Rachel Zegler, an actress from Colombia, has been cast in the live-action remake of Snow White. Disney proudly cast a leading lady with darker skin tones, despite allusions to her “snow white” skin in the original story.
There have been mixed results with live-action remakes of Disney’s animated classics. The Lion King Aladdin were live-action remakes that brought in over $1billion (PS750,000). However, 2020’s Mulan only recouped half of its production cost.
Cultural consultants aided both Aladdin and Mulan during their development. However, ticket sales showed a marked difference. After the casting announcement for Zegler, Disney’s willingness of Disney to take a different approach has been demonstrated by Game Of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage speaking out about representation in the movie.
Although Dinklage has not been involved in Disney’s live-action project, he has strong opinions about the portrayal of the dwarfs in the film. Dinklage spoke to Marc Maron about his WTF podcast.
“I mean no offence, but I was surprised when they chose to cast a Latina actress to play Snow White. But you are still telling the story of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. Look at what you are doing there. It doesn’t make sense to me. While you may be progressive in one direction, it is still a backward story about seven dwarfs living together in a cave. You are doing what the f*** is wrong, man. Did I do anything to help the cause, aside from my soapbox? “I guess I’m not loudening enough.”
A spokesperson for Disney told The Hollywood Reporter that they had taken the advice of cultural advisors regarding reimagining the dwarven characters since the “earliest stages of production.”
“To avoid perpetuating stereotypes from the original animated movie, we have taken a different approach to these seven characters and have been consulting members of the dwarfism group. After a long development period, we look forward to sharing more information as the film enters production.
We don’t know much about the reimagining of these characters at this point, but it appears we won’t see seven little people sharing one cave.
