LOS ANGELES (ANN/AFP/THE STRAITS TIMES) – Disney’s live-action adaptations of animated classics are generally safe bets. However, a new version of the oldest of them all, Snow White, has become entangled in controversies, receiving an unusually low-key premiere in Hollywood on March 15.
The studio kept its outspoken stars Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot away from reporters at the afternoon event, with no red-carpet interviews – and has avoided questions about the film’s divisive depictions of the Seven Dwarfs.
It follows a similarly pared-down European premiere on March 12 at a remote castle in Segovia, Spain, where few media outlets were invited.
The negativity began way back in 2021, with the casting of Zegler, who is Latina, as Snow White – a character from a German fairy tale who was famously “the fairest of them all”. This was predictably slammed as “woke” by some fans and conservative commentators.
But criticism spread more broadly across 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.
She described the beloved original as “weird” because Snow White’s love interest 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”, she said in an interview that was blasted on Disney forums by fans longing for exactly those traditional tropes.
Zegler is unusually outspoken by Hollywood standards. She publicly complained about not being invited to the 2022 Oscars gala, despite being the star of best picture nominee West Side Story (2021). She eventually bagged an invitation – and some disapproving tuts.
Compounding Disney’s headaches, Zegler has signed off social media posts with “Free Palestine”, while Gadot – who plays the Evil Queen – has expressed public support for her native Israel.
And then there is the issue of the Seven Dwarfs, who have been conspicuously dropped from the new film’s title, Disney’s Snow White.
Peter Dinklage, perhaps Hollywood’s most famous actor with dwarfism, slammed Disney’s “hypocrisy” for making a new Snow White film at all.
In a 2022 interview with podcaster Marc Maron, the Game Of Thrones (2011 to 2019) actor questioned how Disney could be “proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White”, and yet think a remake of a “backward story of seven dwarfs living in a cave” made sense.
Disney quickly issued a statement promising to take “a different approach” that would “avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film”.
In the new movie, the dwarfs resemble whimsical gnome-like magical creatures, created by computer-generated visual effects rather than human actors. This has itself provoked backlash. Some actors with dwarfism have criticised Dinklage.
Altogether, Disney’s latest live-action film has proven vastly more contentious than billion-dollar-grossing remakes like The Lion King (2019) and Beauty And The Beast (2017).
Requiring extensive reshoots, and hit by delays from the Covid-19 pandemic and Hollywood strikes, Disney’s Snow White cost well over USD$200 million (SGD$266 million) to make, according to Forbes.
Disney will be hoping that all publicity proves to be good publicity when it hits theatres on March 21.
