Disney's remake of the 1937 classic might be their most controversial movie yet.
(PLGNN) - Disney is currently in the process of making a live action movie of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, their classic animated film released in 1937. Disney has been losing millions of dollars in valuation recently, and they have continuously produced live action remakes of their classic animated movies. The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, and The Little Mermaid have all had live action remakes, and the way the audience has reacted to these films has been mixed.
The Little Mermaid has been the most controversial of the recent Disney remake lineup, with many fans accusing Disney of "reverse whitewashing" with the casting of Halle Bailey, who is an African-American actress, as Ariel. Fans were outraged when the casting was announced, with many claiming it was disrespectful to the iconic character.
Snow White has had a similar problem to the Little Mermaid. Disney announced in 2021 that Latina actress Rachel Zegler had been cast as the German princess Snow White. Snow White was a character named for being white as snow, and many online users have claimed that Disney is being racist by changing a white character named for the color of their skin.
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| Image of Rachel Zegler - Image Credit @rachelzegler on Instagram |
According to TheDailyMail , while on Mark Maron's WTF Podcast, Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage had said "I was a little taken aback when they [Disney] 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. It makes no sense to me. You're progressive in one way and you're still making that f*cking backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together, what the f*ck are you doing, man? Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I'm not loud enough." The Seven Dwarfs were beloved characters in the original film that were a central part of assisting Snow White's adventures throughout the course of the movie.
Disney took the statements from Dinklage very seriously and announced that they were rebranding the Seven Dwarfs to the Seven Magical Creatures. This sparked immediate online backlash from fans, with many accusing Disney of becoming "woke" with many users quoting the phrase, "Go woke, go broke," which reflected on Disney's decreasing stock price.
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| Snow White And The Seven Magical Creatures; Image From TheDailyMail |
At the 2023 D23 Expo, which is Disney's largest convention that takes place every other year, Rachel Zegler said during an interview that, "It's no longer 1937, and we absolutely wrote a Snow White that is- She's not gonna be saved by the prince and she's not gonna be dreaming about true love". This goes against the classic story in which Snow White gets sent into a coma by a poisonous apple, and the only way to wake her up is from a true love's kiss by the Prince.
Zegler has gone on many (now deleted) X (formerly Twitter) rants in the past claiming how offensive she finds the classic film. When Zegler was first revealed to have gotten the role of Snow White, she tweeted, "yes i am snow white no i am not bleaching my skin for the role," a tweet in which fans seem to think was an attempt at stirring up unnecessary drama. The tweet has since been deleted.
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| @rachelzegler on X |
She is also known to have tweet hateful messages at celebrities such as Hawkeye actor Jeremy Renner and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, along with encouraging violence towards those individuals. During 2020, Zegler had gone on many online rants saying to abolish the police, and claiming that the President of the United States of America is racist, along with anyone who supports him.
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| @rachelzegler on X |
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| @rachelzegler on X |
Rachel Zegler came under more fire for getting The Mandalorian actress Gina Carano fired. Carano had made a series of controversial posts across her social medias regarding her personal beliefs, and even went as far as comparing having a differing political view in the United States to being Jewish during the Holocaust.
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| @ginajcarano on Instagram |
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| Image Credit: The Walt Disney Company |
In October of 2023, Disney released images showing the Seven Dwarfs being added into the film using CGI. Fan reaction to this decision has been extremely divided. While some fans believe that this was a good decision by Disney, other fans have been claiming that Disney should higher actors who have dwarfism to play the Seven Dwarves.
Due to the media division between Israel and Palestine, some fans have also been upset with Disney because of their casting of Israeli actress Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. Gadot has voiced her support of Israel in the past and posted the missing posters of children after the Hamas terrorist attacks.
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| @gal_gadot on Instagram |
According to a report by Variety, Snow White's released has been delayed and the film has changed from being released on March 22, 2024 to March 21, 2025.