Why Disney's Snow White live-action is so controversial? Everything you need to know

Since its announcement, Disney's live-action movie Snow White (released on March 21, 2025) has been embroiled in controversies of various nature. Initially, there was controversy surrounding Rachel Zegler's casting in the leading role.

After Zegler's involvement in the movie was announced, some were not satisfied. They believed that Zegler, who was relatively darker in complexion, did not meet the description of Snow White, who, according to the text and the original 1973 film, is the "fairest of them all."

Zegler was the focus of another controversy when her past comments related to the central plot of Snow White became public. These remarks, in which she emphasized the backdated aspect of the story and called Price Florian a stalker, did not go down well with the audience, who criticized her again.

In addition, several other controversies over the months have spotlighted Disney's Snow White, which will be highlighted in the subsequent paragraphs. So, continue reading to find out about them.

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Exploring some of the major controversies surrounding Disney's Snow White

As previously mentioned, Disney's Snow White has been the subject of several controversies since its announcement. One of the first criticisms about the movie was surrounding Rachel Zegler's casting (around June 2021) as the titular character. Zegler was accused of not fitting the description of White's character and was subjected to racist comments about her appearance.

The second controversy that made waves among the audiences was Disney's move to include the dwarves from the original films, which drew massive criticism from the people in the dwarfism community.

While appearing on an episode of WTF With Marc Maron on January 24, 2022, Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage, also a part of the community, expressed his disappointment and said:

"Literally no offense to anyone, but I 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. Take a step back and look at what you're doing there. It makes no sense to me."

Another controversy the film was part of happened in September 2022 when Zegler's comments about her role and the film emerged.

While speaking to Entertainment Weekly on September 27, 2022, Zegler revealed that she believed the "reality" of the cartoon was that it was made 85 years ago and that it was 'extremely dated' regarding the ideas of women in positions of power.

Around the same time, her conversation with Extra TV on September 12, 2022, also came to light, and Rachel Zegler mentioned how her version of the film would deal with things a bit differently. She said:

"There is a big focus on her love story with a guy that literally stalks her. Weird! Weird, so we have a different approach to what I'm sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because we cast a guy in the movie, Andrew Burnap, great dude… But it's really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful."

Later, around July 2023, onset leaks from the movie indicated that the dwarves at the center of the film's plot had been substituted with CGI, which prompted reactions from people within the dwarfism community.

Dylan Postl, a member of the community, in an article published on October 24, 2023, by Newsweek, said that the seven dwarves' roles could have been given to people within the dwarfism community. He also accused Disney of depriving the actors of playing the role.

According to People, controversies surrounding the movie have been about Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot's stances regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict since August 2024.

While Gadot has remained supportive of Israel, Zegler has continued to support Palestine. Their differing positions, in turn, have resulted in two opposing political factions criticizing their actions, resulting in further controversy.

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How has Snow White been performing at the box office?

The movie has had a decent audience reception (Image via Disney)

Despite immense criticism, Disney's Snow White has been performing decently at the box office. According to the figures from The Numbers retrieved on March 24, 2025, the film has collected approximately 87 million dollars.

According to an article on Forbes on November 14, 2024, the movie had a budget of around 270 million dollars, which means that it has been successful in its opening, as it has not even been a week since its release.

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