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Notes -
It is a fairy tale, especially the more sanitised version of the Brothers Grimm version. There are several what I guess we'd call tropes which resonate with people familiar with how such stories go: the Wicked Stepparent, for example (though some stories are also about neglectful or abusive parents - think about Hansel and Gretel and their own parents just abandon them in the woods). Even today, this is a live topic so the idea that the second wife of the king would not have been loving to the stepchild is exactly what everyone would assume.
Then there is the question of beauty, which ties in with both questions of power and maturity. After all, the queen is technically only ruling as regent until Snow White, the legitimate heiress to the throne, comes of age. Snow White becoming old enough to be esteemed beautiful as a sexual rival indicated the end of, or at least a threat to, the queen's power. Having her disappear in the forest on a hunting accident is deniable enough and also allows the story to permit Snow White to survive and grow up. Look at the Princes in the Tower for what happens to inconvenient obstacles in the way of an ambitious claimant to the throne.
Snow White, in the Grimm fairy tale version, grows up with the dwarves until the evil queen manages to catch up with her, and has three attempts at killing her. The dwarves foil the first two, but the third - the poisoned apple - works. The prince finds the crystal coffin in the woods with this beautiful maiden inside and demands to bring it back with him (this is creepier/stalker behaviour unlike the cartoon where they meet when she's alive and develop a first attempt at a relationship, so Zegler got that wrong). It's not true love's kiss that wakes her up, it's when the coffin is jolted and this knocks the poisoned piece of apple out of her throat.
The wedding is planned to go ahead, the evil queen finds out and when she arrives there discovers the bride is Snow White. She tries to kill her again, and the prince punishes her by forcing her to dance in red-hot iron slippers until she is dead. Then the happily ever after happens.
Everyone knows how the story should go: the wicked are punished, the good may suffer but they get their reward in the end. It also brings in the notion of the Golden Age (before the evil queen ruled) and a return to that, with the rightful heiress (Snow White) who knows the lot of the ordinary folk (because she lived in the forest with the dwarves as a humble person) restored to her rightful place (the bride of the prince) and now the rightful rule will be established again and Snow White will be a better queen. EDIT: Though dwarves in folklore are not the cute version of the Disney cartoon, nor are they humans of short stature. They are sort of nature spirits (which is why they live in the forest and work in the mountains in the story), and Snow White becoming aligned with them is one form of magic against the magic of the evil queen. So there is another thread there of the rightful queen (Snow White) taming the spirits of the woods and mountains and bringing them into alliance with the humans in the kingdom so they are less malign and malicious.
So yeah, there's room to update the 1937 cartoon, but changing the prince to a bandit leader misses the point: this is about monarchy, not some kind of "head of state democratically elected by the people". But in the end, it's a fairy tale about a princess and the rewards she gets for being good and suffering at the hands of the wicked, so it doesn't have to be too deep. It's for little girls, who may or may not still want to dress up as princesses and play at that today.
Isn't there also a version where it takes the prince literally raping her to wake her up? Or am I confusing it with Sleeping Beauty?
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Modern retellings make it a wicked step mother who abandons Hansel and Gretel in the woods.
Actually that was a revision by the Grimm brothers. It enhances the story, because children back then (and now) were often put under the care of people who weren't their parents and it is good to learn early that just because someone calls themself your parent doesn't mean they love you like your parents are supposed to.
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