Uh Oh, People Are Coming For The Snow White Remake Now

We somehow lived through all of the controversies surrounding the live action version of The Little Mermaid, from the racist casting complaints to the Disney park character debate. And now it looks like we’re going to do it all over again with Disney’s live action version of Snow White, which is slated to be released next year. The issue? Conservatives and Disney traditionalists are up in arms that the new version will stray too far from the original tale, from how its cast to the main point of the story.

The first problem was the casting of Snow White herself, which went to 22-year-old Rachel Zegler, who happens to be Latina and have a Colombian parent. The next problem was the casting of the seven dwarves. An unconfirmed leaked photo showed that the traditional bearded little people had been replaced by a very diverse group, which set off a chorus of upset fans shouting “PC!” and “Woke!”

Now this past week, newly discovered interviews with Zegler have even more people up in arms that the new version of Snow White will be totally different from the dated 1937 version. And that Snow White’s storyline will be unapologetically less about romance and more about Snow White’s strengths and leadership.

In an interview with Variety last year, Zegler hinted hard that the new Snow White may not be a sleeping princess in a glass box who will be kissed without consent by a prince.

“I just mean that it’s no longer 1937,” Zegler said of the modern remake. “We absolutely wrote a Snow White that ... she’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love. She’s going to be dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true.”

In a different interview, for Entertainment Weekly, she jokes that Prince Charming could really be cut from the movie completely and adds that he “literally stalks her.”

"We have a different approach to what I'm sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because we cast a guy in the movie," she said. "It's really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful."

The response to these statements has been mixed, though the negative responses have been strong and loud in recent days.

On TikTok, account @CosyWithAngie criticizes, “the pseudo-feminism that is calling out Disney princesses.”

“Criticizing Disney princesses is not feminist,” she says. “Not every woman is a leader. Not every woman wants to be a leader. Not every woman wants or craves power, and that’s OK. It is not anti-feminist to want to fall in love, to want to get married, to want to stay at home, to be soft, to be a homemaker. None of these things makes you less valuable as a person or a woman.”

Another TikToker said, “If you hate the original this much, why would you want to make the remake. Pls make it make sense.”

“The fact that everyone is so unhappy with Rachel Zegler and Snow White shows how *EVERYONE* - not just conservatives - is done with the strong female lead trope. It's overdone and the girls are tired of it,” said a user on X.

Well, so here we are. It is totally understandable that some people want to see the Snow White that they grew up watching, complete with a white actress, tiny dwarfs, and a romance-centered storyline.

It also totally makes sense that Disney would not choose to faithfully remake a movie made almost 90 years ago — because times and attitudes change. They probably don’t want to send some of the messages of the original movie, which don’t give Snow White much agency and which disparage little people.

And finally, it seems like Zegler is very much a young person who hasn’t had a lot of experience doing press or marketing a movie. She needs some coaching so that she can talk about the movie in a way that makes everyone excited for the movie, whether they are fans of the original or whether they want to see an updated version.