Claims Disney has gone too ‘woke’ as Snow White bombs at the box office

Hollywood is facing backlash that its films are ‘too woke’ as Disney’s remake of Snow White becomes the latest cinematic outing to bomb at the box office.

Disney’s latest cinematic outing Snow White has tanked at the box office, with critics accusing the studio of having made a “woke” version of the classic fairy tale.

Film critic Leigh Paatsch called the film “spectacularly underwhelming”, while another reviewer said changes from the original were “pseudo-progressive”.

Why is the film facing these allegations, and is it part of a broader trend in Hollywood?

With an estimated budget of more than US$240 million, Snow White opened to a US domestic weekend of just US$43 million. A major film usually needs to make about double its budget to be considered a success, making Snow White one of Disney’s biggest box office bombs.

The film received an initial 42 per cent rating on critical review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and 1.6 out of 10 stars on Movie Database.

The film has been widely panned by critics and audiences alike, receiving an initial 42 per cent rating on critical review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and 1.6 out of 10 stars on the internet Movie Database.

It doesn’t mention the titular dwarfs from the original Brothers Grimm fairytale, and instead characterises them more vaguely as magical creatures. The change was explained in a statement by Disney as an attempt “to 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,” a spokesperson said during the film’s production in 2022.

In the film, the origin of the name ‘Snow White’ was changed from the fairytale’s reference to the main character having “skin as white as snow” to the princess having survived a snowstorm.

Rachel Zegler stars in the film as the titular princess. Picture: AFP

Zegler says changes made in the film were a result of the original being “dated”.

Rachel Zegler, starring in the film as the titular princess, is of Colombian and Polish descent.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Zegler said these changes were a result of the original animated film being “dated”.

“The cartoon was made 85 years ago and therefore it’s extremely dated when it comes to ideas of women being in roles of power and what a woman is fit for in the world,” she said in a 2022 interview.

Readers have slammed the film as “more woke rubbish”, writing that “when you go woke you go broke”.

Rachel Zegler is of Colombian and Polish descent. Picture: Getty Images / Disney

Why is Hollywood making films like this?

A number of films over the past decade have faced poor box office numbers attributed to their perceived progressive politics.

These include The Little Mermaid (2023), in which African-American actor Halle Bailey was cast as Ariel, Ghostbusters (2016) with an all-woman main cast, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) which had fewer white men in main roles than the original trilogies.

University of Adelaide media lecturer Dr Robert Boucaut said when re-making a classic story studios may feel the need to make changes, such as the race or gender of main characters, out of an “acknowledgment that people look at these existing texts and IP [intellectual property] through modern sensibilities when they weren’t written in modern times or for modern audiences.”

“It’s risk mitigation. It’s going with familiar IP as a way of trying to dominate the marketplace and to extend that relevance.”

Dr Boucaut said audiences can look at older films, such as Disney princess stories, and feel that “they’re not feminist”.

“There’s a certain level of tongue in cheek in that kind of critique, but it seems to have had a real impact in how the companies want to mitigate the risk of creating these ideas,” he said.

Readers have slammed the film as “more woke rubbish”. Picture: Getty / Allegra

The desire to capitalise on existing stories and water them down can lead to audience rejection, as Snow White and Ghostbusters revealed, while other stories skated by with box office success such as The Last Jedi and The Little Mermaid.

These films, Leigh Paatsch said, are being calibrated to what studios think audiences want, resulting in a product that “blands out and sanitises everything we used to expect from movies into a grey paste.”

“I think that Hollywood has just kind of lost its storytelling bravery,” Mr Paatsch said.

Is politics to blame?

Political polarisation has gone hand-in-hand with decreased risk-taking in films, Mr Paatsch said, as “there’s no such thing anymore as a universal sense of humour”.

One “misplaced joke” could effectively “implode” a film that cost $150 million dollars to make, he said.

Even suggestions of a film’s political sensibilities can turn audiences off, Dr Boucaut said.

“Certain audience sectors are perhaps turned off by the accusation that the movie or the product is going to be ‘woke’,” and will refuse to see a film as a result,” he said.

“[Viewers] latch on to how [classic stories] were told in the early iterations and resist any kind of updating for modern sensibilities.”

The price tag associated with tentpole films for major studios can lead to the end result being watered down – more of a product than a piece of art, with ticket sales suffering as a result.

“Audiences aren’t stupid,” Mr Paatsch said.

“They can tell when something has been made by committee, or they can tell when a director is sitting on their hands and not declaring where they stand.”

Originally published as Claims Disney has gone too ‘woke’ as Snow White bombs at the box office