If you leave history behind and forget everything there is to know about live-action remakes, identity politics, and Disney princesses, if you described Disney’s hotly contestedSnow Whitefor what it is, then you might walk away with some semblance of a decent motion picture. A contemporary take on theoriginal Walt Disney animated movieSnow White and the Seven Dwarfswith one of the biggest names in Hollywood (Greta Gerwig) attached as co-writer and a bright young star actress (Rachel Zegler) touting the titular role. With Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land,Dear Evan Hansen,The Greatest Showman) attached as songwriters,Snow Whitewill likely receive the Broadway treatment so many of the beloved Disney Renaissance films are founded on. There’s much to be excited about regarding the anticipated project, yet the majority of discourse surrounding the film revolves around everything but.
Part of Disney’s problem is its sloppy marketing campaigns. Films such asThe Little MermaidandElementalsuffered from marketing campaigns that muddled audience reception and ultimately hurt box office performance. At this current moment,Snow Whiteisbarreling down a similar path. So much of the movie is based on speculation and illusion. Gerwig was only enlisted to fill in jokes. The internet is flooded with fake AI movie trailers, and amateur TikTok videos and Twitter threads seem to know more about the Disney film than the studio itself.
Given that last year saw Universal overtake Disney as the highest-grossing distributor, a position the House of Mouse hasn’t relinquished since 2015, Disney has enacted an emergency plan forits upcoming film slate. Along with delayingSnow Whitean entire year from its original 2024 release date, the studio has postponed releases for its Pixar TV seriesWin or Lose, the Pixar featureElio, and various Marvel titles includingDeadpool3and the newCaptain Americainstallation. While Disney hopes to use the extra time to re-evaluate its marketing plans, it remains unclear whether it will learn the right lessons.
Disney Is a Playground for Identity Politics
Pundits from either side of the political spectrum continue to call forSnow Whiteto be “canceled” for various reasons. Although it is strange a children’s animation studio has become a talking point for TikTok influencers to pedal their political ideology, the studio has defiantly positioned itself as a harbinger of the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equality movement in recent years. Disney has been a goldmine for representation films likeBlack Panther,Shang-Chi, andTurning Red.
They’ve received both criticism and praise for casting Halle Bailey inThe Little Mermaidand Zegler inSnow White, simply because of the respective actresses’s ethnic backgrounds. Additionally, in real life, the Walt Disney Company has been in a years-long battle with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over his ultraconservative approach to social policy. All of this comes from a film studio whose namesake produced racist World War II propaganda.
For a media company that vehemently casts itself into the depths of the political sphere, you would think Disney would do its research and prepare for the oncoming backlash with a fortified public statement and a socially aware PR plan. When Peter Dinklage’s critiques came at the initial announcement ofSnow White, the studio seemed to be caught by surprise. Its subsequent public response felt like backtracking, and thereleased set photographsand teaser stills further destabilized public opinion on the live-action remake and opened questions about Disney’s true intentions surrounding its presumed progressive appeal.
Similar toThe Little Mermaid, when Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula makeup was criticized for its faux attempt at mimicking drag makeup style, Disney’s perceived plan to produce a PCSnow Whitefeels hollow and misinformed. If Disney can send animators to Alaska forBrother Bearand Africa forTheLion King, they can assuredly afford to hire the right people and supply the right resources which help create live-action films with more authenticity and intention.
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Instead, the studio is biting the bullet. With the actor’s strike finally over, it is believed thatSnow Whitewill go into reshoots, opting to replace itsmagical creature/companion/banditsfor a cartoonish character resembling a combination of the original animated characters and Hugh Grant’sWonkaOompa Loompa. Disney also hopes to detangle and distance itself from the political bad taste left by the haphazard announcement campaign forSnow Whitein efforts to salvage its massive reported production budget of $200-$300 million. Hopefully, a year is long enough to allow audiences to forgive and forget, but this also raises other questions regarding Disney’s future.
Have We Reached Disney Fatigue?
The Walt Disney Company, parent to Disney Animation, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilms, and 20th Century Fox, has become the pinnacle of Hollywood’s quantity over quality principle. As a method developed to compete with Netflix’s strengthening hold on the industry. Marvel’s serialized franchise model expanded past our own universe and influenced similar franchise-building tactics forAvatar,Star Wars, andPixar.
The highly uniform, formulaic filmmaking approach is starting to inspire feelings of exhaustion when it comes to the Disney brand. Unlike other major studios, Disney rarely takes risks with regard to its tentpole projects. Movies as hyped asThe Little MermaidandSnow Whiteoften produce underwhelming results in terms of capturing the same magic as the original animations, especially when films likeBarbieandSuper Mario Bros.are able to successfully appeal to traditional fans while entertaining general audiences.
But, Disney fatigue goes beyond the studio’s relentless pursuit of market share. It’s the disingenuous corporate liberalism donned as a candy-coated facade. It’s Bob Iger’s tone-deaf comments during the strike. It’s the reported mistreatment of VFX artists across Disney and Marvel films. It’s the company bragging about allowing queer diversity in its theme parks while simultaneously affording devastatingly low wages for theme park workers. It’s the irony of claiming Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate movements while knowingly supporting Israel in its genocide of Palestinians. Disney fatigue encapsulates everything the mega-media mogul is involved in; a constant negotiation of consciousness where audiences must turn a blind eye to the company’s corporate greed and political misgivings in order to enjoy children’s animated films depicting moral rights and wrongs. But a single film likeSnow Whitesimply cannot solve all of these issues on its own.
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After the passing of the Disney brothers, the studio was suffering from financial ruin and a lack of company identity. Infamously, their animation studios were symbolically exiled from Burbank to Glendale. Eventually, new administrative leadership embarked on an artistic crusade to return to heightened creative form. With Broadway sensibilities and a little bit of renewed Disney princess magic, the Disney Renaissance revived the Burbank animation studio and propelled the company to the heights of today.Snow Whitecomes at a time when the studio must face a crucial moment in its history, not unlike when the original 1937Snow White and the Seven Dwarfssaved the company and helped finance the aforementioned Burbank studio.
In order to regain any form of respect, Disney needs to drop the political performativity and deliver nothing less than an outstanding cinematic achievement. Regardless of the merits of nostalgia-baiting, regardless of a person’s political identity, regardless of an actress’s skin color, the only thing audiences demand is a good movie.
