Snow Globes in Popular Culture

The opening scene in Citizen Kane is ingrained into our collective unconscious, even among those who have never seen the film. As he gasps his final breath, Charles Foster Kane drops the >snow globe that houses a snow-capped log house similar to the one he shared with his parents as a young child.

The snow globe, "Rosebud," and the longing for his lost childhood all point to the film's motif of innocence lost. The image resonates so well with viewers over the decades because the snow globe itself is a tiny, innocent world unto itself. Quiet and peaceful.

The snow globe in Citizen Kane was perhaps the first instance of a snow globe representing innocence, but it is certainly not the last. Another widely known use of the snow globe is in the final episode of the 1980s television hit, St. Elsewhere. The series culminated in a scene of an autistic boy staring into his snow globe with a replica of St. Elsewhere inside, as if the entire show had taken place in the imagination of the boy.

While the snow globe image is almost always indicative of some kind of innocence or serene beauty, it can be turned metaphorically as in the hit ABC television program, Lost. One character, Donald, is quoted as saying that no one will ever get off the island because it is a snow globe. A chilling thought.

Aside from the occasional metaphorical leap as in Lost, the snow globe will always represent the idyllic, the perfect. That is why they are so popular around the holidays. It is not the winter snowfalls that the snow globes are trying to capture; it is innocence. A perfect little universe housed in glass.