Forget Woke Snow White. Disney's Remake Is More Like Socialist Snow White.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
If you've heard anything about Disney's new live-action Snow White remake, it's probably that it's woke, that star Rachel Zegler is a "DEI princess," and that the movie caters to cringe left identitarianism. The long-in-the-works movie, most of which was shot in 2022, has been embroiled in online controversy for years, and most of the complaints were made by people who hadn't seen the movie.
But I have. And the movie is indeed a trainwreck. The problem isn't that it's woke. It's that it's awful—and lamely, bluntly socialist.
The remake's big idea was to twist the idea of the word "fair." See, in earlier versions of Snow White , an evil queen asks a magic mirror, "Who is the fairest of them all?" It's always the queen, until one day the mirror responds that it's actually her stepdaughter, the Princess Snow White. The question, "who is the fairest," in other words, has always been a question about beauty. But in the remake, there's something else going on. The movie goes to great lengths to demonstrate that the queen isn't fair because she's not a socialist. I am not kidding.
The film doesn't quite use that word. But early in the film, Snow White encounters a handsome thief named Jonathan in the castle. Jonathanis the leader of a group of bandits who live in the woods and survive by stealing food. He feels justified in stealing because he and other ordinary people have very little while the queen has a lot and she won't share.
This isn't just a generic lesson in being kind. Later, after Snow White takes up with seven computer-animated dwarfs in the forest, one of the dwarfs explains that the bandits in the woods are "only there because of the queen's greedy economic policies, which forced them there into a liminal space where ethics are harder to define." This might not be a precise word-for-word quote—the line gets spat out so fast I am not certain I transcribed it exactly right—but it's pretty close. This is a movie about how stealing is justified because of the evil queen's economic policies. She's not fair, you see, because her privilege and selfishness have impoverished ordinary people. It's Snow White by way of Occupy Wall Street.
Jonathan and Snow White continue to flirt through a song called "Princess Problems," which is mostly about how Snow White needs to understand her own privilege. Sure, she might have lost both her parents and has been essentially turned into a maid by her evil stepmother. But she's literally a princess who lives in a castle. Wow, elite. I was almost surprised when there wasn't a couplet about intersectionality—but in fairness, it's difficult to rhyme.
That song also nods to the queen's evil worldview. She's "poisoned all of us into believing it's everyone for themselves." The entire movie is like this, as if the screenplay was given a write-through by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.). It's less a magical fairy tale than a cloying, clunky disquisition against Ayn Rand.
Reader, I shrugged.
I am not against political ideas and metaphors in films, even political ideas I strongly disagree with, so long as the movie in question is entertaining, interesting, clever, or amusing in some way.
But Disney's Snow White remake is none of those things. Politics aside, it's a flat, limp, relentlessly boring film, strung along by bland, uninspiring songs. The production budget reportedly soared past $250 million, yet somehow the film manages to look very cheap. The sets look like cardboard stands painted for a community theater play—or, when filled out by animation, like video game levels where you're supposed to roam around performing fetch quests. The computer-animated dwarfs have been awkwardly rendered to look like three-dimensional, not-quite-lifelike versions of the characters in the 1937 cartoon; their creepy figures plumb the depths of the uncanny valley.
The whole movie looks fake and ugly. In some ways, that's the remake's greatest betrayal of its source material. Disney's 1937 animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs remains a beloved classic nearly a century after its release, partly because it was a technical marvel and partly because it was flat-out gorgeous—each frame beautifully animated, every visual detail lovingly attended to.
But there's no love or beauty in this limp, desperate remake—nothing to admire or appreciate. No matter how you define it, it's not the fairest of them all.
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Why would a family that owes everything it has and the legacy of its patron to the free enterprise system want to glorify Socialism?
To piss off a libertarian who wallows in Ayn Rand's dystopian 'wokeness'?
Why do they keep wokefying the classics. Just leave them alone. Try creating new woke movies about obsese, black lesbians who single-handily beat up and defeat a cartel of white men who make millions terrorizing and stealing from an abortion clinic.
“The classics!” Listen to you. Did you study Snow White in college? Read it in the original Low German? Which is the classic? The cartoon? Or the fairy tale it was adapting, which I bet you never read. Did you know there is more than one written version?
Speaking of classics, do you know how many adaptations of Hamlet or King Lear there have been? They’re all different in some way. Some are great and some are terrible. Some adhere very faithfully to the original text, and some just borrow the basic framework of the plot.
Like these, Snow White is fiction, and pretty primitive fiction at that. Adapted stories are constantly being updated and shaped for new audiences. Why reissue the exact same movie? If you like the old one, go watch that. Nobody has changed it. It’s still there for you to watch.
Yes, it's a classic kids movie that is a cultural touchstone for generations. What part of that is so hard for you to grasp? There's no need to mutilate and politicize it. Nothing's stopping Disney from actually creating a new woke story with new woke characters.
Movies can be criticized without the world ending. Relax.
It hasn’t been mutilated. It’s still there. This a new movie. They didn’t redo the old one and reissue it with a bunch of changes.
And also, you’re the one politicizing the movie. Everyone else is like, “it’s just a movie!”
That’s rich! What you and the author of this seed are doing is not criticism. You’re in here whining about wokeism and the damage to your precious culture, ffs.
You’re the one who needs to relax.
Bird flu won't be enough. Measles won't be enough. The movie disease is going to destroy all human life on the planet, and even the return of Klaatu and Gort won't be able to help.
Disney's most iconic movie has just been redone.
A simple innocent story involving love has been bastardized & politicized.
As one who appreciates classic film, what say you?
See my reply to Robert in Ohio #4.2
However, that's based on what I've read about it. I really can't provide a serious opinion about it unless l've watched the movie, and that possibility is a few years away.
I remember that the original movie was the first one my mother took me to a movie theatre to see when I was a little kid, maybe when I was 4 or 5 years old. I recall how much I was impressed with the dwarfs digging out the jewels from the walls of the mine.
Unfortunately I was TOO impressed. Our immediate next door neighbour whose house bordered on our driveway between the houses had walls coated with stucco, not just plain stucco, but stucco that had pieces of coloured glass in it, like this:
Now, can you imagine what went through my head? I got a hammer and I went to work on the neighbour's wall, pulling out as many "jewels" as I could. Can you imagine what the wall looked like when I was finished? Brown wood patches all the way at about a height of 3 feet.
Well, after my father disciplined me for his having to redo their wall, I never did that again.
In a world filled with real problems, it is amazing to me how people find so many trivial resons to bitch about trivial things.
If you read reviews of a movie and don't like the theme don't go see it.
I do like horror films or new age fantasy films - but I do not complain about their themes I ignore them which is the sane thing to do.
People look for things to bitch about rather than working on real world problems
some people think culture matters and is actually a "real problem."
So the fact "some people" like this movie is a threat to your culture?
I'm telling you that culture matters and people care about culture because politics is downstream of culture. Everything else is just you projecting.
your culture?
I thought you were American.
Your culture will be just fine.
We're doomed. In the words of Countess Natasha Rostova (Aiudrey Hepburn) spoken to Prince Andree Bolkonsky (Mel Ferrer) in the movie War and Peace: "What a disaster."
I’m so tired of internet incels whining about some TV or movie that they think is too woke. These people just get up in the morning and look for something to be angry about because shitting on something or someone else is the only way they can generate any self esteem.
If you love the Snow White from the 1930s, go watch that. I’ve never seen a TV or movie adaptation, remake, reboot, or whatever that I thought was perfect in my mind, but somehow I soldier on. Anything you watch is someone else’s interpretation and not necessarily made for you personally, sitting on your throne in your mom’s basement. It’d be great if these losers either got over themselves or unplugged their computer from the internet.
Why are you so upset and angry about someone criticizing the bastardization of a classic story?
It seems OK for you to criticize other views on things, and you do it all the time.
Have white woman star in a remake of the Color Purple as the story of slave women benefiting from protection from kindly slave masters and watch their heads explode.
You’re upset about a movie. Think about that.
There’s no film criticism happening here. It’s a bunch of whiners whining about “woke” and some imagined “damage” being done to a classic work or culture. It’s all nonsense spewed by people who get their self esteem by imagining they are a victim of something that isn’t actually happening.
Insecure far right bed wetters do this all the time and inflict it on the rest of us. I’m calling out the bullshit, so I’m not surprised some of you are defensive about it.
I thought you were here to critique the movie. Now you’re talking about race?
Race is a critical component of The Color Purple. Are you unfamiliar with it?
Yes, but it’s not a critical component of Snow White. Other than how she got her name in the original story, it has no bearing on the plot or the character. Race was not supposed to be the complaint about this movie. Suddenly it’s all you can talk about.
Is that the real reason you’re mad? The actress isn’t white enough for you?
good. I'm glad you get that. So if someone "interprets" the color purple in the way I mentioned that would cause a backlash, right? and when you remove dwarves and the prince from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and turn into a socialist morality play, it's changed the point of the movie. Do you understand that?
I haven’t seen the movie, so I don’t know about the prince. But I have seen the trailer and there are definitely dwarves in it.
None of that has anything to do with race, though, so why are you bringing it up?
I'm so tired of progressive cultural warriors relying on their juvenile insult of the week as a form of argument.
Or you could examine your perspective or behavior. But if all you can do is focus on the insult, you’re kinda making my point.
ut if all you can do is focus on the insult, you’re kinda making my point.
Try and bring something to the table other than a juvenile insult to focus on.
Seriously, "mom's basement", "incels" . At least get some less hackneyed material if you are just going to be an insult guy.
Yep, you’re still focusing on the insult. I assume that’s because you can’t actually defend your hatred of this movie.
Who knew the right culture warriors were such weenies?
Well actually, everybody.
Snowflakes for Snow White.
But their real complaint is that Snow White is not white in the movie. Fuck all that multiculturalism jazz.
This "controversy" supposedly matters because culture matters. Too much acceptance and pleas for fairness erode the culture. Sure.
They never seem to manage that perspective about culture rot when Trump is lying his ass off and demeaning our shared political norms and history.
Only a sick sick person could think that this new Snow White movie is more damaging than Donald Trump to the fabric of our shared experience as Americans.
I leave you with another socialist movie, The Grapes Of Wrath. Who knows what theyd be saying about this today.
Funny how the suffering of poor people, seen from their perspective, tends to imply a need for socialism. It has to be especially uncomfortable for the economically comfortable elite.
Those same folks must really hate the Robin Hood legend.
Finally, a fair comparison. Unlike the Grapes of Wrath, Robin Hood is actually like the new Snow White.
A) it is made for children
and
B) it had a questionable core meaning.
As a boy, I never liked the Robin Hood story, though I loved that BBC TV series with Richard Greene. Truth be told, my heart was always with the Sherif.
The villain?
Weird flex, but ok.
I'm against theft.
Ah, but the Sheriff is generally depicted as helping Prince John steal the crown from Richard the Lionheart.
Very good.
But as Judge Merchant would say "pick whatever crime you want and convict."
Theft is theft. You excuse a crime because you identify with the criminal. Again, weird flex.
The sherif was just doing his duty. I'm just glad that you know & understand Robin Hood.
Honestly, don't you feel safer with this man protecting you?
His duty was to help steal the throne?
To restore order.
While committing treason. Mmmhmmm.
It is now established international law that it is illegal to follow illegal or unconstitutional orders. So, following such orders (illegal or unconstitutional orders) is never a legal excuse...
He didn't commit treason to Prince John.
It just came to me: Lord High Sherif of Virginia!
That is a novel thought, but you must absolutely defeat a rogue state in order to enforce such "law."
That excludes the following:
And of course, the one the left is obsessed with:
General Patton warned us at the end of WWII about defeating one evil while enabling another.
Lol. Okay. I guess we can look forward to white guys dressing up as indian mascots without the left throwing hissy fits. No more whining about cultural appropriation from the left, and certainly no worries when white guys play historically black characters. Brad Pitt as Frederick Douglass. Or better yet, Matt Damon could have starred in the Woman Queen, as the leader of the all female warrior squad of the west african kingdom of Dhaomie.
Wasn’t the critique of this movie supposed to about 1) socialism and 2) general movie making?
Evidently you determine race as Obama did. No Hispanic can be white? Sorry, Rachel Zegler is white. The problem with her casting does not involve race. All you need do is watch the trailers and you'll notice that Zegler is asking the image in the mirror "who is the fairest of them all?' To which a far more attractive Gal Gadot responds. Who did the casting? There is also the problem of Zegler adding her politics on social media. You can tell her for me that I not only know peace, but I am very happy.
I leave you with another socialist movie, The Grapes Of Wrath. Who knows what theyd be saying about this today.
Grapes of Wrath was written by John Steinbeck so that future generations would know what his generation endured during the dust bowl and more broadly: the great depression. Those years marked all those who experienced it for life. Unlike "Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs," The Grapes of Wrath was written for adults about real life issues. Both the book and the movie were iconic classics. Would you remake that movie?
Disney got into the business of slick remakes of Walt Disney classics. They have disrespected their patron and diminished their brand. This time they besmirched their most important masterpiece.
LMAO no problem, like every other Snow White ever I wasn't planning on watching it.