Explaining all the extremely messy drama surrounding the new ‘cursed’ Snow White film

A lot of drama has been surrounding the release of Snow White – the latest in Disney’s move to remake every single animated classic in live action. Is anyone arsed? Are you arsed? Probably not. But I am arsed however about the messy drama that surrounded the production of this film since it was pretty much first announced. Right wing backlash, Daily Mail readers crying out that it was “woke”, the messy handling of 12 characters with dwarfism and to top it all off – its two leads very passionately speaking out with polar opposite stances on the conflict between Israel and Palestine. As Snow White finally lurches towards release in a couple of days, here’s all the drama surrounding the film explained in a timeline.

June 2021: Rachel Zegler gets cast in the titular role

Rachel Zegler, a rising star fresh off acclaim as Maria in Spielberg’s Oscar nommed remake of West Side Story, is announced as playing Snow White. This causes backlash from Conservative commentators who instantly brand the film as “woke” for casting a Latin American woman in the role. In a similar vein to the backlash against Halle Bailey when she was cast as Ariel in The Little Mermaid.

Gal Gadot gets cast as the Evil Queen a few months later.

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January 2022: Peter Dinklage calls out the Snow White film

In a podcast appearance, Peter Dinklage absolutely blasts Snow White on a podcast. He says “There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on,” he says. “Literally no offense to anyone, but I was a little taken aback [when] they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White. But you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me.”

Yikes. He does stress it’s no shade to Rachel though, and the two co-starred in The Hunger Games prequel film. “You’re progressive in one way but then you’re still making that fucking backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together,” he says. “What the fuck are you doing, man?”

A few days later, Disney quickly responds

In a quote to Deadline, a Disney spokesperson responded to what Peter Dinklage said – explaining “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community. We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period.”

Peter Dinklage then gets called out by members of little person community

Not everyone shared Peter Dinklage’s stance, with Little Women LA star Terra Jolé saying to IndieWire “Because of equality, and voices stating that they weren’t okay with things like elf roles, or dwarf roles, or leprechaun roles, they’ve been eliminated,” says Jolé. “Not only are you not seeing a lot of little people in the acting industry anymore, but you’re not seeing productions being created to give little people an actual role either.”

March 2022: A fire burns down the set

The curse reigns on trying to get all this drama explained when Snow White has its shooting schedule pushed back because a fire burns down most of the set.

The division between Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot

When the trailer for Snow White releases in the summer of last year, much of the conversation is centred around the conflicting views of Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot. Not only enemies on screen, the two are publicly standing for completely different perspectives regarding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Gal Gadot served in the Israel Defence Force (IDF), and wrote “I stand with Israel you should too. The world cannot sit on the fence when these horrific acts of terror are happening!”

Rachel Zegler has been saying publicly she’s been standing up for Palestine publicly since 2021, and wrote “And always remember, free Palestine.”

No mention of Snow White’s skin being ‘as white as snow’

A lot of the backlash towards Snow White in this drama explained run down is how people think the changes made to the source material are sacrilegious. When it’s confirmed that the new film will have no mention to the character’s skin being as white as snow, Rachel Zegler explained “It fell back to another version of Snow White that was told in history, where she survived a snowstorm that occurred when she was a baby. And so the king and queen decided to name her Snow White to remind her of her resilience.”

Discussion on if Gal Gadot and Rachel Zegler are beefing

This is the most precocious part really, and what people theorise on the most. The two of them presented at the Oscars together and definitely seemed to maintain a professional civil relationship. It’s worth noting that neither have posted any pictures together on their Instagram during the press tour.

One source told People that the two of them are “not friends” and have “nothing in common” but they aren’t actively beefing and get on fine for the purposes of their job.

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