Snow White goes way past ‘woke’

There’s nothing wrong with inclusivity. In fact, it’s a good thing. But in some instances, the need to be inclusive and politically correct seems to be put so far front and center that it makes the thing that is being shoved through the PC knothole seem borderline insane. If you need proof, look no further than the new “Snow White” movie Disney is in the middle of remaking—to the delight of next to no one.
Let’s put aside the fact that “Snow White” is a German fairytale and Snow White is named Snow White because she is “as white as snow.” And, despite that, a Latina (half Latina, half Polish) woman was cast as Snow White. That’s kind of bizarre and difficult to understand given the name of the movie, but it’s not egregious. It’s like when the Little Mermaid was remaid and Ariel was played by a black person. A lot of people didn’t like it, but it wasn’t the end of the world and not deserving of the outrage that unfolded. The little Mermaid, after all, is a fictional character but wasn’t named after the paleness of her skin like Snow White is (was?)
But, if you’ve seen the leaked photos from the set, the “seven dwarfs” aren’t even dwarfs. They more resemble a bunch of larpers (there is one little person from what we can tell) who recently dropped into town from a renaissance festival. Gone are the seven dwarfs. Say hello to the seven random people.
Our question is, if you’re remaking “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” an absolute classic that made its debut in 1937, shouldn’t the movie actually have dwarfs? If you’re going to completely change the characters, why not just change the name of the movie and do something different altogether? Lord knows Hollywood is starving for originality, which is why it keeps recycling all these old movies in the first place. The answer is simple—it’s to cash in on the name Snow White and stir up controversy, which is what Disney seems to do best these days.
What would have been a better way to give a marginalized group of actors a chance to be in a movie than to have cast seven actual little people to be in the movie? In this world where now only gay people are allowed to play gay people and only trans people allowed to play trans people and so on, doesn’t it make sense that only dwarfs should be allowed to play dwarfs? It’s not like little people are being cast left and right in major motion pictures. This was a true missed opportunity for Disney to do the exact thing it has been trying to do. Instead, in the name of “inclusivity,” Disney did the exact thing it says it does not want to do and alienated a number of little people who could have been cast in this role—not only the seven actors, but body doubles, etc. The hypocrisy and tone-deafnesses is absolutely staggering.
Our first request is that Disney stop remaking these classics altogether. The next is if you have to remake these classics, quit trying so hard to be inclusive that you end up being both exclusive and ridiculous. You’ll be doing everyone a favor either way you go.