Disney’s ‘Snow White,’ starring Rachel Zegler as the titular character and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, was released on March 21. Despite being a live-action retelling of the popular 1937 animated film ‘Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs,’ the film has been controversial due to casting, creative decisions, and promotional strategies.
Backlash from Disney fans started in June 2021 when Zegler, a Latina actress, was cast as Snow White, despite the original fairy tale’s description of Snow White having “skin white as snow.” This change in character led to discourse around the casting.
“When it got announced, it was a huge thing that was trending on Twitter for days because all of the people were angry,” Zegler said in a Q&A for Variety magazine. “You don’t normally see Snow Whites that are of Latin descent, even though Snow White is a really a big deal in Spanish-speaking countries.”
The castings weren’t the only issues with the film, as the depiction of dwarfs was seen as offensive to many with dwarfism.
“Literally no offense to anyone, but I was pretty taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the seven dwarfs,” Peter Dinklage, a prominent actor with dwarfism who starred in ‘The Station Agent’ and ‘Game of Thrones,’ said on Marc Maron’s podcast. “You’re progressive in one way, but you’re still making that …backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together, what …are you doing man? Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soap box?”
In response to Dinklage’s criticism of the film, Disney issued a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
“To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community,” Disney said.
Disney initially remained quiet about what the statement meant for the dwarves’ depictions, but later revealed that the seven dwarfs would be cartoonishly depicted through CGI in an attempt to modernize the original story, hiring dwarf actor Martin Klebba to portray the character of Grumpy through motion capture. Ali Chapman, an actress who starred in ‘Little Women: LA,’ spoke out about this topic.
“It’s a movie that’s supposed to have real dwarves,” Chapman said. “Instead, Disney chose to use CGI to replace actors and actresses that are little people that are very talented; that’s seven roles right there, seven little people that could’ve filled those roles, and unfortunately, we were shut out of that opportunity.”
In September 2022, Zegler publicly criticized the original ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ and discussed the remake’s erasure of the love story, which is the central focal point of the original film.
“There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her,” Zegler said in an interview with Extra. “We have a different approach to what I’m sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because we cast a guy in the movie, Andrew Burnap, great dude… But it’s not about the love story at all.”
Her criticism of the original, beloved film that she was helping remake only added more controversy to the film. By the film’s release on March 15, Disney made the executive decision not to invite journalists to the red carpet premiere, only photographers and house reporters.
‘Snow White’ earned a domestic box office total of $42.2 million on its opening weekend and $82 million worldwide one month later, even though the budget for the movie was $270 million.
