How Disney’s Snow White remake became a marketing train wreck | World | News

“The reality is that the cartoon was made 85 years ago, and therefore is extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power, and what a woman is fit for in the world,” says Zegler. “And so when we came to reimagining the actual role of Snow White, it became about ‘the fairest of them all’ meaning who is the most just, and who can become a fantastic leader.”

Fan outrage was swift and savage.

“If you hate the original this much, why would you want to make the remake,” asked TikTok user nuttybutter96. BigBoi posted: “Wasn’t she in West Side Story about a boy and girl finding true love but now it’s not ok to be in love anymore.”

And Amber Lafferty wrote: “I think they should just scrap it”. Postitnote28 wrote: “Just seeing her interviews made me decide I’m not going to watch it”. Several called it “a PR disaster.”

Early movie stills purporting to show the new version of dwarves as racially- and gender-diverse, portrayed by only one actor with dwarfism and six non-dwarf companions, also raised traditionalists’ hackles.

Disney says the revised dwarves are now “magical creatures,” which prompted a backlash from Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage, who has done much to advance the normalisation of dwarves in Hollywood.

The British actor attacked Disney’s hypocrisy for being “very proud to cast a Latino actress as Snow White,” while telling a “backward” story with caricatures of dwarves.

As criticism of the woke Snow White mounted during filming, Disney ordered reshoots in June 2023, and then again this June after test screenings raised concerns.

The film’s original release date this spring was pushed back a year until next March. In an early trailer for the film, through movie magic the dwarves now all appear to be white men of the same diminutive height.

Some train wrecks happen without warning, flying off the rails at speed on a sharp bend. Others you see coming in advance, with an obstacle on the track far up ahead. For Disney’s £160million live-action movie Snow White, the rails are buckled, the bridge has collapsed, the engineer has jumped overboard and the train is steaming out of control toward a yawning chasm four months before the film even reaches British cinemas.

“It’s looking like a disaster even before it even hits movie screens,” says one Hollywood studio executive, with some measure of schadenfreude. “It’s certainly been a marketing catastrophe. Snow White is the crown jewel in the Disney pantheon – how could they let it get so out of control?”

Snow White might be wishing she could find another poison apple and slip back to sleep in her glass coffin. The vintage fairytale has apparently fallen victim not to an evil queen or a huntsman’s axe, but to the perils of ’woke’ culture and a succession of controversies.

Disney has been accused of updating the story with heavy-handed political correctness, just as America is turning away from progressive woke extremism with a resounding presidential election victory for anti-woke crusader Donald Trump.

“People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White,” says the new version’s titular star Rachel Zegler, 23. “Yeah, it is – because we needed that.”

Snow White was Walt Disney’s original princess, unveiled in 1937 in the first full length animated feature film. She was a heroine for the era: a vulnerable beauty who loved cleaning so much that she whistled while she worked.

Though costly production brought Disney to the brink of bankruptcy to complete his masterpiece, its success transformed the studio into a Hollywood juggernaut, paving the way for animated classics Bambi, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, and modern classics The Little Mermaid, Beauty & The Beast, and The Lion King.

But 87 years on, today’s Snow White is evidently no fragile waif waiting helplessly for her prince to save her, while slaving as unpaid cook, nurse and housekeeper to seven gold-mining dwarves. Instead, she has been dragged into the woke future.

And fans of the original movie are spitting mad.

The first sign of trouble came when Disney revealed that Snow White, famously named because “her skin was white as snow,” would be portrayed by the distinctly Hispanic Zegler, whose father is Colombian.

Zegler, who found fame as the star of Steven Spielberg’s 2021’s updated West Side Story, expressed pride at playing a “Latina princess,” adding: “No, I am not bleaching my skin for the role.”

Disney’s original movie was inspired by the 1812 Brothers Grimm fairytale, but the new film has reverted to an obscure, earlier creation fable, “another version of Snow White that was told in history, where she survived a snowstorm that occurred when she was a baby,” Zegler explains. “The king and queen decided to name her Snow White to remind her of her resilience.”

Zegler complains that the 1937 film was “extremely dated” and “weird” with a prince who “literally stalks” Snow White – let’s be honest: the prince kisses a complete stranger he believes to be dead – and that her version of the beleaguered princess will not waste her days pining for a man.

“She’s not going to be dreaming about true love,” Zegler added. “She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true.”

One doesn’t need a magic mirror to predict how that explanation would play in an America turning away from excessive political correctness. Many moviegoers took to social media vowing to boycott the film and Zegler.

“Criticising Disney princesses is not feminist,” wrote TikTok user CosyWithAngie, garnering more than 1.7 million likes. “Not every woman wants to be a leader. Not every woman wants or craves power. And that’s OK.”

Former Disney designer David Hand, whose father directed the 1937 original, says: “They’re making up new woke things and I’m just not into any of that.”

Disney princesses have come under fire for promoting unrealistic standards of beauty, passively waiting for a prince to rescue them, and inability to help themselves. The studio’s move to imbue more recent princesses with greater agency has often been criticised as superficial and insincere.

The new Snow White may be no exception.

But Disney still fears that half of America could boycott the movie after Zegler launched a vitriolic attack on the newly elected incoming president, saying: “F*** Donald Trump.”

She lamented: “There is a deep sickness in this country… May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”

Republicans were up in arms. Conservative media darling and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly demanded that Disney fire its star and reshoot the film with a new princess.

“Hello, Disney! You’re gonna have to redo your film again, because this woman is a pig,” raged Kelly. “She has to go. I’m sorry, Disney, she has to go right now… There is something wrong with this person.”

A clearly shaken Zegler was forced to apologise, saying: “I let my emotions get the best of me… I am sorry I contributed to the negative discourse.”

Behind the scenes, Zegler is also thought to have caused conniptions by posting “Free Palestine,” seemingly oblivious that her Evil Queen costar, Gal Gadot, had served two years as a soldier in the Israeli Defence Force.

“Disney seems to have dropped the reins on this runaway horse,” says a studio insider. “They remade Snow White because it was a beloved classic, but perhaps underestimated how strongly people cleave to the original story’s innocence. By dragging Snow White into a post-feminist, diversity-equality-inclusion woke culture, they risk alienating their core audience. They have their work cut out to turn that around.”

The studio now faces an uphill battle to convince moviegoers that its iconic princess, surrounded by big-eyed furry woodland creatures, should be welcomed at British cinemas. Perhaps Disney executives should try whistling while they work – maybe they’ll whistle up an audience while they’re at it.