set to Maurice Ravel's music, entitled Daphnis et Chloe. The ballet first premiered in 1912, and the musical score is considered to be Ravel's greatest masterpiece. The ballet actualizes, through dance, the story of the two lovers, and the score takes the audience on a journey of deep emotional stimulation, echoing the feelings of the love story being played out in front of them. As one can see from the painting, the ballet is set in a countryside that dwarfs the two lovers, blending them into the landscape in a fashion that could cause the idle viewer to miss their presence altogether. This is reflective of the pastoral love theme present in the story. The innocence and naivety that defined the lovers relationship is reflected in the grand and seemingly untouched setting they are surrounded by. This pastoral theme is also echoed in a youtube clip I found of the ballet, and the viewer can see how the actual set design indeed reflects the painting above. The dancers are all in costumes that embody colors one could find in the countryside, colors of a pastoral nature that also serve to fortify this theme. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1XSculJrRs

To further explore the theme of pastoral love, I would like to bring up a poem by Christopher Marlowe entitled The Passionate Shepard to His Love. This poem immediately reminded me of the Daphnis and Chloe story, and seems to perfectly embody the nature of their love. The first stanza reads
"Come live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valley, dales and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields."
Within these lines, Marlowe is celebrating an enjoyment of the countryside, and the entirety of his poem  reflects an intricate tie between love and landscape. It was impossible for me to read this poem without Daphnis and Chloe in mind.

Six Degrees (or more) of Separation

The topic arose in class that a romance could not be considered a perfect romance until the young maiden was wedded and bedded. This is an intriguing concept, and catalyzed a thought process that eventually led me to contemplate the intertwining relationship between sex and romance. In the early stages of cinema, sex seems to be all together absent with the exemption of innuendos alluding to the subject. But perhaps it is the absence (or repression) of sex that contributes to the romance of these stories. Freud was first to voice the term sexual repression, and was convinced it was the stifling of sexual instincts that led to many problems materialized in the psyche. It seems though, that the absence of sex in early manifestations of film indicated the collective romantic ideals held on sex by the general population. Now my theory on this subject is merely in it's infancy, but I'm beginning to believe the repression of sexual instincts is what causes true romance. If two people in love do not consummate, it lends a weight to their every touch that would not be held if they had sex. Their platonic actions must express their love for each other because they have not or can not be together intimately, thus lending a romance to their relationship unmatched in a consummated couples. If this theory is true, one could take it a step further and make the arguement that it is the sepparation of lovers, their inability to be together physically, intimately, or emotionally, that incites the greatest romance. Take, for example, Titanic, a movie often cited as an exemplary film of the romantic genre. The two lovers are sepparated by class boundaries, thus lending an air of romance to their courtship unmatched in a couple who have no barriers that lie between them to overcome. The death of the boy, the ultimate sepparation, lends a wistfullness and nostalgia to the story that would have otherwise been missing had the two lovers made it off the boat alive together. Thus I present to you, the reader, that the greatest romances are not those that end with the couple happily ever after, but, in fact, the romances that utterly sepparate the lovers from one another.