Disney’s live-action remakes of animated classics are often secure bets. But a brand new model of the oldest of all of them, “Snow White,” has turn into mired in controversies, receiving an unusually low-key premiere in Hollywood on Saturday.
The studio saved its outspoken stars Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot away from reporters on the afternoon occasion, with no crimson carpet interviews — and has averted questions in regards to the movie’s divisive depictions of the Seven Dwarfs.
It follows a equally pared-down European premiere on Wednesday at a distant fort in Segovia, Spain, the place few media retailers had been invited.
The negativity started manner again in 2021, with the casting of Zegler, who’s Latina, as Snow White — a personality from a German fairy story who was famously “the fairest of them all.”
This was predictably slammed as “woke” by some followers and conservative commentators.
“yes i am snow white no i am not bleaching my skin for the role” wrote Zegler, a US actress of Colombian and Polish descent, in a since-deleted tweet.
But criticism unfold extra broadly throughout Disney’s loyal fan base when Zegler appeared to repeatedly denigrate the 1937 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Walt Disney’s first feature-length animation.
Zegler described the beloved authentic as “weird” as a result of Snow White’s love curiosity is “a guy who literally stalks her.”
This time “she’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love,” Zegler stated in a single interview that was blasted on Disney boards by followers eager for precisely these conventional tropes.
Zegler is unusually outspoken by Hollywood requirements.
She publicly complained about not being invited to the 2022 Oscars gala, regardless of being the star of greatest image nominee “West Side Story.” She finally bagged an invite — and a few disapproving tuts.
“Zegler isn’t necessarily the most decorous celebrity when it comes to the media or the internet,” Slate journalist Nadira Goffe wrote in a 2023 column. “She has a demeanor that can come across as charmingly awkward to some, and a tad glib and grating to others.”
Compounding Disney’s complications, Zegler has signed off social media posts with “Free Palestine,” whereas Gadot — who performs the Evil Queen — has expressed public assist for her native Israel.
Disney didn’t reply to AFP request for remark.
And then there’s the problem of the Seven Dwarfs, who’ve been conspicuously dropped from the brand new movie’s title, “Disney’s Snow White.”
Peter Dinklage, maybe Hollywood’s most well-known actor with dwarfism, slammed Disney’s “hypocrisy” for making a brand new “Snow White” movie in any respect.
In a 2022 interview with podcaster Marc Maron, the “Game of Thrones” actor questioned how Disney may very well be “proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White,” and but assume a remake of a “backward story of seven dwarfs living in a cave” made sense.
Disney shortly issued a press release promising to take “a different approach” that will “avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film.”
In the brand new film, the dwarfs are cartoonishly gnome-like magical creatures, created by computer-generated visible results reasonably than human actors.
This has itself provoked backlash. Some actors with dwarfism have blamed Dinklage.
“There aren’t many roles for dwarfs in Hollywood so him saying that cancelled these roles… it hurt the dwarf acting community,” skilled wrestler Dylan Mark Postl advised the Guardian.
Altogether, Disney’s newest live-action movie has confirmed vastly extra contentious than billion-dollar-grossing remakes like “The Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast.”
Requiring in depth reshoots, and hit by delays from the pandemic and Hollywood strikes, “Disney’s Snow White” price properly over $200 million to make, in keeping with Forbes.
Disney will likely be hoping that every one publicity proves to be good publicity when it hits theaters subsequent weekend.
“I interpret people’s feelings about this film as a passion for it,” Zegler advised Vogue Mexico. “What an honor to be part of something that people feel so passionate about.”
© 2025 AFP