This is a continuation of Part 1. If you haven’t read it already and you want to understand this, you’d better do so.
CCC 3: The Movie is Anti-Man/Anti-Romance

I can’t blame people for expecting this since Rachel Zegler’s infamous remarks pretty much told them to expect it. But, after all the rewrites and reshoots, it turned out to be untrue.[1]I suspect it may have always been untrue and that Zegler was just emphasizing the aspects that resonated with her personally. The character of Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) may not be a literal prince but he’s definitely Snow White’s love interest and their relationship is actually developed more-though perhaps not necessarily developed better-than it was in the 1937 movie in which the prince had only two scenes. He was more of a symbol of romantic fulfillment than an actual character though when the movie was at its most emotional, he was a potent symbol. The remake also makes him more actively heroic. When Snow White first meets him, he’s risking the queen’s wrath, getting food for his starving friends. After she defends him to the queen and helps him escape, he encourages her to run away from the castle where she’s a slave. Later, he actually takes an arrow in the chest for Snow White! It’s true that Jonathan also stupidly falls into a trap when the story requires it, but Snow White is also easily tricked by the queen in almost the very next scene, so you can’t say it’s a gender thing. While Zegler’s criticism of the 1937 movie implied that this remake wouldn’t have Snow White be awakened by a kiss, I’m guessing this was one of the things Disney reshot in response to fan backlash because that is indeed what happens in it.[2]Ironically, if the filmmakers really wanted to avoid a nonconsensual kiss, they could have just followed the original Grimm fairy tale in which Snow White is revived by being jogged in her coffin, … Continue reading If it sounds like I’m about to argue there was some brilliant feminist version of this movie that we’ll never see because of angry fans, no, I’d actually argue that giving in to fan backlash made the movie relatively better. The scene of Snow White’s resurrection is one of the more effective emotional ones in the movie if you ask me. If the film had just done a better job of getting me invested in the characters prior to it, it could have been a great scene. That’s largely because of the music which uses the theme of A Hand Meets a Hand, the love duet which is the one song from this movie I really like.
If I were to criticize the romance, it’d be for its genericness[3]That or Andrew Burnap not making much of an impression. Maybe the real feminist agenda in this movie came from the casting director since the women are all better cast than the men., mainly the part where they’re irritated by each other before they fall in love. Of course, fairy tale romances are supposed to be generic and the kind of love-hate relationship the remake attempts can be done well. The thing is it has been done well many times. Jonathan and Snow White’s bickering and bantering isn’t badly written per se. But viewers have seen so many identically written romances that it needs some quality or other to make it more than not badly written. Not helping is the fact that the story doesn’t really have time to make it convincing for the characters to go from being mildly antagonistic towards each other to deeply in love. I’m reminded that Cinderella (2015) didn’t bother having the romantic leads start out disliking each other and was the better for that. I wouldn’t describe them as falling in love at first sight, but they didn’t have any significant disagreements. In theory, that should have made the relationship less interesting but lovers being angry at each other and in denial of their attraction has been the convention for so long that forgoing it actually felt refreshing and different.[4]Disney’s 2023 Little Mermaid remake also didn’t bother with the whole bickering lovers thing and I recall that being the best thing about it.
Some have objected to the prince’s character being downgraded to a common outlaw but that’s no different from what Disney did to Rapunzel’s prince in Tangled. Rightly or wrongly, I imagine the filmmakers believed they were making him a cooler character by doing so. The movie has also been accused of teaching kids an ends-justify-the-means morality with the theft he and (it’s implied) his band of rebels commit. But I don’t remember the same criticism being made of Disney’s Aladdin which gave its main character the same justification for being a thief. Neither do I see Robin Hood, the character whom Jonathan was clearly made to resemble, treated with the same concern. (If you are someone who objects to all three equally, I applaud your consistency and I don’t mean that as a joke.) It’s true that the way Doc (voiced by Jeremy Swift) explains this is annoyingly “woke” (“They’re actually a band of erstwhile actors whose sustenance was made unstable by the queen’s greedy economic policies, which forced them into a liminal space where ethics and motives are ill defined.”) but, to its credit, the movie kind of mocks him for it. Grumpy groans and rolls his eyes in response.[5]Or maybe I’m just projecting my view onto the movie since that kind of talk makes me groan and roll my eyes.
Jonathan isn’t the only positive or helpful male character in the movie. Not only is Snow White’s goodness inspired by the example set by her biological mother (Lorena Andrea) but also by the one set by her father (Hadley Fraser.)[6]A West End star who had a memorable cameo in Les Misérables (2012.) In fact, the script hearkens back to him more often than to her mother.[7]Here’s another point of comparison between this remake and Cinderella (2015.) That one gave its heroine a similar relationship with her doomed parents, but it did a much better job of … Continue reading There’s also the huntsman who not only spares Snow White’s life at risk to himself but later helps Jonathan escape the queen’s dungeon so he can break the spell upon her.[8]According to the book Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs & The Making of the Classic Film by Richard Hollis and Brian Sibley, the animated movie was also going to have the queen … Continue reading While Snow White defeats the queen peacefully by convincing all her guards to side with her, the queen would then kill her herself were it not for the intervention of Jonathan’s men.[9]His band contains a token woman (Dujonna Gift) but, for whatever reason, she’s not involved in the movie’s climax. She also ends up being a love interest to another member of the band … Continue reading And that’s not even mentioning the seven dwarfs. Some men may object that the male characters in this movie only exist to help the heroine just as some women object that female characters in certain other movies only exist to help the heroes. I’m sympathetic to both criticisms in a broad sense. If that’s the only kind of story that can be told, we have a problem. But condemning individual stories is trickier. It’s nice when both the hero and the heroine can have their own goals, struggles and character journeys but it doesn’t always feel natural. If we sense that the storyteller is constantly checking off boxes and examining scales to make sure the lovers are getting equal treatment, it can take us out of the story. The sad thing is if Snow White (2025) were actually, you know, good, it could have been an example of a well-done female empowerment story that also features powerful male heroes.
CCC 4: Snow White Doesn’t Actually Work During Whistle While You Work. She Just Directs the Dwarfs in Cleaning.

Finally, I agree with this criticism!
Technically speaking, Snow White does sweep for a few seconds in the remake’s version of this song but mostly she just sings and dances as the dwarfs do the work. It would make her look a lot better if she did.
That being said, I don’t quite get the level of disgust some people on the internet have over this. As I detailed in Part 1, Snow White does other helpful and kind things in the movie. And if we’re going to compare this to the original movie, she only did the easiest chores like dusting and sweeping while leaving the hard ones like dishes and laundry to the animals-and then she chided some of them for not doing it right![10]To be fair, she also made an apparently delicious soup offscreen and was going to bake gooseberry pies for the dwarfs but was tragically poisoned before she could do so. Anyway, this ties into a larger criticism of Snow White’s character in this remake but I thought I’d give it its own section since I’ve noticed people keep specifically mentioning it.
CCC 5: The Other Characters and the Movie in General Keep Going on About Snow White’s Awesomeness but She Hardly Does Anything

Again, I basically agree. As I detailed in my defense of CCC 3, the male characters do far more to save the day than Snow White does yet too much of the movie consists of them fawning over her and giving speeches about her greatness. But I question how different this is from the 1937 classic. The most altruistic things she did were comfort a baby bird that had been separated from its parents and clean the dwarfs’ house for them. And you know what? They never wanted anyone to clean their house for them! They were fine with the way it was.[11]Her motives were also to get them to let her stay in the house. And, yeah, she also cooked for them, but she did it on her own terms, refusing to let them have a bite to until they’d washed. Why isn’t she criticized for being a girl boss?
Much of that last paragraph was tongue in cheek but I admit it I don’t love the character of the animated Snow White. I do consider her movie great, but I don’t love the main character.[12]It’s mostly her voice that I find annoying. I recognize this as a limitation in myself. Adriana Caselotti’s operatic singing was considered great in its day and it’s tragic that we … Continue reading That didn’t used to be a controversial opinion. In his four-star review of the film, Roger Ebert wrote, “If Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had been primarily about Snow White, it might have been forgotten soon after its 1937 premiere and treasured today only for historical reasons…Disney’s inspiration was not in creating Snow White but her world.” That was the consensus not so long ago. Snow White and the prince were seen as dull characters and the queen, the dwarfs and the animals as great. Of course, no one is obliged to agree with whatever is the consensus. Honestly, I think it’s nice that the controversy about the remake has encouraged some fans of the animated heroine to speak out about their love for her even if it’s a love I don’t necessarily share. I love enough characters that others don’t that I can empathize in the broad sense. But I have the right to my opinions just as they have to theirs. It’s not like I hate the animated Snow White with a passion or anything. Sure, both she and the recent live action one are Mary Sues but, hey, Disney Princesses are supposed to be Mary Sues. That’s part of their appeal. What I’m tired of is the simplistic assumption that everything old=good/ “based” and everything new=bad/”woke.”
Thoughts on Internet Outrage
I’ve seen people argue that the character of Snow White from the old, animated movie embodied important virtues and that progressives’ haste to replace her with more overtly tough, pugnacious heroines means that our culture runs the risk of raising children without those virtues. I theoretically agree with this. In fact, it’s pretty much what I wrote in my old blog post about Cinderella (2015.) However, what I’m seeing from people online who have grown up loving the original Snow White-or claim to have done so anyway-makes it impossible for me to believe that growing up with the film has made them kind, gentle, sweet or gracious. In their bitter insults towards Rachel Zegler, they seem more like Grumpy or even like the spiteful, obsessed queen than like Snow White whom they claim to champion.[13]Pardon me for generalizing here. There are plenty of people who take issue with Zegler’s words and love the animated movie that aren’t like that. For example, there’s the unusually … Continue reading Of course, there’s nothing new about people on the internet piling on a celebrity. And I’d be a huge hypocrite if I claimed I didn’t understand the impulse. There have been times when I’ve obsessed about celebrities who offended my sensibilities. But I feel like I realized on some level that this was unhealthy for and irrational of me. I didn’t know those people personally. I didn’t need to pay attention to them if they annoyed or insulted me. Why couldn’t I just forget about them? But I’m not sure if Zegler’s more ardent detractors have that self-awareness. Some of them seem to think they’re part of a glorious crusade to shame the woman. And as much as I disagree with her about hot button issues, it disturbs me how much the Rachel Zegler hate train really took off not because of any of those issues but because she said she disliked a beloved movie. If that’s all it takes for someone to become hated on the internet, who among us is really safe?[14]I admit I’m also a little weirded out how angry people are at the prospect of Disney changing the love’s first kiss scene because of concerns about consent. Sure, Zegler’s comments … Continue reading
Now the rare times I have gotten obsessively angry at a celebrity, it was because it was hard for me to ignore them since they’d made things I’d enjoyed in the past or they were involved with a project about which I cared, so I can kind of understand why Disney fans feel like they have to read/listen to interviews with Zegler and pay attention to her output on social media-even though they really don’t have to do so. But I don’t understand why social conservatives specifically should feel like they need to care about her or the 2025 Snow White remake. The rising generation of them seems to be mainly made up of men who enjoy action movies from the 80s, not princess musicals from the 30s. I mean, it’s great for people to be able to enjoy both but…seriously? Ironically, it wasn’t so long ago that conservatives were sharing an article about how J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, both of whom are admired in conservative circles these days, disliked Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Now all of a sudden, the movie is a pillar of Western civilization, and we all have to love it? Well, to be fair, conservatism is a broad camp, and I imagine that the conservatives most interested in Lewis or Tolkien aren’t the kind to be interested in either the 1937 movie or its recent remake, one way or another. Still, I couldn’t resist bringing up the irony.
While I think Zegler definitely brought up much of the controversy on herself by behaving unprofessionally, I do think it’s kind of a loss to cinema if it ruins her career. She really does strike me as a charismatic actress and an excellent singer. (cf. her performance in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story.) And I don’t buy that conservatives couldn’t possibly enjoy her in anything because of her politics. After all, when some of the picture books of Theodor Geisel AKA Dr. Seuss were withdrawn from publication for racist imagery, conservatives raised their voices in protest despite him being an ardent democrat.[15]I like to think it’s because Geisel’s picture books, unlike his political comics, have universal values that transcend political lines or maybe that both liberals and conservatives are … Continue reading Plenty of conservative Christians enjoy the Lord of the Rings movies despite the lifestyles of some of the filmmakers. Zegler’s lack of tact may be unusual in Hollywood, but her liberal politics aren’t. I feel like the reason she’s become such a target is not because her beliefs are even worse than those of so many other actors but because she’s a fairly new talent who hasn’t been in that many successful movies, making her vulnerable.
Some readers may be skeptical right now that I could really be a conservative when I’ve just devoted so much space to criticizing conservatives of my own free will. That’s the thing though. I feel like I share so few presuppositions with liberals that it’s pointless for me to try reasoning with them. The reason I’m more likely to argue with conservatives is that I feel I have enough common ground with them for us to argue. I have something of a personal interest in what people are calling “the vibe shift” whereby Hollywood has gone from needing to worry more about offending the left to needing to worry more about offending the right. The backlash against Snow White (2025) and its subsequent box office failure were a big part of this-but I suspect the seeds of the vibe shift’s destruction can be seen in them. If you ask me, there were a number of reasons why so many people became fed up with progressives but one of them was their entitlement. The feminist criticisms of the 2015 Cinderella were a case in point. I know many liberals reading this will object that that movie’s progressive detractors were a minority even among the left and they didn’t have much impact on it financially. But I can’t resist bringing up the topic because I see some fascinating parallels between leftwing criticism of Cinderella and rightwing criticism of Snow White. Contrary to what you might have heard, Cinderella had plenty of things that seem like they were made to appeal to the left[16]The heroine’s philosophy involved a stereotypically masculine virtue (have courage) as well as a stereotypically feminine one (be kind.) She also took a stand against deer hunting which strikes … Continue reading but because it had some things that appealed to conservatives, its most vocal critics showed no mercy. This was typical of the online left when it came to complaining about movies. No matter how Hollywood tried to placate them, it was never quite enough.[17]To really get into this, I’d have to talk about race, but not only would that be somewhat off topic, but this blog series is already too long. They had this thing where they were both gleeful about finally having some influence over the entertainment industry and relentlessly bitter that they hadn’t had it long before and that they still didn’t have even more. There was something sadistic about how they’d self-righteously gloat whenever someone or something they disliked was suffering financially that I think it alienated a lot of people who might otherwise have sympathized with their concerns about, say, racial profiling or sexual harassment. You got the impression they were dead set on shaming anyone into submission if they didn’t tow their line in every last way. And that’s what I see from the online right in their criticism of Snow White (2025.) Fortunately for them, I don’t think it’s a fun enough movie for too many people to accuse them of being killjoys or fun suckers.[18]Not at the moment anyway. We’ll see what happens when kids who watch it on streaming grow up. But if they keep up the same attitude towards every movie that isn’t one hundred percent conservative-coded, the vibe might very well shift back again.
References
↑1 | I suspect it may have always been untrue and that Zegler was just emphasizing the aspects that resonated with her personally. |
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↑2 | Ironically, if the filmmakers really wanted to avoid a nonconsensual kiss, they could have just followed the original Grimm fairy tale in which Snow White is revived by being jogged in her coffin, expelling the piece of poisoned apple stuck in her throat. Apparently, the 1913 short film was the first to replace that with the kiss and no adaptation has gotten it right since. |
↑3 | That or Andrew Burnap not making much of an impression. Maybe the real feminist agenda in this movie came from the casting director since the women are all better cast than the men. |
↑4 | Disney’s 2023 Little Mermaid remake also didn’t bother with the whole bickering lovers thing and I recall that being the best thing about it. |
↑5 | Or maybe I’m just projecting my view onto the movie since that kind of talk makes me groan and roll my eyes. |
↑6 | A West End star who had a memorable cameo in Les Misérables (2012.) |
↑7 | Here’s another point of comparison between this remake and Cinderella (2015.) That one gave its heroine a similar relationship with her doomed parents, but it did a much better job of developing them as mentors without much screentime. The mantra they bequeathed their daughter (“Have courage and be kind”) was also much catchier than Snow White‘s (“Someone fearless, someone fair, someone brave, someone true”) which is far too wordy and repetitive to roll off the tongue. |
↑8 | According to the book Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs & The Making of the Classic Film by Richard Hollis and Brian Sibley, the animated movie was also going to have the queen imprison the prince and him escape to awaken Snow White, but this was ultimately cut. |
↑9 | His band contains a token woman (Dujonna Gift) but, for whatever reason, she’s not involved in the movie’s climax. She also ends up being a love interest to another member of the band (George Appleby) which I doubt makes feminists happy. |
↑10 | To be fair, she also made an apparently delicious soup offscreen and was going to bake gooseberry pies for the dwarfs but was tragically poisoned before she could do so. |
↑11 | Her motives were also to get them to let her stay in the house. |
↑12 | It’s mostly her voice that I find annoying. I recognize this as a limitation in myself. Adriana Caselotti’s operatic singing was considered great in its day and it’s tragic that we can’t appreciate it now due to changing tastes. C’est la vie. |
↑13 | Pardon me for generalizing here. There are plenty of people who take issue with Zegler’s words and love the animated movie that aren’t like that. For example, there’s the unusually softspoken YouTuber MJTanner. |
↑14 | I admit I’m also a little weirded out how angry people are at the prospect of Disney changing the love’s first kiss scene because of concerns about consent. Sure, Zegler’s comments about it made me roll my eyes but it’s not like anybody I know wouldn’t be weirded out by someone kissing them while they’re unconscious. This isn’t a liberal vs. conservative thing. |
↑15 | I like to think it’s because Geisel’s picture books, unlike his political comics, have universal values that transcend political lines or maybe that both liberals and conservatives are committed to ideals even if those ideals make them behave counterintuitively sometimes. In my more cynical moments, I think it’s because they automatically disagree with each other like Daffy Duck telling Elmer Fudd to shoot him just because Bugs Bunny says otherwise. |
↑16 | The heroine’s philosophy involved a stereotypically masculine virtue (have courage) as well as a stereotypically feminine one (be kind.) She also took a stand against deer hunting which strikes me as something a liberal is more likely to do than a conservative. The reimagined story also gave her two scenes where she stood up to her oppressor. While the ending explicitly had her getting married, something Snow White‘s ending doesn’t, the closing narration, like Snow White‘s, emphasized her becoming a great leader. And the closing credits song encouraged the viewer to “be the one that rescues you.” |
↑17 | To really get into this, I’d have to talk about race, but not only would that be somewhat off topic, but this blog series is already too long. |
↑18 | Not at the moment anyway. We’ll see what happens when kids who watch it on streaming grow up. |