The original Snow White film features the classic song, “Heigh Ho,” but Disney executives may be worried that the trouble-plagued live-action Snow White film starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, which is set to premiere next week, will have audiences saying, “Ho hum.”
The new film, which stars Zegler as the title character and Gadot as the Evil Queen, has been dogged by various controversies and rumors since it began filming. Variety just reported that the premiere set for Saturday at the El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles will be scaled down from the usual glitz accompanying new Hollywood films.
The red carpet will not include the scores of reporters and photographers usually on hand to interview the stars, and there will be only a small group of journalists hand-picked by the studio.
The New York Post speculated that this decision was made “to avoid tough questions about the backlash that’s followed Snow White around like an eighth dwarf.”
Disney did not comment on the article, but it’s likely that Gadot’s presence is part of what is worrying the studio. Gadot, the Israeli star of the Wonder Woman films, has been an unwavering and vocal supporter of her home country and was recently honored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) at its annual summit.
She said in her speech at the ADL event, “Never did I imagine that on the streets of the United States, and different cities around the world, we would see people not condemning Hamas, but celebrating, justifying and cheering on a massacre of Jews.”
Support for Israel
Among Gadot’s activities in support of Israel was helping to organize a screening of the footage of Hamas atrocities for Hollywood A-listers.
While her stance has won her respect and admiration among Jews and Israelis, others have not been as approving.
According to the NYP, when it was announced that she would present an award at the Oscars earlier this month, “A virtual open letter, allegedly signed by 21 Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences members and more than 75 other filmmakers, called for the Oscars to ‘reconsider Gal Gadot’s presence’ because the Wonder Woman star has ‘openly and repeatedly expressed her support for Israel’s military actions against Palestinians.’”
The NYP quoted a “Hollywood source” as saying, “They spent a few hours trying to get Gal removed from the Oscars. It was disgusting.”
But Gadot did present the award for Best Visual Effects alongside Zegler, and everything went smoothly. There were rumors that Zegler, who has posted support for pro-Palestinian causes, was less than thrilled to be doing publicity with Gadot, but there was no visible discord at the Oscars or in their previous joint public appearances.
There could be another reason that Zegler might not want to stand alongside Gadot: When trailers were released from the movie last year, the Internet blew up with responses from viewers who felt that Gadot was the fairest of them all.
One fan, @onyx_0807, spoke for many when she commented on the trailer on YouTube, “When the mirror said, ‘Snow White is more beautiful,’ I think people at cinema[s] will say, ‘The mirror is broken.’”
Some have seen anti-Latina racism in this preference for Gadot, since Zegler is of Colombian-Polish descent, and became famous playing Maria in the Steven Spielberg remake of West Side Story.
The NYP suggested that a major part of the reason that Disney has chosen a scaled-down premiere is not Zegler’s ethnicity but her tendency to express woke sentiments. In 2022, she told Variety, speaking about the original 1937 film, “There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird. So we didn’t do that this time. I was scared of the original version. I think I watched it once and never picked it up again.”
Zegler also said last year, at D23, the annual Disney expo, that Snow White “is 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.”
How much the movie has been changed from the original is not known, but it seems that if Zegler had any input, the movie is no longer a romantic fairy tale but a leadership seminar.
The NYP reported that David Hale Hand, the son of the late supervising director for the original movie, said, “The original was the way it should be. From what I’ve read, [the new film] bears no reflection to the original story. It’s so far off base that it’s ridiculous.” He went so far as to assert that the new film would make his father and Walt Disney “roll in their graves.”
Another brouhaha has involved the seven vertically challenged people who Snow White befriends in the forest. In the new movie, they are played by CGI dwarfs, which director Marc Webb has said was always his plan, which led to cries that he had deprived little people of acting work.
After Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage criticized the inclusion of such characters at all, Variety reported that Disney released a statement saying, “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community.”
In any case, Gadot has been making the late-night talk show rounds in the US. She recently opened up to Jimmy Fallon about her emergency surgery for blood clots when she was pregnant with her fourth daughter, telling him, “All of a sudden, I realized what it means to be scared to death.”
Whatever happens with Snow White, it seems that Gadot, who survived the health crisis and has spoken out about how women need to take care of themselves, can handle it. But it will be interesting to see how much Disney’s attempt to please everyone will succeed – or fall flat.
