Is Rachel Zegler Right About Disney's 'Snow White'?

Disney cannot seem to catch a break when it comes to recycling some of its more famous titles, struggling to find the perfect balance of updating them for the times and remaining authentic to the original content.

The entertainment giant received a backlash when it cast a Black actress, Halle Bailey, in its live-reaction remake of The Little Mermaid. More recently, it was labeled "racist" when it cast Rachel Zegler, an actress of Colombian-Polish descent, as the new Snow White. She stars in the live-action remake of the 1937 animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which is due for release next year.

But things blew up for the Mouse House recently after Zegler's comments about playing the "iconic princess" went viral.

She suggested the original film was "outdated" and also admitted she had seen that movie just once, as a child, before accepting the role because she thought itwas "scary" when she was a little girl.

Her comments from Disney's D23 event in September 2022 resurfaced last week after she appeared at a Screen Actors Guild—American Federation of Television and Radio Artists protest. The union has joined members of the Writers Guild of America to go on strike to try to get higher salaries from major studios that reflect their potentially increased revenue from streaming and to ensure that actors are not replaced by artificial intelligence in the future.

"If I'm gonna stand there 18 hours a day in the dress of an iconic Disney princess, I deserve to be paid for every hour that it's streamed online," Zegler said on the picket line during a protest in New York's Time Square last week.

As a result, people began sharing Zegler's interviews from D23, where she said the original film was "very evidently" a product of 1937. She also said Prince was "weird" and "a guy who literally stalks [Snow White]."

Throughout her public comments, Zegler has said that she's "grateful" for the opportunity to play Snow White but that the new movie was taking a "different approach" to telling the familiar story. Her co-star, Gal Gadot, has also described the new Snow White as "proactive," which some social media users interpreted as meaning the animated Snow White was weak.

Disney has also faced criticism for casting only one actor with dwarfism and six others of different ethnicities and body types in the roles of the seven dwarves.

Newsweek has contacted Disney by email for comment.

Zegler's take has clearly caused a stir online and started a debate about whether Disney should be updating its vintage content so it is more appropriate for today.

For cartoonist and animator Vincent Alexander, the 1937 Snow White was a "masterpiece," but he said he understands Zegler's point.

"It makes sense to turn Snow White into a more proactive heroine in a modern-day retelling, but I do think deriding the original as an irrelevant 85-year-old cartoon is dismissive and frankly a little disrespectful to animation as an art form," he told Newsweek.

"It's hard to fathom what a breakthrough Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was at the time of its release... It combines imaginative fantasy, zany cartoon humor, chilling German Expressionist horror and resilient Depression-era optimism into a pleasing whole, and it set the blueprint for so many films that followed," Alexander said.

Film and animation historian Dave Lee agreed that the cartoon movie was a "magnum opus of Disney's early output." He said the Snow White story itself was based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale from 1812 and "barely deviated from the original tale."

"In recent years, Snow White's story has come under fire for proliferating outdated stereotypes in film," Lee told Newsweek. Many subsequent animated films, such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid, followed the same story template, he said.

"Damsel in distress, magical sidekicks, evil villain, Prince who saves the day. It's a formula that truly made the Disney brand but one which the company is slowly but steadily trying to shed in a more socially conscious world. One in which gender stereotypes and the happily-ever-after stories of yore are constantly being pulled apart and reassessed," Lee said.

The original Snow White "absolutely upholds outdated values, depictions and stereotypes" of gender and dwarfism, Lee went on, but it is also a "story ripe for reassessment and reinvention."

"If not, what are these live-action remakes for? Why do we need to tell the same story again and again if we don't change, adapt and reflect?" Lee asked.

He added: "[I'm] glad to see the strong-willed, courageous woman at the forefront is so passionate about it as well. It doesn't matter if Zegler loves the old story or not. What matters is her devotion to making the best possible story for 2024. Walt's original masterpiece can still be loved and appreciated for what it was nearly 90 years ago."

The debate around the new Snow White points to the larger battle Disney is facing against traditionalists who have blamed the company for "going woke."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis clashed with Disney, whose Disney World resort is located in Orlando, after the company publicly denounced the "Don't Say Gay" bill he signed. The law bans discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in certain grades at the state's public schools.

Disney refused to cut a same-sex kiss in the animated 2022 film Lightyear to appease Chinese censors. As a result, the prequel to the Toy Story franchise did not premiere in China.

This year, Pixar's Elemental was mocked for having the first nonbinary character in a Disney film. The character, who is not human, drew criticism from social media users.

"When it's done surreptitiously, Disney films can be an effective vehicle for sociopolitical messaging, and given Disney's history and cultural position, it is probably obligatory that they do so," Jonathan Sullivan, director of China Programs at Britain's University of Nottingham, told Newsweek previously.