Snow White has found herself in the center of a political controversy now that two contrasting movies about her are set to be released.
In October, conservative media outlet The Daily Wire said it would challenge The Walt Disney Co. by releasing its own live-action version of Snow White. Snow White and the Evil Queen is set to release on Bentkey, an outlet for family movies and shows, before the end of the year.
Not much more is known about the non-Disney version, though its star, Brett Cooper disclosed a bit of insider information on Monday.
Cooper, known for her conservative podcast The Comments Section and for her role in the TV show Heathers says her Snow White will track very closely to the Brothers Grimm version first published in 1812 with strong themes of community and perseverance, good versus evil, and beauty versus vanity.
Speaking to Dr. Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist and self-described classical liberal who rails against political correctness and seems constantly at war with his country's bureaucrats, Cooper took aim at Disney.
"People were very disappointed, very upset about the way Disney was rolling out this project," she said, alluding to casting controversies amid a delay that will now have The Daily Wire's version beating Disney's release date by several months.
Disney's offering, simply dubbed Snow White, was originally expected to hit theaters two months ago, but the studio, citing a now-settled SAG-AFTRA strike, delayed the release by a year. Detractors, though, have their doubts, saying the film was actually postponed to allow Disney to put some distance between the movie and some controversies surrounding how "woke" it might be.
Disney did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment.
Disney's film stars Israeli actress Gal Godot as the queen and Snow White is played by Rachel Zegler, who starred as Maria in Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake of West Side Story.
In public comments over the past few years, Zegler has revealed that her Snow White story will be told from a feminist perspective, angering those on the political right as well as Disney purists.
"It's no longer 1937," so Snow White's "not gonna be saved by the prince, and she's not gonna be dreaming about true love," Zegler told a trade paper in September 2022.
In an interview the same year at Disney's D23 convention for fans, she disparaged the prince who saves Snow White's life in the Brothers Grimm tale and in the animated Disney classic.
"The original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so. 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," Zegler said at D23.
While on both occasions Zegler's comments came and went without much notice, they got renewed interest late last year as news spread that the film might be in trouble, including reshoots last summer after principal photography had wrapped.
"They picked such a fun actress," Peterson sarcastically told Cooper during his podcast that dropped on Monday.
"As somebody who is more traditional ... it's sad to watch these stories be completely destructed for that agenda," Cooper tells Peterson, promising that her Snow White will be "in line with the values in which it was written."
Disney also faced criticism over the seven dwarfs in the film, saying it would replace them with non-humans played by one little person, Martin Klebba, and using CGI to create the others, including a female.
Disney said its decision was based on its desire "to avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film," though the studio was panned not only for bending a knee to alleged wokeness but also for depriving actors with dwarfism potentially lucrative jobs in a high-profile film.
During the Peterson podcast, Cooper, a soprano, also said she is taking dance and singing lessons for her role as Snow White because, like the Disney version, it will be a musical.
When The Daily Wire's co-founder, Jeremy Boreing, first announced Snow White and the Evil Queen, he also disparaged Disney.
"Instead of telling stories about timeless truth, what the ancient fairy tales were all about, Disney's new Snow White is an apology for their past and will expose children to the popular but destructive lies of the current moment," Boreing said.
In Peterson's podcast, Cooper also explained how she shot a teaser trailer in Europe dressed as Snow White while some of her cast mates from The Pendragon Cycle stood nearby, not aware of what was happening because Snow White and the Evil Queen was, at the time, a closely guarded secret.
The Pendragon Cycle, co-directed by Boreing, is a seven-episode show based on the Pendragon series of books by author Stephen R. Lawhead. The books are a retelling of the legend of King Arthur and Cooper plays Merlin the magician's wife.
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Paul Bond has been a journalist for three decades. Prior to joining Newsweek he was with The Hollywood Reporter. He ... Read more
