A breakdown of the drama surrounding ‘Snow White’
Disney’s “Snow White” doesn’t officially hit theaters here until Friday, but the live-action remake of the Mouse House’s animated classic starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot is already mired in enough controversy to poison a whole barrel of apples.
Though the film’s budget is reportedly somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 million, the premiere celebrations have been uncharacteristically subdued for anything Disney. According to the BBC and Variety, the usual news media outlets weren’t invited to the European premiere earlier this month at Spain’s Alcázar de Segovia, which inspired the design of Snow White’s castle in the 1937 animated film; nor were they invited to the Hollywood screening and party on March 15 at the 998-seat El Capitan Theatre.
Disney hasn’t publicly commented as to why the fanfare around the new film has been hushed, especially in comparison to that surrounding other installments of the Disney live-action remake universe; the studio reportedly spent $140 million on promotion for “Snow White”‘s immediate predecessor, 2023’s “The Little Mermaid.”
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However, actor Martin Klebba, who provides the voice of the dwarf Grumpy in the film, commented to The Hollywood Reporter that because of all the controversies surrounding the film, the studio was “afraid of the blowback from different people in society.”
Here’s a quick breakdown of those issues so far.
Racist comments about Rachel Zegler
The earliest waves of online controversy surrounding “Snow White” arose when Zegler, who is of Colombian and Polish descent, was revealed to have been cast as the title character, who is described as having “skin as white as snow” in the 1937 film. Racist comments circulated on social media against the actor, and some attacked the studio as well, alleging it was forcing diversity into the German fairy tale.
In July 2023, Zegler took to Twitter (now X), thanking her fans for defending her and referring to those comments as “nonsensical.” Her defenders included Halle Bailey, the Black actress who had also been the target of racist comments for her role as Ariel in Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid.”
In an October 2024 interview with Variety, Zegler explained that the 2025 film’s character gets her name not from the color of her skin, but from her having survived a snowstorm as an infant.
Zegler’s criticism of the original film
Some commenters attacked Zegler for seeming ungrateful or disrespectful after she candidly voiced her opinions about aspects of the 1937 film at the 2022 D23 Expo, saying that the original story was “extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power” and teasing that in the remake, Snow White is “dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be” more than she is about finding love. In a later interview with Vogue Mexico, Zegler attributed the blowback from those comments to strong feelings for the movie, saying it was an honor to be part of something so many people were passionate about.
On Monday, Zegler posted a photograph of herself to Instagram with her hair in voluminous curls as a tribute to Adriana Caselotti, who provided the singing and speaking voice of Snow White in the original, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Disney’s first feature-length animated film.
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The film’s portrayal of dwarfs
Speaking on comedian Marc Maron’s podcast in January 2022, actor Peter Dinklage said he was taken aback by Disney’s pride in casting a Latina actor as Snow White while “still making that [expletive] backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together.” Days later, Disney announced the film’s team was “taking a different approach with these seven characters” to “avoid reinforcing stereotypes present in the original animated film,” and had been consulting with “members of the dwarfism community.”
The dwarf characters, which Disney described as “magical creatures” in its casting materials for the 2025 film, are rendered with CGI. Klebba is the only actor with dwarfism among the voice actors portraying the septet.
And then there’s politics
Zegler, 23, whose public profile ascended after her appearance as Maria in 2021’s “West Side Story,” is known for being politically outspoken, and she drew ire from conservative commentators such as Megyn Kelly shortly after the 2024 election of Donald Trump when she posted on social media that Trump and his supporters should “never know peace.” She later apologized for those comments. Going back even further, she has been vocal about her support for Palestinian rights since at least 2021. More recently, she has expressed support for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, urging her followers on social media to donate to emergency aid in Gaza.
Gadot, 39, who plays the Evil Queen opposite Zegler’s Snow White, has expressed pride for both her home country of Israel and its armed forces, in which she served as a fitness instructor for two years, several times over the years. At the beginning of March, she received an award from the Anti-Defamation League for international leadership at the organization’s summit in New York City, and during her acceptance speech, she expressed her horror at having seen Americans “celebrating, justifying and cheering on a massacre of Jews” after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, sparking the ongoing war.
Speculation has simmered since early 2024 about awkwardness or even outright hostility between Zegler and Gadot behind the scenes due to their stances on Israeli-Palestinian issues. The two actors appear to be professional and cordial toward each other in public while on the media tour for “Snow White,” posing for some photos together at the Hollywood premiere and promoting the film individually on social media.
Both actors agree on one thing: They’re proud of their work on the film. “Bringing this legendary villain to life was a blast!,” Gadot wrote on Instagram alongside a reel of clips from the Hollywood premiere. And Zegler made a surprise appearance to speak to an audience at a recent advance screening, saying “I love [Snow White] and I am so glad to see that so many of you love her as well.”
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at az.madonna@globe.com. Follow her @knitandlisten.