Fin: Is Disney’s 'Snow White' remake the most cursed movie project ever?

Plus: Tim Walz and Michael Douglas, Zoe Kravitz and Roman Polanski, Deadpool vs. Jesus, the Oscar blogger-to-MAGA pipeline and more in this week's notes column.

One movie has somehow managed to place itself into the crosshairs of Disney adults, deranged fanboys and fangirls, the ever-raging wokeness wars, and now, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And it doesn’t even come out for eight more months. 

Various ridiculous things have happened since the new Disney Snow White film was first announced in 2016 and began filming in 2022. 

For some reason, right at the dawn of her career, many people decided they hated Rachel Zegler, the actress cast as Snow White. Typically, this kind of thing happens, like with Anne Hathaway, when the person has been around for a while and a specious backlash emerges. But for some reason, it was decided right when she first appeared in West Side Story in 2021 that Zegler is Bad. 

I’ve heard various reasons for this. There are racists upset that someone not entirely white (Zegler is of Polish-Colombian heritage) was cast as Snow White, to the usual “she reminds me of people I didn’t like in high school” to other weird, unhealthy parasocial relationships that people on the Internet form with celebrities they’ve never met. There was also quite a bit of “I just don’t like her face” and “I just don’t like her voice.” 

Zegler was also called “entitled” for zealous advocacy during the SAG-AFTRA strike, and for not denouncing her West Side Story costar, Ansel Elgort, forcefully enough when he was accused of sexual misconduct. She was also ripped by the wokeness cops for making some comments about the original movie being “dated” — it came out in 1937, so how could it not be? — and was even denounced by David Hand, the 91-year-old son of one of the original film’s directors. 

There have been other, non-Zegler things, such as when Peter Dinklage — back in early 2022! — ripped the concept of “seven dwarves living in the cave.” I would say that Peter Dinklage, of all people in Hollywood, is someone worth listening to when it comes to questions of dwarf representation. Still, Disney took the wrong lesson casting six of the seven dwarves with non-dwarf actors. This has led to some people blaming… Dinklage, as if it was his decision. (Also weighing on the controversy- both Hornswoggle from WWE and Wee-man from Jackass.) 

Then, earlier this month, the first trailer arrived and was picked apart in all the ways these things always get picked apart. “The Trailer for Disney’s ‘Snow White’ Remake Has Some People Very Grumpy,” one headline said. 

In case you thought all of this wasn’t enough, you just know it needed an Israel/Palestine angle. 

After the release of the trailer, Zegler tweeted the following: 

This has drawn much attention, partly because Gal Gadot, who plays the Evil Queen in the movie, is Israeli. This was widely interpreted as a shot at Gadot (she is “dehumanizing her co-star Gal Gadot”), and I have no idea if that’s the case. But now, there are reasons for people on both sides of the conflict to be angry at each of the movie's two stars and to threaten to boycott the movie. 

I strongly believe that one should not judge a movie until they see it. I haven’t genuinely liked most of Disney’s live-action remakes of animated classics, and the director, Marc Webb, doesn’t have the best record with big movies (he did the two Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-man pictures.) And, you know, all of the above reasons why it seems cursed. 

On the other hand, the film was co-written by Greta Gerwig. Zegler can certainly sing, and the film has some new songs by Pasek and Paul. And there’s a distinct possibility that all of the above is Internet bullshit that normal people don’t care about, and it’ll be a huge hit when it finally comes out in March. A part of me wants to see it do well and shut up some of the most annoying people around. 

Even if you don’t like it, the new version is not replacing the old one. There’s no Disney Vault anymore, but you can still watch the ’37 version on Disney+.