Disney is hoping to revive its flagging box office through the power of nostalgia and an upcoming live-action remake of Snow White, starring Rachel Zegler as the original Disney Princess. But while Zegler and the Mouse House have been talking up the remake’s progressive themes (and getting a lot of flack for “wokeness“), it turns out the production is systemically underpaying its female workers.
‘Snow White’: Feminist Icon?
Snow White has been courting controversy since it was first announced in 2016. As a remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the very first feature-length film produced by The Walt Disney Company, directed by the titular founder himself, the Rachel Zegler film was bound to be held to high expectations no matter what. Much like the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid (2023) starring Halle Bailey and the upcoming prequel Mufasa: The Lion King, longtime Disney fans are pretty upset by any change in the original material.
Snow White has had the misfortune to find itself in production during a period in which Disney has been dubbed the “most woke liberal company” in the country,” at least according to a recent survey by the American Conservative Values ETF (ACVF). Despite the company’s near-century of being synonymous with family values, the last decade has seen the Mouse increasingly perceived as abandoning its original themes and child-friendly programming with a “liberal agenda” of LGBTQIA+ inclusion and diversity initiatives.
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Snow White fell right in the middle of this culture war, particularly after Latina actress Rachel Zegler was cast as the eponymous character, who is traditionally portrayed as White. It did not help that the West Side Story (2021) star was outspoken about changes to the story that reportedly change the narrative to more overtly feminist themes.
In particular, conservatives were outraged by her statement that Prince Charming’s traditional role has been usurped, saying in several interviews:
“I just mean that it’s no longer 1937. We absolutely wrote a Snow White that … she’s not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love; she’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.”
“There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her… Weird! Weird. We didn’t do that this time… 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. It’s one of those things that I think everyone’s going to have their assumptions about what it’s going to be, but it’s really not about the love story at all, which is really, really wonderful.”
Then, there has been controversy about the film’s Seven Dwarfs, who were initially reported to be portrayed by non-dwarf actors of various ethnicities and genders. Snow White got flack for that one coming and going, as notable dwarf actors criticized Disney for both casting dwarfs and non-dwarfs, and conservatives were outraged either way.
Disney attempted to defuse the situation with a statement reading, “[T]o avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community.” As one might expect, that did not cool things down much.
Money Talks, Disney Walks
But despite all the attempts to frame the Snow White remake as a progressive film, it isn’t where it counts: the money. According to a new Forbes report, “women occupied just 30% of the highest-paid jobs but had 48% of the lowest-paid positions despite the movie being hailed as a showcase for diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
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Snow White was shot in the U.K. Pinewood Studios in 2022; unlike America, British laws require detailed financial disclosures for film productions that can often reveal telling details. In this case, Forbes says that among nearly 1,000 U.K. Disney employees on the project:
“[I]n April 2022, women’s average hourly pay was 11.8% lower than men’s. Likewise, taking the middle number when hourly pay was ranked from highest to lowest shows that women got 8.5% less than men…just 34% of them were female, so women weren’t widely represented overall or in the upper pay segments.”
For all of the lip service that Disney is paying to progressiveness (and the criticism it is receiving), it appears that doesn’t extend to gender pay equity.
Do you think Disney has become too “woke?” Sound off in the comments!
