A billboard for a new ‘Snow White’ parody movie starring Chloe Grace Moretz has been slammed for fat-shaming.
The movie poster for ‘Red Shoes and the 7 Dwarfs’ features a picture of a slim Snow White character, stood next to a shorter and physically bigger Snow White.
In large red letters it reads: “What if Snow White was no longer beautiful and the 7 dwarfs not so short?”
Model Tess Holliday hit out at the billboard, which was on display at Cannes Film Festival, tweeting: “How did this get approved by an entire marketing team? Why is it okay to tell your kids being fat = ugly?”
The company behind the movie, Locus Corporation, has since apologised for the advertisement, saying the campaign will be terminated.
Meanwhile the film’s star, Moretz, has said she is “appalled and angry”. She added that the poster wasn’t approved by her or her team.
Holliday wasn’t the only high profile person to call out the poster. Film critic Hugo Emmerzael spotted it and tweeted: “Speaking about misogynistic and body shaming publicity in Cannes... Being less thin and tall ≠ being less beautiful!”
Meanwhile Kyle Buchanan, the senior editor at New York Magazine, said he walked past the billboard every day at Cannes and was “stymied by it”.
Understandably, the poster has been met with a lot of anger from the public.
Courtney Fernandez tweeted: “As a mother of a teenage daughter and a woman in general, this is so so incredibly disturbing.”
Kenneth Hendrick added: “That has got to get one of the worst things I have ever seen! How did someone not see how wrong this was? Unbelievable!!”
According to IMDB, the film - due to be released in 2018 - is about seven princes who have turned into dwarfs. They “seek the red shoes of a lady in order to break the curse”, reads the description, before adding it’s a “parody with a twist”.
In light of the backlash, actor Chloe Grace Moretz tweeted: “I have now fully reviewed the mkting [marketing] for Red Shoes, I am just as appalled and angry as everyone else, this wasn’t approved by me or my team.
“Pls [please] know I have let the producers of the film know. I lent my voice to a beautiful script that I hope you will all see in its entirety
“The actual story is powerful for young women and resonated with me. I am sorry for the offence that was beyond my creative control.”
A spokesperson for Locus Corporation told Page Six: “Locus Corporation wishes to apologise regarding the first elements of our marketing campaign (in the form of a Cannes billboard and a trailer), which we realise has had the opposite effect from that which was intended.”
They confirmed that the campaign is being terminated.
“Our film, a family comedy, carries a message designed to challenge social prejudices related to standards of physical beauty in society by emphasising the importance of inner beauty,” they said.
“We appreciate and are grateful for the constructive criticism of those who brought this to our attention. We sincerely regret any embarrassment or dissatisfaction this mistaken advertising has caused to any of the individual artists or companies involved with the production or future distribution of our film, none of whom had any involvement with creating or approving the now discontinued advertising campaign.”