Rachel Zegler has inadvertently found herself at the centre of a whole lot of conversation online over her role in Disney’s upcoming Snow White remake.
The live-action movie is slated for release in March 2024 and will see the West Side Story actor in the lead role, while Gal Gadot is set to play the Evil Queen.
However, Rachel is currently the subject of criticism over a series of comments she previously made about the 1937 original film, which was Walt Disney’s first ever feature-length movie.
Here’s the lowdown on what’s being said...
What did Rachel Zegler say?
First of all, none of the comments which have sparked the backlash are new. They’re from interviews given last year, but the West Side Story actor is facing renewed attention (and criticism) thanks to some viral posts on TikTok.
The first thing people seem to have taken issue with are Rachel’s childhood memories of watching the original Snow White.
In December 2022, she told Entertainment Weekly: “I was scared of the original version. I think I watched it once and never picked it up again. I’m being so serious.
“I watched it once, and then I went on the ride in Disney World, which was called Snow White’s Scary Adventures [and] doesn’t sound like something a little kid would like. I was terrified of it, I never revisited Snow White again.”
The new version of Snow White will also see the script given a rewrite to bring the subject matter into the 21st century.
Rachel teased this at the D23 Expo in October 2022, where she told ExtraTV: “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.”
Speaking to Variety at the same event, Rachel added: “We absolutely wrote a Snow White that... she’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love.
“She’s going to be dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be, and that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave and true.”
A glance Snow White’s IMDb reveals that while theatre star Andrew Burnap has been cast as the male lead, his character appears to just be named “Jonathan” rather than being listed as the more traditional Prince Charming.
So, why the backlash?
Like we said, TikTok has a lot to do with it.
Multiple videos criticising Rachel have gone viral on the site, including one from a user who goes by @CosyWithAngie.
In the clip, which has racked up over 10 million views, she says: “It is not anti-feminist to want to fall in love, to want to get married, to want to stay at home, to be soft, to want to be a homemaker. None of these things makes you less valuable as a person or a woman.”
“Criticising Disney princesses is not feminist,” she added. “Not every woman is a leader. Not every woman wants to be a leader.
“Thinking that a woman is any less valuable because she falls in love or because she accepts help from somebody instead of girl-bossing her way through her problems is not feminist.”
Another viral video criticises Rachel for accepting the lead role in the remake “if you hate the original this much”.
Labelling Rachel as “condescending,” the TikTok user adds: “She made us sound like women only matter if they’re hateful of love, hateful of any kind of romance, and we only exist to thrive and be a leader.”
Ouch. Has Rachel responded?
The Golden Globe winner is yet to address the criticism, but others have spoken out to support her.
Defending Rachel, Dr Robyn Muir, a lecturer at Surrey University who has just published a book on Disney princesses, told the BBC: “Love and feminism are not mutually exclusive. But there doesn’t always have to be a relationship in it. It’s not the be-all and end-all. Think of the amount of war epics that don’t include romance for any of the male titular characters.
“To just share your opinion on something and to receive such a significant amount of backlash... shows the wider issue of sexism that we still have in Hollywood.”
Is this the first time the Snow White remake has made headlines?
Far from it. Rachel, who is of Colombian and Polish descent, faced racist comments when it was announced that she’d landed the lead role in the film.
She addressed this matter on X – formerly known as Twitter – last month. Sharing a series of sweet pictures of herself dressed up as various Disney princesses as a kid, she wrote: “Extremely appreciative of the love I feel from those defending me online, but please don’t tag me in the nonsensical discourse about my casting. I really, truly do not want to see it.
“So I leave you [with] these photos! I hope every child knows they can be a princess no matter what”
There’s also been a lot of talk about the film’s rebranding, as the characters known as the “dwarfs” in the original film have been ditched.
Instead, the remake is simply titled Snow White, and pictures from the film’s set reveal that only one of Rachel’s on-screen mining companions is being played by an actor with dwarfism.
This reveal came after Game Of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage, who has a form of dwarfism, said featuring the seven dwarfs in the remake would be “backwards”.
There were two sides to this part of the story too, though, as others claimed that Peter “doesn’t speak for the countless other dwarf actors who would love to star in Snow White and follow their dreams in Hollywood”.
WWE star and actor Dylan Postl wrote in a Daily Mail column: “I would have told [Disney] to fill each one of those jobs with a dwarf actor. (Hey Disney, call me! I will take every role that you have.)
“Dinklage is not the spokesman for little people and to believe that one person represents an entire community is ridiculous.”
Is this the first time Disney has updated a character in a remake?
It’s not – both The Little Mermaid and The Beauty And The Beast live-action films featured tweaks to make their princesses a little more modern.
Emma Watson’s Belle was an inventor with a little more agency and independence than the original while Halle Bailey praised Disney for updating Ariel’s story.
“I’m really excited for my version of the film because we’ve definitely changed that perspective of just her wanting to leave the ocean for a boy,” she told Edition.
“It’s way bigger than that. It’s about herself, her purpose, her freedom, her life and what she wants.”
Like Rachel, Halle also faced racist comments when it was revealed that she would be playing Ariel.
The Chloe X Halle singer told Variety last year: “I want the little girl in me and the little girls just like me who are watching to know that they’re special, and that they should be a princess in every single way.
“There’s no reason that they shouldn’t be. That reassurance was something that I needed.”