In America, when old stories must be told again, they have to be rewritten and reimagined, no matter how familiar and well-loved the tales already are to us. Disney’s Snow White is, regretfully and woefully, one of them

Rachel Zegler as Snow White

Admittedly, we are late to the party. We were going to give this a miss. But like so many who have watched it, we wanted to see how bad the live action of one of the Grimm Brothers’ most famous fairy tales is. Surely, Disney can’t screw up a simple good-versus-evil story such as Snow White, as the studio seemed to have, according to the many mostly negative reviews. Before entering the cinema, we reminded ourselves that we were not the target audience of the movie. We shouldn’t, therefore, expect too much. Still, we could not help wondering in the end why we put ourselves through one of the most charmless, mirthless, and witless movies we ever saw. Then minutes into the screening, we wanted to leave. It did not help that Rachel Zegler, playing the titular character, was similarly charmless, mirthless, and witless.

There are, of course, those enchanted by Ms Zegler’s unenchanting performance, insisting that she isn’t bad and that her PR missteps leading to the release of the movie affected how many of us saw her as Snow White, a character she did not think highly of, and has said she would reimagine. The truth is, many of us do choose movies to watch based on the lead’s public persona, which explains why some of us are drawn to films by Cate Blanchett, Kate Winslet, or Tilda Swinton. Ms Zegler cannot be said to have a strong body of work, but she behaves as if she is an industry veteran with the insight to unfairly criticize what came way before she was born. In Disney’s Snow White, we were unable to see her as a lass of the past (or indeterminate era). Instead, we saw her mostly as a product of the present.

Snow White the castle maid

But we have a modicum of admiration for Ms Zegler because she is no different from so many of her generation: all smugness, self-pride, and entitlement. And these qualities are seen in her Snow White, set in an unclear century, of a culture that is vaguely European. But from the production design and the costume, we can imagine that it is not anywhere near current times. Her attitude and longing are so American under the Trump admiration than that of Snow White who is wanted dead because a queen can’t be more beautiful than her. She plays the princess with a façade of seeming sweetness, but then she would turn around and show her ferocious ambition. For all her strength and her much-criticized girl-bossiness, Snow White still wanted to win the sympathy of those who bother to listen to her, such as the dwarves (now written as “magical creatures”: “The truth is, the queen tried to kill me.”

Before Snow White is condemned to death, the Evil Queen makes her a scullery maid, but the domestic helper is no where as worked-to-death or as shabbily dressed as other trodden-in-the-beginning fairytale maidens, such as one named after cinders (even if she was hardly sooty). Unable to accept her fate, Snow White hates her castle chores, but she is later delighted to teach her new-found male friends who cohabitate how to keep house and how to Whistle While they Work. Oddly, she holds the broom and the mop like how Gen-Zers would: as if she has never held either before. Or was it because she has been busy teaching the dwarves to Whistle While you Work (which seems to encourage not taking chores seriously)? In the reimagining of Snow White, Disney has made her possess the same spunk and inner resolve as a Blair Waldorf or Serena van der Woodsen of Gossip Girl. And a flair for dance like a gypsy.

Unable to accept her fate, Snow White hated her castle duties, but she was later delighted to teach her new-found male friends who cohabitate how to keep house and how to whistle while they work

What is fascinating is that Disney’s Snow White is released in the current U.S. political climate of considerable divisiveness. In her publicity duties for the film, Rachel Zegler’s comments about Snow White and what she could bring to the role showed that while she is seen as “woke” in her social views, she is arrogant in her demeanor and, in what she said about the MAGA masses, cruel in her thoughts. She upset Mr Trump’s base when she said, after he won the election last November: “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.” When the camera gives her a close up in the film, it is hard not to see the irony of Snow White wanting to restore her kingdom’s former glory and the person playing her harbouring the desire to deny a group of people the fundamental human longing of peace. To make matters worse, the denial shall be eternal.

Ms Zegler’s repeated close ups (and knowing her past expressions of animosity and how she loves to screw up her face to emphasize a point, displeasure or disdain) created a stinging slap of irony that undermines Snow White’s intended message of hope and restoration. This is perhaps consistent with current U.S. exports: nastiness, hubris, and impertinence. We are not even expecting Snow White to be sweet and innocent (with Ms Zegler, the Gen-Zer just comes right through), but portraying the character, now eager to chastise, with modern edge and agency while sacrificing the original’s wholesomeness reflects the lack of deference and a warped sense of MAGA-era empowerment, as seen in what White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt represents as she regularly defends her boss’s running of domestic affairs that has been described as pure madness, just like the Evil Queen’s.

Andrew Burnap as Jonathan, Snow White’s love interest, but not lover

Snow White wore a costume that attempted to be a facsimile of what was given to the old cartoon character except for two noticeable differences: the long sleeves under the puffed and the layered pouffy skirt (on top of culottes-underpants to make horse riding easie). The turn towards modest fashion is apparently because the British designer Sandy Powell wanted it to be more period-accurate. Again, ironic, since the wearer was not going to bring to the screen a character with a demeanor nor attitude of the past. She made sure that was certain by singling out the costume she was to wear. As widely reported, during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, Ms Zegler said, “ If I’m going to stand there 18 hours in the dress of an iconic Disney princess, I deserve to be paid every hour that it is streamed online.” Is the wearing of costumes not part of what she was already handsomely paid to do? In the film, not only is her countenance a reminder of how insufferable she has been, her iconic dress too.

Purity and innocence are no longer character pluses in Disney’s Snow White—hilariously dubbed Snow Woke. In 2025, a girl, even less so a princess, does not want to be kissed by a guy she barely knows, while in “sleeping death” after being scammed into eating a poisoned apple. Disney made sure we know that. There is no more a prince although some day a rescuer will come. He is now Jonathan the lowly bandit (Andrew Burnap), who, weirdly, is able to give her a kiss even when she didn’t ask for it. But that is not the only aggravating rewrite. It is not enough that the Colombian and Polish descent is cast as “the fairest of them all.” (Should Rachel Zegler play Hua Mulan next in yet another Disney remake?) There is now a new reason for her name that is no indication of her cutaneous colour. Snow White was chosen because on the day she was born, it was snowing. Very, very luckily, she was not called Xia Xue*!

*Pseudonym of famed Singaporean-blogger-turned-YouTube broadcaster, Wendy Cheng Yan Yan (郑彦彦)

Movie stills: Disney