The year was 1937. Adolf Hitler was consolidating his power in Germany, with Poland now in his sights. In the Philippines, women were granted the right to vote for the first time. And in the United States, the biggest box office draw was a film called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Produced by Walt Disney, the movie was not only the highest-grossing of the year but also held the title of the top-earning animated feature for 55 years until the age of home video, when families decided it was time to own a piece of entertainment history by buying VHS tapes and, later, DVDs.
Flash forward to 2023: The Walt Disney Company, long past the days of its founder, had been busy turning its animated classics into live-action remakes, from Sleeping Beauty to Mulan to Beauty and the Beast. At first, the formula worked: Imagine grandparents and parents taking their kids to see fresh versions of the films they grew up with. The box office returns soared into the hundreds of millions. Disney had discovered a new cash cow.
That is, until the remake of The Little Mermaid. Suddenly, Ariel wasn’t a redhead anymore; she was Black. The change confused many viewers, but despite the controversy, the film still turned a profit. Encouraged, Disney decided it was time to remake its first animated hit: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
This is where the problems — plural — began.
Perhaps drawing from their Little Mermaid experience, the producers cast an actress of Colombian descent as Snow White. Maybe they were impressed with her performance in another remake, West Side Story. But there was a key difference: In West Side Story, her character, Maria, was fully Hispanic.
Still, production moved forward. Another issue arose when the role of the Evil Queen went to Gal Gadot, who is at least a foot taller than the actress playing her on-screen daughter. Whispers in Hollywood suggested that, despite both actresses’ beauty, the roles should have been reversed. And then there was another controversy: Gadot is Israeli, and Rachel Zegler’s favorite past tweet? “Free Palestine.” Uh-oh.
But the biggest public relations disaster came in 2023. The film had wrapped, and Zegler went on a media blitz without a filter. A quick search online reveals some of her most biting comments: She called the original Snow White “weird, weird!” She dismissed the prince as a “stalker.” And she kept going. She even claimed her nickname “Snow White” came from an incident when she was a baby. Watching her torpedo her own film was astonishing.
And then there were the dwarfs. Or, rather, the lack thereof. The “Seven Dwarfs” had been reimagined as the “Seven Magical Creatures,” featuring just one actual dwarf. The backlash was swift. Oof.
A few days after the controversy erupted, Disney announced that the film, originally set for a 2024 release, would be delayed to March 2025. The budget ballooned to a staggering USD250 million. And yes, the dwarfs returned, this time, as CGI.
Last week, after all the drama, the film finally hit theaters. It bombed, grossing just USD43 million.
There was one clear reason for the film’s failure.
And it wasn’t just because of Snow White.
She wasn’t white.
