The Patriot Post® · 'Snow White' Remake Actress Bashes 1937 Film, Again
Disney’s new live-action remake of “Snow White” promises to be a rewrite of everything “problematic” and “dated” in the original animated film. Just listen to the star, Rachel Zegler, bash the original 1937 icon, one that is still considered one of the greatest film achievements of all time.
She first slammed the 1937 film at the 2022 D23 Expo Variety, where Zegler and costar Gal Gadot (who is playing the Wicked Queen) were interviewed about the upcoming project. Zegler had this to say: “I just mean that it’s no longer 1937. … She’s not going to be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love. She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true.”
This was bad enough; it confirmed that indeed we have another Disney intellectual property that is being retrofitted to moralize at adults and to indoctrinate kids in a pernicious feminist trope (i.e., the princess saves herself; she doesn’t want or remotely need a prince). It’s a trope that is so overdone at this point that most are sick of it. What’s wrong with dreaming about true love? Nothing. But Zegler has to pretend that it’s the worst thing ever to justify the remake.
Her latest bashing of the original film was even more pointed. First she said: “I mean, you know, 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! Weird. So we didn’t do that this time.”
Disney is trying a really interesting marketing strategy where the star of the new Snow White spends a year before the movie’s release publicly talking about how much she despises Snow White
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) August 13, 2023
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Then she goes on to talk about how there was an actor cast in the role of the prince, but intimated that she hoped his scenes would get cut. That’s how much she despises the love story.
Disney’s original movie of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was iconic and groundbreaking. It received a standing ovation and is considered one of the greatest films of all time. One could rightly interpret Zegler’s constant smearing of the film as insecurity, knowing that the remake isn’t going to be up to snuff.
Another thing Zegler kept bringing up in both negative comments is that the original film was made in the 1930s. She claimed it didn’t age well and that the prince was a stalker. What it actually exposes in Zegler is an ignorance of context and the lost art of the appreciation of beauty. In the context of the original film, the titular character literally sings about dreaming of her love and her hoping to find him that day. Like a miracle, Prince Charming appears (because, you know, it’s a fairytale). Though she is initially frightened, she realizes that her wish has come true and sends her love back to the serenading prince via a dove kiss.
He fell in love with her beautiful voice, then her lovely self. Stalker, no; pure and lovely romance in the context of a fairytale, yes.
The original film as well as the original Grimm fairytale talk about the theme of beauty. Snow White’s beauty drove the Wicked Queen to murder. What is made even more thematically clear in the 1937 film was the beauty that was within Snow White as well. She was gentle, kind, and lovely. She charmed seven dwarves into letting her keep their house. The loss of her beauty of spirit and face was so lamented when the queen succeeded in killing her that the dwarves couldn’t bury her in the ground. They made her a coffin of glass and never left her side.
The prince, when he found her, never thought his kiss would revive her. He was just as devastated at the loss as all her friends.
One argument that could seemingly be in favor of the “stalker” claim is that Disney says the animated princess was supposed to be 14 years old. Fourteen is very young to be getting married. However, when you consider the context of the Grimm fairytale and the practice of young brides historically, this isn’t as big a deal. This is where we go back to the whole “this is a fairytale, not real life” argument.
You didn’t hear Zegler complaining about the love story in her breakthrough role in the film adaptation of “West Side Story.” Tony, the leading man, might also be considered a stalker if judged by her same measuring stick regarding Prince Charming. The original play “West Side Story” is adapted from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and was written in the 1590s. Tony fell in love with Maria (Zegler’s character) at first sight as well. Clearly, it’s not the love story or the age of the play/movie material that she has a problem with. The question is: Does she even understand how contradictory she is, or is she just spouting nonsense she’s been told?
Frankly, it’s a pretty perverted and cynical person who can see the “Snow White” film and interpret that (mutual) love at first sight as a stalker/victim story. Also, why do they insist that fairytales act like real life? Do kids need a complex love story built out where the prince isn’t struck by love at first sight but both prince and princess work out their feelings over a long drawn-out period of time and then eventually discover they love one another? Or are they kids, willing to accept that true love at first sight is part of the fairytale, ergo get on with the rest of the story? Children’s stories are supposed to be simple and clear to teach lessons. Snow White in both the Grimm fairytale and the 1937 animated film has many lessons — that kindness, purity of heart, and true love win the day, and that you shouldn’t open the door to strangers (especially if they are giving away apples).
This woke remake is most likely going to be another flop in the Disney catalog. It is so intent on bastardizing its own intellectual property to fit its leftist woke sensibilities that it is actively losing fans. Disney would do better to come up with new stories instead of destroying the old, except that it can’t help itself in new content creation either, as “Elemental” and a few other flops have already proved.
What Disney is selling, parents aren’t buying. The new “Snow White” actress reinforcing the fears that this is woke feminist nonsense isn’t going to help either.