Source for photo above: https://pixabay.com/photos/festival-sand-sculptures-the-touquet-1309973/
Disney’s live action film Snow White was originally set to release on March 22, 2024; however, the company released a statement in October of 2023 pushing back its release to 2025. This push back was mainly due to some of the hot debates concerning the content of the film which Disney was hoping to avoid upon the release.
Seeing as the film is now set to release in a matter of days (March 21st of 2025), everyone, including Disney themselves, are waiting anxiously to see how the public will react to the release of the highly anticipated movie. Will it turn successful despite the negativity surrounding it? Or will it simply be another one of Disney’s live-action remake flops (such as Maleficent and Alice Through the Looking Glass) ?
In order to get some insight into this debate, we must see both sides of the story. In Disney’s attempt to stay out of controversy, they ended up creating hot-button debates, which led to a flurry of commentary by influencers, podcast hosts, the media, and people in general.
Famed YouTuber and podcast host, Amala Ekpunobi, commented on the Snow White trailer, titling the video, “Disney’s Snow White Looks Tragic”. In this video, she dives into the controversies that everyone’s talking about. Ekpunobi’s main criticism is that the new movie and vastly different from the original.
In her video, she played a clip of an interview with Rachel Ziegler, who is the lead actress in the upcoming film. In the clip, Ziegler claimed they had rewritten the movie to be focused on the ‘girl-boss’ version of Snow White. Ziegler explains, “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.”
Although it’s likely Ziegler’s comment was intended to be inspiring for young girls across the world, it instead led people to believe she was putting the beloved character in a negative light. However, it is undeniable that many of the older Disney movies have a darker side that are often not discussed. In Disney’s original Snow White, her character is supposed to be only 14 years old while the prince is 18.
Even in 1938, a 14 year old marrying an 18 year old would have been irregular or frowned upon by much of society – 14 was still quite young to get married. This brings up a good point: perhaps it truly would be best for Disney’s younger audiences if some changes were made from the original.
Ekpunobi addresses the debate over the changes in the movie and the character in the new film. She states, “make no mistake, the original Snow White, while soft and feminine, was no pushover. She dominated the seven dwarves’ house when she initially showed up there, and she did not take no for an answer.”
This claim, however, vastly differs from Ziegler’s view on the character. So it must be investigated: who is right? If the film is so outdated, why is it still considered a classic? What should Disney do about this remake?
Although many of Disney’s older princess movies are, without a doubt, outdated in some ways, there is evidence that some films such as Snow White were actually quite fitting when they were released. After all, directors creating the original movie were not making it for a Gen-Z or Gen-Alpha audience.
The original Snow White was released in February of 1938. Since this was during the Great Depression, many believe Snow White’s character represented the ability to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles, and stood as an example of mixing femininity with dominance.
The femininity vs. girl-boss trope has been heavily debated. While some believe Snow White’s original character is a trailblazer for her time (1938), others believe the Disney princess movies are a disgusting example of false feminism and are simply about women being helpless damsels in distress who always end up with the prince.
This brings up several questions over why Disney feels the need to end almost every movie with a happily ever after-marriage despite choosing to make most of the characters teenagers. Potential reasons for this are an intended appeal to younger audiences (many viewers of this movies are in fact children) by including characters closer in age and common religious ideologies at the time, such as abstinence before marriage.
However, the use of teenage marriage and the damsel in stress trope could have unintended implications on young girls. For example, seeing this film could pressure young girls towards marriage or love at too young of an age. In turn, it can lead to them being taken advantage of by much older men. Although this generally has a happy ending in Disney movies, that is not the case in real life.
Clearly, there is a reason this is a controversial debate; many love the Disney movies, and feel they are great examples of female empowerment and represent core childhood memories. It is important to note that most critics of the new version are both adults and fans of the original, perhaps nostalgic for childhood memories. However, others believe the movies are too outdated, and serve as examples of past failures in attempting feminism in the movies.
A big part of the debate over the new Snow White’s character was whether or not to make her similar to the original young feminine girl, or an independent girl-boss. For some reason, it has been tricky to come to the conclusion that she can be a feminist while still being feminine or simply having a love interest.
Being a girl-boss doesn’t mean one must loathe any and all stereotypes of the female, such as falling in love easily, or being kind-hearted, and instead act like a stereotypical male. In fact, that only deepens the concept that a woman is only powerful when she ‘acts like a man’. This in turn defeats the whole purpose of feminism.
However, questions of feminism are not the only controversies with the new film. The Snow White remake has also had significant debates concerning the cast. One of the biggest issues was Disney’s portrayal of the seven dwarves. Famed actor Peter Dinklage, who is known for not only being an incredible actor, but also an icon for the dwarfism community, outed Disney. He was upset that Disney was willing to change many aspects of the original movie but chose to keep the seven dwarves, who are viewed as “magical creatures” rather than humans. He claimed they were going backwards and undoing progress they had made in terms of inclusivity through more recent films.
In response to his comment, Disney decided to scrap the dwarf storyline altogether, and instead make rename them as “the Seven magical creatures”, of whom only one actor had dwarfism. However, this outraged many people and resulted in both Dinklage and Disney facing a lot of hate.
Many accused Dinklage of being a hypocrite since he seemed to have no problem with making money off the dwarf characters he has played in the past. Others demanded to know who had appointed him as the speaker on behalf of the dwarfism community?
Disney then decided to attempt to please the media once more and scrapped live human actors altogether, making all the dwarves with CGI. It seems that Disney just can’t win because this change also resulted in many Disney fans becoming enraged by the new trailer. This anger stems from the use of CGI to create characters who appear to have dwarfism which denies acting jobs to real people who are part of the dwarfism community.
Not all actors with dwarfism are as successful as Peter Dinklage. For these reasons, many people in the dwarfism community were extremely upset with Disney’s change since it took away potentially major opportunities of stardom for actors with dwarfism.
After considering the controversies ignited by this remake, it appears the remake shouldn’t have been created in the first place. If Disney wanted to make a more socially acceptable, girl-boss, female centered film without as much focus on the love story or some of the controversial ideologies of the past, that’s perfectly fine. However, when it changes almost the entire plot of Snow White, then it isn’t Snow White anymore.
The easiest answer? Simply make a new movie with a new plot, instead of changing everything about an older classic out of an attempt to please the public. It would be significantly easier for Disney to stop the costly and often hated live-action remakes, and instead give us new classics.
(Feel free to comment on your take on this!)
