The Backlash to Rachel Zegler’s ‘Snow White’ Is Out of Control
Rachel Zegler can’t catch a break. After the internet resurfaced old comments the West Side Story actress made about her upcoming live-action reboot of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Zegler has been embroiled in an unexpected, confusing controversy.
Since Zegler’s casting as the Disney princess was first announced in June 2021, she’s faced criticism from judgmental commentators. First, she received a bit of backlash surrounding the fact that Snow White would be played by a Latina actress. Zegler shut these folks down. “We need to love [these critics] in the right direction,” she said in a January 2022 “Actors on Actors” interview in Variety. “At the end of the day, I have a job to do that I’m really excited to do. I get to be a Latina princess.”
Zegler already faced haters for playing a historically white character as a non-white person. But the current backlash stems from comments she made about Disney’s original Snow White film last fall. In an interview last September with Variety, Zegler stated that she wanted to update the character, who she plays in the film, for a modern audience. It’s “no longer 1937,” Zegler said, arguing that Snow White was “not going to be saved by the prince” in this iteration.