When exclusive photos from the set of Disney’s live-action adaptation of “Snow White” leaked last week, the internet reacted like someone had poisoned their apple.
The pictures, published by the Daily Mail, featured Snow White accompanied not by seven little men but by actors of different “genders, ethnicities, and heights.”
The Mail headline — “EXCLUSIVE: Snow White and the Seven … Politically-Correct Companions?” — quickly made waves online as conservatives criticized the “woke” update.
Then, a Disney representative told the Daily Beast that the photos were “fake and not from our production.”
Disney later reversed the claim and told the Daily Beast that the photos were from the set of “Snow White,” though they were not “official” photos.
A photo of Rachel Zegler’s stand-in in “Snow White” circled the internet to widespread confusion. Click News and Media / BACKGRID
Disney disavowed the Daily Mail photos from the “Snow White” set before retracting the statement. ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett CollectionAdding to the confusion, the original Daily Mail article erroneously reported that actors Rachel Zegler — slated to portray the fairest of them all — and Andrew Burnap were pictured. (Gal Godot is set to play the Evil Queen.)
In actuality, it was Zegler and Burnap’s stand-ins who were in the shot.
Elsewhere on the internet, conservatives have made it clear that they do not welcome the inclusive update to Disney’s very first princess.
Zegler, fresh off a turn as Steven Spielberg’s leading lady in the Oscar-nominated “West Side Story,” is the fairest of them all in Disney’s “Snow White” remake. Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/WireImage
Disney has toyed with different options for how to update Snow White’s story for a modern audience, but all of its ideas have met with backlash for one reason or another. Click News and Media / BACKGRIDAfter facing facing controversy last year for their planned portrayal of the princess’ seven companions, Disney insisted that they were “consulting with members of the dwarfism community” to avoid reinforcing the stereotypes baked into the 1937 film.
Mickey Mouse & Co. then suggested that instead of seven dwarves, the characters would be transformed to “magical creatures” through the use of CGI — an unsatisfactory compromise for all.
