I’m starting to feel it Snow White and the Seven Disasters.
From the racist backlash over Latina Snow White to the usual, tired complaints of “getting up” to major changes to the traditional canon (there are no more Seven Dwarfs) to the heavily vetted comments from the film’s budding star, Rachel Ziegler, the upcoming Disney live-action movie . snow white The reboot seems to be causing controversy with everyone.
Feeling growing dissatisfied with the year 2024 snow white Things got heated up late last week when David Hand, 91, the son of one of the directors of the 1937 animated classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfscriticized the latest reimagining of the Mouse House for its contemporary updates, saying that his late father and Walt Disney himself would “roll over in their graves”.
Let’s get to the bottom of all the reasons (so far) why people are mad about a movie about a fairytale princess who escapes the wrath of an evil queen and talks to animals.
Racist trolls
star Wars. the Lord of the Rings. the little Mermaid. Stop us if you’ve heard this before. But almost any time people of color are cast in Hollywood’s top franchises, There is a certain level of racist backlash. Hateful tweets circulate. Actors are being harassed and sending horrific messages on social media. Conservative critics call these projects “woke”. Assembly sites are bombed.
Ziegler, the 22-year-old New Jersey native who shot to fame in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated remake. West Side Storyshe was named the new Snow White in June 2021. Since Ziegler is of mixed ethnicity (her mother is Colombian and her father is Polish), her casting was clearly exciting for some fans of the pale-faced Disney princess.
“When it was announced, it was huge and it was all over Twitter for days, because all the people were pissed,” Ziegler, a frequent user of the social media platform since it was renamed X, told Andrew Garfield. During an “Actors on Actors” interview in Variety magazine.
“Never in a million years would I have imagined that this would be a possibility for me,” she said. “You don’t usually see Snow White who is Hispanic. Although Snow White is very popular in Spanish-speaking countries.”
As for the trolls? “Ah, those people,” Ziegler sighed. “The people we need to educate. The people we need to love in consciousness.”
Ziegler’s own comments on the original 1937 version
Notwithstanding her sweat, Ziegler did just that It has also been targeted by fans for her critical comments about the 86-year-old original film and why she was so excited to give the remake a “modern edge”.
“I just mean we’re not in 1937 anymore,” Ziegler said. diverse At the Disney D23 Show in September 2022. “Sure we wrote snow white that … the prince will not save her, and she will not dream of true love; She will dream of becoming the leader she knows she can be, and her late father told her she could be one if she was brave, fair, brave and true.
Ziegler echoed those sentiments in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment at the same event where she was joined by co-star Gal Gadot. “In 1937, the cartoon is all about her finding true love, and that’s not at all in her mind in this movie,” Ziegler told us. “She’s so focused on becoming the leader her father told her she could be. And she’s really trying to find the courage to stand up to the Evil Queen (Gadot) and how to find her own agency and rule the kingdom. And she meets so many wonderful people along the way. And maybe. She finds love. Maybe she finds friendship. But what really matters is that she finds her own voice.”
There will still be a kind of Prince Charming in the Marc Webb-directed film, played by Tony Award-winning actor Andrew Barnaby. Instead of Charming, his name is changed to Jonathan.
But Ziegler says the dynamic between the characters will be different this time around, and her comments resurfaced from D23 in another interview with Extra TV She also drew attention when she described the original Prince Charming as “the guy who literally haunts” Snow White.
Zegler has also been criticized for apparently not being a huge fan of the original cartoon.
“I think I watched it once and never picked it up again,” she said. Entertainment Weekly in September, indicating that she did not return to visit the film until her selection for the new version. “I am very serious.”
troll dilemma
And there was at the address: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Indeed, the group of little people – Doc, Grumpy, Sleepy, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey – who help Snow White survive her exodus into the woods after the Evil Queen’s death sentence, have always been an integral part of the heroine’s life. story.
But how Disney would approach these characters in a new era — an evolving age in which we’re more sensitive to how we portray people with dwarfism — has become a major touchstone in the discourse around the film.
In February 2022, Emmy Award Winner game of thrones Actor Peter Dinkage criticized the remake for what he saw as an outdated project that would further perpetuate outdated stereotypes of young people. “I was kind of surprised,” he said. On Marc Maron What is this bullshit Podcast. “They were very proud to cast a Latina actress to play Snow White, but you still tell the story Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and see what you’re doing there. It doesn’t make sense to me. You’re progressive in a way, but you still make that damn retro story about seven dwarves living in a cave together. Have I not done anything to further the cause from my pulpit? I guess I’m not loud enough.”
Disney listened to Dinklage, and the studio responded within a day that the filmmakers wanted to hear from members of the dwarfism community; 24 hours after disney announce that the seven supporting characters would be changed into CGI-designed “magical creatures”. However, according to a report from EndeavorHowever, several people in the little people community interviewed by the outlet were less than thrilled that Dinklage used so much force in his comments, and that Disney suddenly backtracked after his remarks.
The studio later said in a statement, “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and consulting with members of the dwarf community. We look forward to sharing more as the film enters production after a lengthy development period.”
In July, a photo from the filming set was leaked snow white It showed what looked like a surrogate Snow White alongside a cast of seven co-stars of various races, genders, and heights — and was quickly panned by conservative media. “Snow White and the Seven… politically good fellows?” Daily Mail Comment on the exclusive photo of the paparazzi.
A Disney spokesperson said at first The Daily Beast that the photos were “fake and not of our production”, but the studio later changed its tone and noted that the footage was in fact from the set, but “unofficial” as it featured alternate poses of Ziegler and Burnab.
Soon after, the editorial board of The New York Post weighed: “Disney’s live-action Snow White film takes waking up to a silly new low.”
others, meanwhile, Complained about that Disney shift He was pulling jobs from dwarfed actors.
The co-director’s son speaks
Then came the comments last week of Hand, whose father (also called David Hand) was one of six directors credited for the 1937 animated film.
“They change the stories, they change the thought processes of the characters, and it’s not the original stories anymore. They make up new things and I’m not interested in any of that,” Hand, who previously worked as a designer for Disney, said. The telegraph.
“I mean, it’s a completely different concept, and I don’t quite agree with it, and I know my parents and Walt would strongly disagree with it as well,” Hand said. “There’s no respect for what Disney did and what my dad did… I think he and Walt are going to roll over in their graves.”
snow white It is scheduled to be released on March 22, 2024.