Is the Snow White remake really that serious?

This week, there was a point where it seemed like there are only three things powerful enough to unite an incredibly divided nation: death, taxes, and righteous anger over Disney’s upcoming Snow White remake. This last one has truly achieved the impossible: in the past few months, personalities as wide-ranging as Ben Shapiro, Disney adults, Greta Gerwig-ian feminists, and the 91-year-old son of the original Snow White director have all picked up their fists to throw a stone at the Rachel Zegler-starring vehicle, which hasn’t even dropped a single promo photo yet, much less a trailer. And we really have one main question: why the hell does everyone care so much?

First, we need to backtrack a little. Snow White—the latest in Disney’s never-ending campaign to reshoot their entire back-catalog—first started courting controversy from the usual sources when it was announced that Rachel Zegler, a bi-racial Latina actress, would be playing the titular princess. Those same commenters—a group including Ben Shapiro and Tomi Lahren—rose again when a series of leaked set photos revealed that the dwarves were being replaced by a group of “magical creatures” played by diverse actors earlier this summer. Many fans rushed to Zegler’s defense at the time, even prompting the actor to ask fans not to tag her in any more “nonsensical discourse” online. While this backlash is obviously heinous, it was never all that surprising considering the similar uproar over Halle Bailey’s casting in the 2023 version of The Little Mermaid.

The backlash hasn’t been one-sided

What is surprising, however, is how many of those same fans seem to have turned on Zegler—and the project as a whole—in recent weeks. The new narrative—perpetuated in response to a number of TikTok compilations in which Zegler both talks about the direction of the new film as well as implies that she was not a fan of the old one—seems to be that the actor is “ungrateful” for her chance to play the iconic princess.

@nuttybutter96

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If you hate the original this much, why would you want to make the remake. Pls make it make sense. #greenscreenvideo #snowwhite #rachelzegler #galgadot #disney #disneyliveaction #movie i hate this kind of #fakefeminism

♬ original sound – Nuttybutter🧈

People seem to be especially ticked off by a resurfaced clip from 2022, in which Zegler told ExtraTV (via The Independent): “The original cartoon came out in 1937, and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird! So we didn’t do that this time.”

Zegler’s comments—which are relatively normal things to say to drum up what she evidently thought would be excitement for the film—have been branded as “pseudo-feminism” and even put in conversation with a scene from Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, in which Meg, played Emma Watson (who starred in her own controversial Disney remake, by the way) says “just because my dreams are different than yours doesn’t mean they’re unimportant” about her desire to get married and start a family.

Even 91-year-old David Hand, son of one of the original Snow White directors (also named David Hand) has weighed in on the many, many controversies, telling The Telegraph today, “It’s a whole different concept and I just totally disagree with it, and I know my dad and Walt would also very much disagree with it… I think Walt and he would be turning in their graves.”

All of this is… a lot, and again, begs the question: why the hell do people care this much? In Disney’s case, the answer is obvious: money. And lots of it. But that money wouldn’t be flowing in such droves if audiences just started seeing these movies for what they really are: a lose-lose cash grab that merely appends a hollow coda to an already-beloved IP that will always, always be front of mind, no matter what. If your friend said “Let’s watch The Lion King,” you would have to be something close to a sociopath to assume they were talking about the 2019 remake. A few years later, the people who still actively think about the remakes of Aladdin and Peter Pan number in what we’re (generously) guessing is the hundreds. This is one of those times when we all just need to take a collective deep breath, maybe go see an actually new movie, and let Rachel Zegler be whatever kind of princess she wants to be. Hasn’t that kind of been the point all along?