Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot put on united front at Snow White premiere amid backlash
The controversy surrounding the film continues.
Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot appeared at the World Premiere of Disney’s Snow White at El Capitan Theatre in LA yesterday.
The film, which will be in theatres March 21, was also celebrated by attendees like Disney CEO Bob Iger and producer Marc Platt, as well as members of the Boys and Girls Club of San Fernando and Malibu affected by the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year.
Other cast members on the carpet included Martin Klebba, Lorena Andrea, Jason Kravits, Dujonna Gift, and Indriss Kargbo. Other cast members like Tituss Burgess, Andrew Barth Feldman, and Andrew Burnap did not attend the event.
According to a press release, guests at the premiere participated in activities including ‘forest friends grove with rabbits, professional glamour shots, a fairytale glam station, and opportunities to create your own jeweled crown, pocket mirror, and candy salad.’
The premiere comes amid continued controversy surrounding the remake of the iconic Disney classic.
The backlash began nearly four years ago when West Side Story actress Rachel Zegler, who is of Colombian descent, was cast as Disney’s original princess, most famous for having ‘skin as white as snow.’
Zegler looked every bit the princess in a blush coloured gown (Picture: REUTERS)The racist complaints are reminiscient of those that Halle Bailey faced after being picked to play Ariel in The Little Mermaid, with some fans being left outraged at Disney’s push for more culturally representative storytelling.
Snow White ran into more negative press coverage when Game Of Thrones star Peter Dinklage branded the studio ‘backwards’ for their decision to remake Snow White.
The actor, who has a common form of dwarfism known as achondroplasia, said he was ‘a little taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White but you’re still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’
The pair posed with producer Marc E. Platt who was also in attendance (Picture: by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney)‘Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me,’ he added on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast in January 2022.
Dinklage argued Disney was ‘progressive in one way’ and yet still making a ‘backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together.’
Disney eventually clarified that the film was ‘taking a different approach with these seven characters’ and had been ‘consulting with members of the dwarfism community’ in order to ‘avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film.’
The premiere was also attended by young fans (Picture: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)As well as dropping half the film’s original title, director Marc Webb opted to portray the characters using CGI– the depiction of whom was pulled apart when the Seven Dwarfs were first unveiled in the movie’s teaser trailer in August – after reports that Disney would be using diverse ‘magical creatures’ instead.
But even as this controversy unfolded, Zeglre faced more backlash after a series of flippant remarks she made at D23 in 2022, which made it clear she wasn’t a fan of the original story.
The 23-year-old (then 21) criticised the original film – released nearly 88 years ago, and based on the 1812 German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm – as ‘dated’.
Zegler has faced backlash for comments she made about the story of Snow White (Picture: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney)Zegler characterised the prince in Snow White as a ‘guy who literally stalks her’ in an interview with ExtraTV, calling it ‘weird’ repeatedly, while she also revealed in a separate interview with Variety that Snow White was ‘not going to be dreaming about true love’ anymore and rather ‘about becoming the leader she knows she can be and the leader that her late father told her that she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true.’
The son of one of the 1937 film’s animators and supervising director, David Hand, also reacted poorly to Zegler’s remarks, seemingly horrified to hear of what may be sweeping changes to the original plot, saying Disney and his father would be ‘turning in their graves.’
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