I Hated, Hated, Hated, Hated the Snow White Live-Action Remake Yet I'm Bummed It Bombed So Spectacularly
I’m not entirely sure how, but Facebook became convinced that I am interested in a page called World of Disney. Mark Zuckerberg’s engine of evil probably subscribed to that misconception because, out of morbid fascination and an inability to resist shiny buttons of hate, I clicked on one of its posts to see just how ugly and cruel the comments were. Or quite possibly seven thousand times. It’s hard to keep track.
Many commenters mistake World of Disney for an official component of Disney’s social media empire or, at the very least, an enthusiastic fan site with a particular affection for last year’s ill-fated live-action remake of Snow White.
World of Disney is instead operated by We Got This Covered, a pop culture website notorious for race-baiting, engagement farming, and flagrant misinformation.
The purpose of these posts is not to promote Snow White but rather to get clicks and comments from dudebros who are apoplectic that anyone has anything positive to say about an abomination that destroyed Disney through the twin thought crimes of DEI and Woke.
We Got Disney weaponized the public’s vitriolic hatred of Rachel Zegler. She’s a twenty-four-year-old actress and singer who became a white-hot flashpoint when she tweeted “free Palestine”, rightly criticized the Snow White story as dated and misogynistic, and got cast in a role with White in its title despite being half-Colombian.
Zegler is so hated that when World of Disney ran a cute Mother’s Day post of the actress with her adorable dog, it engendered hundreds of posts from dudes suddenly deeply invested in fairy tale lore never being updated. These stunted man-children wrote sadistic posts insulting Zegler’s looks, intelligence, talent, and politics.
World of Disney just needs to post an image of Zegler with an admiring caption to channel the hatred of people who hold her responsible for everything wrong with pop culture and society as a whole.
World of Disney trolls haters with rage-bait captions like, “Disney’s ‘SNOW WHITE’ is being praised as one of the best live-action remakes in years! Critics call it “a visual feast” with stunning new musical numbers, enchanting animated animals, and a heroine with newfound depth. Rachel Zegler’s performance is being hailed as “pure magic,” bringing the heart of the 1937 classic back to life.”
This post generated over sixty-five thousand comments, most of which are just as nasty and critical as you'd imagine.
I despise Snow White. I gave it a rare zero-star rating at my Substack newsletter, Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas. My ten-year-old son wanted to walk out after half an hour. I only stayed out of a sense of professional obligation.
Snow White is wildly misconceived. I was particularly mortified by its CGI little people, one of whom I have made an ironic mascot for both Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place and Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas. Regular visitors to this site know that I stick an image of the CGI Dopey in every piece I write.
Why? I’m not sure. It amuses me, and hopefully others as well.
Yet I am bummed that Snow White wasn’t just a failure but a box-office bomb so massive and historic that it led Disney to stop making live-action remakes of animated favorites.
There are many excellent reasons why Snow White failed. For starters, it is a terrible movie with a soft-focus aesthetic that simultaneously suggests the sinister black magic of AI and the kitschy tableaus of Thomas Kinkade, the self-styled “Painter of Light.”
Snow White very aggressively did not need to exist. It was willed into existence by commerce and greed, not creativity. Its story is inherently sexist and old-fashioned, not to mention predicated on a non-consensual yet life-saving smooch from a handsome prince to a damsel in distress.
Casting Gal Gadot as the Wicked Queen was a mistake. She doesn’t have the presence or charisma to carry off a role like that.
As a young woman of color with controversial political beliefs, Zegler made for a perfect scapegoat. Haters could focus their awful energies on destroying Zegler with words.
A hit piece in Hollywood Reporter said she “trashed the beloved original ‘Snow White” and claimed that Zegler’s pro-Palestine stance so mortified Disney that producer Marc Platt flew to New York for wildly unsuccessful crisis management.
The article implies that Zegler’s comments led to death threats and a need for beefed-up security for Gadot, her Israeli co-star, who they helpfully point out has four children, and, wholesomely, refrains from posting anything too provocative on social media.
MAGA culture warriors claimed Snow White’s failure as a massive success. With help from The Hollywood Reporter, they pushed the narrative that Snow White failed because it was Woke and DEI, and made the unforgivable error of updating some of the gender and class politics of Disney's first full-length animated film.
The failure of a movie that cost hundreds of millions of dollars was blamed on the mouthiness of an uppity young actress who couldn’t shut up and not criticize Donald Trump or Israel even when doing so threatened to alienate the moviegoing public.
Disney learned one of the right lessons and many wrong lessons from Snow White’s failure. They correctly ascertained that the trend of live-action remakes of animated films was exhausted.
Unfortunately, they also seem to have decided that Snow White failed because it was woke and DEI and committed the crime of making some changes to a 1937 film.
We’ll be seeing less diversity, equity, and inclusion going forward.
Someone wiser than I said that corporations don’t have political convictions, but rather marketing strategies.
Disney has already begun the process of becoming less diverse.
Zegler will be used by studio publicists as a cautionary warning of the dangers of speaking up and making your voice heard about important matters when your corporate masters want you beautiful, silent and obedient.
Snow White might be godawful, but its cultural impact, both short—and long-term, is even worse.
You can pre-order The Fractured Mirror here: https://the-fractured-mirror.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Nathan needed expensive, life-saving dental implants, and his dental plan didn’t cover them, so he started a GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nathans-journey-to-dental-implants. Give if you can!
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