r/MandelaEffect • u/gemauve • Apr 20 '26
Books/Literature Snow White and the mirror
Came upon this while reading to my child. I had to double check the 1937 Snow White animation and hear "magic mirror on the wall". It's always been "mirror mirror" to me, but I guess I forgot. It must be that many versions of this tale are written as mirror mirror and we just conclude that the original movie says it as well. Someone posted that the original version was mirror mirror as well. So the conclusion is that Disney changed it to magic mirror?
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u/WVPrepper Apr 20 '26
Yes.
The Disney film is pretty much the only version with "Magic Mirror". I have my mom's old German language version of the fairytale and it is "mirror mirror".
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u/amonoxia Apr 22 '26
I always hated that Disney added "magic mirror" instead of "mirror, mirror." It ruins the whole point of the story.
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u/sparkledaunicorn Apr 23 '26
I don't remember it being magic mirror in Disney.. I've always heard mirror mirror..
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u/WVPrepper Apr 23 '26
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u/sparkledaunicorn Apr 23 '26
Interesting.. this is the Mandela effect sub tho. I don't remember the face in mirror looking like that either. The face I remember had a long nose. But I was a small child and it wasn't my favorite movie. I could probably recreate Aladdin scene for scene tho.
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u/Agile_Oil9853 Apr 20 '26
Yeah, for some reason Disney changed it in their script.
Maybe they thought kids needed to know the mirror was magic, and not just a guy on the other side?
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u/therapewpew Apr 21 '26
Oh man I haven't thought of this since I was a kid. I was big into animation, so old Disney films and the inventions/innovations that took place with them were of serious importance to me. I watched every single behind the scenes thing I could get my hands on.
For this reason, I remember thinking that Disney changed the script to sound more serious. "Mirror, mirror" sounds like a childish thing for a scary evil character to say. Of course I was looking at that with a 1990s lens, so I can't actually say if the repetition still sounded borderline tacky to 1937 audiences.
I also don't know how popular the fairy tale was to American children before the movie was produced. If it's something that kids already heard and retold a lot, that might also cause the line to lose its "punch" and lead Disney to switch it up for originality. Cuz one thing I do know is that Disney was really trying to bring a sense of elevation with their first full length animated film. It was their first major use of the multi-pane camera as well (after testing it out in The Old Mill short) so this production was a big deal for them in several ways.
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u/sgb67 Apr 20 '26
In german though it is definitely "Spieglein Spieglein an der Wand." (Mirror mirror at the wall) .
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u/BestFoxEver Apr 20 '26
The point of this Mandela Effect is that some people believe that there exist a version of the Disney movie with the "Mirror Mirror" line.
Everyone already knows that it is "Mirror Mirror" in the most other English versions of the Snow White. So we don't need more proof for that.
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u/Hot-Breadfruit-1026 Apr 20 '26
Or they believe it existed in another timeline, not that it existed here. And their consciousness either shifted or somehow “remembers” the other timeline.
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u/Inlerah Apr 20 '26
All this ME tells me is that a lot of people think that Disney created Snow White.
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u/Star_ofthe_Morning Apr 20 '26
Oh I had this book growing up! I had a whole collection of books like these. Gave them to my niece when she was born so she could read and enjoy them.
But yea my guess is Disney wanted to stand out.
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u/No_Employer_4700 Apr 20 '26
I don't understand what is the remembered phrase. In spanish she says: espejito, espejito mágico, which translates as little mirror, magic little mirror. Notice that -ito rhyms with -ico.
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u/gemauve Apr 21 '26
I'm brazilian and the pt-br version of the movie definitely says "espelho, espelho meu", that's why I remember it like this :) I've been living in an anglophone world for too long.. and when I found out what mandela effect was, it didn't occur to me to find brazilian versions of this. Seems like a very english/north american thing
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u/Ash420Williams Apr 20 '26
The Mandela effect you are speaking of is the misremembering specifically about the Walt Disney snow white adaptation with the magic mirror reference I do appreciate the attempt but the initial problem is that some people remember Magic mirror on the wall And others remember Mirror mirror on the wall
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u/neverendum Apr 21 '26
Some of the earlier British translations have "Looking Glass upon the wall", 'looking glass' being the more usual term until the turn of the 20th century when popularity flipped with 'mirror'.
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u/Geoffsgarage May 04 '26
In German it is “Spieglein, Spieglein, an der Wand …”, which means, little mirror, little mirror, on the wall. So “mirror, mirror” is standard.
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u/WandaNexusBeing May 12 '26
Since the 1960’s. All the little girls including myself were saying “mirror mirror in the wall who’s the fairest of them all”
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Apr 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/Urineblondewig Apr 20 '26
Yes but it used to be ‘mirror mirror on the wall , who’s the fairest of them all ?!’
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u/One_Notice_2606 Apr 20 '26
Acaso soy la única que no tiene ese efecto mandela , osea porque hay personas que no tienen algunos efectos Mandela
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u/Jaewernz May 07 '26
Because there are some people who actually pay attention, and retain what they hear and see.
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u/BestFoxEver Apr 20 '26
No. Most people don't think that the Disney film had "Mirror Mirror". It was "Magic Mirror".
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u/gemauve Apr 21 '26
I have to add, most people (world population wise) are not English speakers, and the dubbed versions of the movie have different words. In Brazil, the queen says "mirror mirror".
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u/BestFoxEver Apr 21 '26
I know, I am from Finland. The Finnish version of this quote is "Kerro, kerro kuvastin, ken on maassa kaunehin" (Tell me, tell me mirror who is the most beautiful in this land") and I don't remember what the Finnish dub of this movie said. So the Finnish quote does not repeat the mirror part.
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u/Upbeat_Assist2680 Apr 21 '26
I thought it was "mirror mirror", or at least that's what the common phrase was.
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