By Kitty Atherton, Second Year Philosophy
Disney’s unsuccessful new remake of Snow White, starring Rachel Ziegler and Gal Gadot, has sparked a multifaceted debate on what Disney aims to do with these remakes, and whether or not they can ever be successful.
On one end of the spectrum we see remakes like Cinderella, a dazzling and heartwarming rendition of a nostalgic tale. On the other, Snow White, complete with disastrous CGI dwarfs and a heavily oversaturated colour scheme seems to lack either warmth or originality. Is Disney churning out remakes because they have finally run out of ideas? Or are they modernising films with outdated ideas for the next generations? Perhaps, the inundation of constant remakes has left the very idea of live action retellings feeling stagnant.
Of course, the debate runs deeper than that. Similarly to the public reaction to The Little Mermaid remake (2023), which partly consisted of complaints about the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel, the casting of Rachel Ziegler as Snow White led to a flurry of backlash asking ‘where is white Snow White?’. This raises the question of whether the failure of these films is due to the actual quality of the film, or whether the 48% rating on rotten tomatoes is due to alt-right racist adults obsessing over a children’s film.
It is worth noting that Ziegler herself has been relentlessly picked apart online for interviews in which she suggests that the original Snow White has some pretty archaic ideas, presenting children with a role-model who’s only purpose seems to be to be saved by a prince that she has only met once, and then immediately marries. The online reaction to Ziegler’s commentary was far from positive; many felt that she was failing to appreciate a classic fairy tale and not doing the original story justice. However, both Emma Watson, who played Belle in Beauty and the Beast (2017), and Lily James (Cinderella) gave interviews supporting the idea of a ‘modern Disney princess’, using similar language about an ‘independent’ princess, or a ‘strong’ princess, pushing the prince into a less dominant role. They were both widely applauded for their attitudes and heralded as positive role models, contrasting Ziegler and Bailey who were both publicly slammed. The difference here, then, seems to boil down to race, and how that manifests in the public domain.
Having said this, however, the new Snow White certainly misses the mark. Disney’s portrayal of the seven dwarfs is a perfect example of where Disney is failing in their recent live-actions. Their CGI dwarfs fails to satisfy either side of the conversation; on one side, Disney has released a statement saying that their decision to use CGI for the dwarfs is a ‘response to direct public criticism, after consulting with the dwarfism community.’ On the other, the CGI dwarfs come across as a caricature of dwarfism, despite being billed as ‘magical creatures’, and have been labelled ‘polarising’ by the dwarfism community. Furthermore, the heavy use of CGI almost gives the impression an AI film. Overall, this leaves the aftertaste of inauthenticity, and a refusal from Disney to adapt the stories in an appropriate manner.
I can’t say that the future of Disney live action remakes is concrete. With the combination of CGI, and their repeated failure to defend the actresses that they have chosen to portray beloved characters, the score of 1.6 on IMDB for Snow White is understandable. Perhaps the solution to this is to scrap the remakes altogether and to write new, more inclusive stories. In doing this, they might stand a chance of including more nuanced, independent characters, rather than sloppily attempting to modernise stories that ought to be left in the past.
Do you enjoy the Disney remakes?
