Is Disney's $300 Million Snow White Debacle Final Nail in Coffin of Woke Hollywood?

https://amac.us/newsline/society/is-disneys-300-million-snow-white-
debacle-final-nail-in-coffin-of-woke-hollywood/

Disney has been no stranger to box office bombs following the company’s 
woke turn in recent years. But the live-action remake of Snow White may 
become the Mouse House’s most embarrassing – and expensive – flop yet.

Snow White, starring Rachel Zegler as Snow White and Gal Gadot as the Evil 
Queen, hit theaters on March 21. Despite a production budget of $270 
million, the film earned just $44.2 million during a lackluster opening 
weekend before ticket sales plummeted 66 percent to just $14.2 million 
during its second weekend.

The scale of Snow White’s failure is staggering; according to Cosmic Book 
News, it could lose as much as $300 million once the marketing budget 
(usually as much or more than the production budget) is taken into 
account. That would make Snow White among Disney’s least successful films 
ever – a shocking result given that the original, which was released in 
1937 as Disney’s first feature-length animated film, is beloved by 
generations of viewers.

Even the critics – normally friendly to any big-budget film with a 
decidedly left-wing political agenda – can’t stand it. The film has just a 
44 percent rating on “Rotten Tomatoes.”

It’s not difficult to see where Disney went wrong with Snow White. 
Following years of criticism over the company infusing far-left ideology 
into its movies and TV shows, this flop appears to be yet another peak of 
consumer backlash. This rendition of Snow White not only rewrote the 
original story but did so with absolute contempt for the source material.

Controversy over the film began in June 2021 when Rachel Zegler was 
announced as the film’s titular lead. Zegler, a half-Polish, half-
Colombian American, rose to critical acclaim for her portrayal of Maria, 
the Latina female lead in the film adaptation of West Side Story. But as 
critics pointed out, in the original Snow White story, based on a fairy 
tale by The Brothers Grimm written in 1812, the main character is 
described as having “skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black 
as ebony” – hence the name “Snow White.”

Moreover, the central tension in the story revolves around the Evil 
Queen’s jealousy of Snow White’s beauty. As even Zegler’s fans pointed out 
online, the movie utterly fails to create a compelling image of the 
actress as “the fairest of them all.”

Of course, anyone who pointed out these glaring discrepancies was 
instantly decried as a racist and a misogynist. But to neutral observers, 
it was clear that Disney was attempting to play identity politics with the 
casting rather than choosing the best actress for the role. This was made 
all the more obvious when Zegler criticized the Snow White story, calling 
it “extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of 
power” and describing Prince Charming as a “stalker.”

In a later interview with Variety, Zegler said of her character, “She’s 
not going to be saved by the prince. She’s not going to be dreaming about 
true love. She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.” 
(Because who doesn’t want a healthy dose of militant feminism in their 
fairy tales?)

As if those comments weren’t enough to turn off moviegoers, Zegler 
attracted more controversy by infusing left-wing activism into her 
promotion of the film. In an X thread promoting the trailer, she posted, 
“and remember, as always, free palestine.” Co-star Gal Gadot, who is 
Israeli, reportedly received death threats over her nationality, and 
Disney had to hire extra security for Gadot and her family.

Following President Donald Trump’s election last November, Zegler also 
said, “may Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know 
peace.” She later apologized for that comment.

Beyond Zegler, filmmakers unwittingly stepped into another casting 
controversy through their portrayal of the seven dwarfs. The original plan 
was to have seven real-life little people portray the characters. But 
following this announcement, critically acclaimed actor and little person 
advocate Peter Dinklage blasted the decision, calling Snow White a 
“backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together.” In 
response, Disney announced that the dwarves would be “reimagined” as seven 
CGI “magical creatures.”

This stoked further controversy as other actors living with dwarfism 
excoriated Dinklage and Disney for denying them work. Most notably, Jeff 
Brooks, another actor with dwarfism, stated, “Peter Dinklage may be the 
biggest dwarf actor of all time, but it doesn’t make him King Dwarf… It 
makes me sick to my stomach to think that there are seven roles for dwarfs 
that can’t get normal acting roles, and now they are gone because of this 
guy.”

These casting decisions and even Zegler’s political activism could perhaps 
be dismissed as superficial and superfluous so long as the spirit of the 
film is preserved. But Disney screenwriters so aggressively rewrote the 
movie that, were the character names and costumes not the same, one could 
mistake it for an entirely different film.

The noble, selfless, and brave Prince Charming, for instance, was replaced 
with “Jonathan,” a grungy, cynical bandit who seeks to overthrow the 
government. Instead of Snow White dreaming of her prince and living 
“happily ever after,” she dreams of seizing power from the queen. Instead 
of Snow White being awoken by the magic of true love’s kiss, she awakens 
arbitrarily with no real explanation other than “willpower.” All in all, 
it makes for a thoroughly un-magical story.

Even the music didn’t escape the butchery of Disney’s woke censors. Some 
of the most iconic songs from the original films were cut or rewritten 
entirely. The famous song “Someday My Prince Will Come” was considered 
“too problematic” and replaced with an “empowerment anthem.” That “anthem” 
features Jonathan taunting Snow White about her “princess problems,” the 
fairy tale equivalent of “checking someone’s privilege.” The songs “Heigh-
Ho” and “Whistle While You Work” were still included, but their lyrics are 
rewritten to be more in line with modern liberal sensibilities.

The film is so infused with political commentary that one progressive 
critic hilariously stated, “I don’t know why, but Snow White is totally 
about lefty infighting.” She notes that the original love story has been 
replaced with “a tale as old as time – a sheltered Ivy League girl meets a 
rakish dirtbag leftist who lives with a bunch of roommates and who 
radicalizes her by negging her about her privilege.”

By the time the film was released, Disney had lost so much confidence in 
it that it declined even to hold a full red-carpet event. Disney insiders 
are already putting the blame squarely on Zegler’s shoulders.

Jonah Platt, the son of the film’s producer, took to Instagram to 
criticize Zegler for her actions leading up to the film’s release. In a 
since-deleted comment, he wrote, “Tens of thousands of people worked on 
that film, and she hijacked the conversation for her own immature desires 
at the risk of all of her colleagues, crew, and blue-collar workers who 
depend on that movie to be successful. Narcissism is not something to be 
coddled or encouraged.”

While it is easy to pin all the blame on Zegler, she was only a symptom of 
the real problem: Disney’s abandonment of making great movies in favor of 
making left-wing political propaganda.

Ironically enough, in a world where woke virtue signaling is rapidly 
falling out of favor, from the collapse of university DEI offices to 
corporations abandoning ESG investing, Disney’s decision to release one of 
its most glaringly political films ever makes this 2025 remake feel more 
dated than the 1937 original.


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and 
eradicated.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem.  It has none.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden 
fiasco, President Trump.  

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.