There’s been a lot of controversy around the most recent Disney live action film adaptation, “Snow White.” So far, it’s fared the worst of all recent Disney movies at the box office, and critics have had a field day hurling insults and admonitions towards the cowering creative team behind it. I knew I had to see it, and here are my preliminary thoughts.
To start, I am not a fan of this adaptation’s version of “Prince Charming.” First off, his name was Johnathan. A medieval fairy tale with magical creatures, evil queens, and a main character named “Snow White,” yet the writers landed on Jonathan. Terrible decision, because there’s no way to feel empathy for someone named Johnathan, thus creating an unlikeable character.
On top of that, the character’s wardrobe strictly consisted of high-waisted jeggings. They were paired with the pseudo-historical equivalent of a cropped flannel hoodie straight out of a Forever 21 Going-Out-Of-Business Sales Rack. This man is not a Disney prince. He is a bisexual barista at Dutch Bros. Which isn’t bad by any metric, but isn’t an aesthetic that makes sense in the historical context of the movie, or the magical fantasy aspects of the story.
The redesign of Snow White’s signature dress didn’t feel as out of place, as recent internet controversy might suggest. It’s nicely constructed, albeit a little out of place in the majority of the color palettes used throughout the film, and personally, I like the long sleeves. The collar, I could do without. While the shoulder action is fun and a nice nod to the fashion of the time period, it doesn’t seem the right choice for Snow White’s character.
Transitioning two dimensional Disney Princesses from the 1950s into newly updated, yet, true to the source material is no easy task. The original “Snow White” wouldn’t be well-received in today’s Hollywood, being a reflection of an array of social values that the industry has been moving away from.
Rachel Zegler’s Snow White has more depth than the original cartoon, but she falls into the familiar trope of reimagined princesses: concerned with the social justice of her kingdom (think Naomi Scott’s Princess Jasmine), not focused on the ideal of a prince coming to save her (see Emma Watson’s Princess Belle) and determined to live her life by a set of values instilled in her by her dead parents (Lily James’ Cinderella).
It’s all a little formulaic for any of the value systems governing Snow White’s actions to seem genuine. It rings too familiar to the popular “teen girl leads revolution” archetype of recent young adult fiction like “The Hunger Games” (a franchise which Zegler has also been involved in), the Shadow and Bone series and a slew of similar and increasingly insincere plotlines. The public has been clamoring for more complex female characters in blockbusters, and creating a new stereotype of the politically motivated female lead is not the way to do it. People want female leads with intriguing personalities, not a cash-grabbing agenda.
It seems as many Hollywood women are subject to this projection. Whenever another Disney Princess emerges onto the live action big screen, she comes toting the same trite sentiment about equality, empowerment, and the importance of kindness. Yes, these teach our children important morals and can instill positive traits centered around these ideals, but isn’t there more to being a woman than wanting equality?
That isn’t even confronting the fact that all these Princesses still perpetrate a narrow vision of what a woman is. All these princesses are conventionally attractive, wear dresses, sing in impossibly breathy soprano lilts and all have a male love interest. The stereotype persists, even in the controversial castings of Zegler and The Little Mermaid’s Halle Bailey.
The controversy surrounding castings has also been blown out of proportion. These are fairy tales. Audiences will get all up-in-arms about a Latina being Snow White, but completely overlook the glaring historical inaccuracies of “prince” Jonathan’s god-awful outfit. Medieval royalty existed in non-white regions of the world, and even so, this is still a fairy tale. Nothing is real. There’s magic. None of the worldbuilding around the jewel-trade or mining industry makes sense. Why are dwarves the only miners? Why is the Evil Queen wearing a balaclava? How is Johnathan living in the woods while maintaining a remarkably consistent five o’clock shadow? And why, pray tell, did Disney not hire more background actors for the kingdom scenes? Was the money already spent on CGI? These are more pertinent questions than anything related to Snow White’s race.
Want to make a more interesting female character? All Disney had to do was make her parents alive. Most people have unique relationships with their families, and this would have been a great way for the audience to connect to Snow White’s character. There are so many small adjustments that could give her more life. Pants, for starters. Some accessories besides the Emotionally Significant Pendant Necklace? Maybe some hobbies. Career aspirations outside of monarchy. Interests in things like music, art, math, science. Oh, hey, what if we had a princess that had been in a relationship before? I’m so tired of every princess being sheltered, hidden away from the outside world or starkly opposed to marriage of all kinds. What’s wrong with a princess that has casually dated? What about a princess that has other men in her life besides her deceased father and comical sidekick? Or who isn’t straight at all? We all know mythology is rarely strictly heterosexual.
There’s just so much rigidity to the genre that any claim to variation immediately turns me off. Let’s be honest about the difficulties of working within this inflexible structure and expand its definition to more interesting frontiers. Pushing the boundaries of tropes often makes for great stories and fresh takes.
Besides the writing, there were also plenty of production issues. I think a good rule of thumb for any new Hollywood project that has any characters who are fully CGI is not to watch it. I’m so tired of those trademark Marvel scenes that happen only between two green sticks and a few A-list actors in sound booths three months afterward. The Dwarves were not a good idea for many reasons, but a big one was the controversy behind Disney choosing to special effect the characters instead of hiring actors with dwarfism. In the 2012 Snow White adaptation Mirror Mirror, starring Lily Collins, the Seven Dwarves were played by real actors without CGI and received much better audience reviews.
The actress who played the Evil Queen, Gal Gadot was introduced to Hollywood when she filled the iconic DC Superhero role of Wonder Woman, and immediately made a positive splash. Since then, public opinion has slowly dwindled in positivity, aided by a stream of politically controversial rhetoric by Gadot and the popular narrative on social media being that she can’t act. This did not help public opinion of “Snow White.”
The Evil Queen’s role, unlike Snow White’s, was hardly modified at all from the original source material, leading to a flat performance. Back when the original fairy tale first made it on the silver screen, the concept of villainy in film was young and simple enough that the character didn’t get much run time dedicated to characterization. But in today’s world, we want to see complex villains with nuanced motives. The bland blanket statement of being “evil” isn’t enough to create a compelling character.
Additionally, while the mosaic motif of the Queen’s wardrobe was a creative touch, it ultimately fell flat, with no clear reason behind the unique and out-of-place design. In general, Disney struggled with adapting the “medieval kingdom” ideal into something new and intriguing, instead presenting us with a mismatched array of meaningless aesthetics. What I would’ve given for the costume designer to just ditch the neck-and-up morphsuit for the Queen, not to mention the jewels that look like they’re fresh from a Joann going-out-of-business sale.
There were a lot of swings and misses in the new Snow White adaptation. I sincerely hope the box office failure of its most recent live-action remake prompts Disney to ditch the struggling revitalization of old classics and focus instead on creating new ones, like the imaginative and well-received recent successes of “Encanto,” “Elemental” and “Turning Red.” At some point, we have to look forward for inspiration instead of backwards.
So would I recommend watching the new “Snow White” movie? No. Does that mean I want Disney to stop trying to make new movie magic? Not at all. Trial and error is the bread and butter of Hollywood, and bad art being created is still better than no art. It definitely won’t stop projects of this nature from being made, and that’s alright.
