Monday, March 24, 2025

Part I

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Disney’s Latest ‘Dumpster Fire’: Disney Live-Action Remake of Snow White is Ticking Off Just About Everyone

About a half century ago, European psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim, went back to look at fairy tales, and his argument in his book entitled The Uses of Enchantment, is that fairy tales play a very important role in children growing into maturity. They tell things to children, they convey truths to children that children need to know. Going all the way back to the Brothers Grimm and their famous tales, he made the point that many of these stories, they include very practical information children need to know, such as, don’t go into dark forests alone, it’s a dangerous place. But they are also charming stories, and that’s one of the reasons why they have been passed down from generation to generation. And one of the most famous of those fairy tales is Snow White, but there’s actually quite a fairy tale about the fairy tale of Snow White. Of course, Disney is releasing an updated version of Snow White and all of your defense mechanisms should go into full alert at this point.

But let’s go back and remind ourselves of a little history. If you go back to the original Disney production Snow White, you go back almost 90 years, you go back to 1937, and in 1937, Disney released Snow White and it transformed the company. Walt Disney himself, of course, was an early innovator in animation, and he had created Steamboat Willie, eventually it became Mickey Mouse. He had also been involved in a good number of other short films, but nothing that made a lot of money. And by the time you get to the middle of the 1930s, Walt Disney was really not so much running out of ideas as he was running out of cash. He came up with the idea of Snow White and it became one of the great cinematic achievements of the 20th century. Just consider these numbers. It produced sales of $1.4 million. Now, today, that is a massive amount. As you recalculate that money in terms of current dollars, it ranks Snow White in the top 10 highest grossing movies of all time.

What kind of team did it take to create Snow White? Well, Walt Disney had to employ 750 artists. How many paintings did they have to paint to make the animation look as it looked in that incredible achievement of 1937, it was released, of course, in 1938, how many artists were involved? 750. How many paintings were painted? Two million. That’s right, two million paintings were required for the production of Snow White. It was by any measure, a very expensive process. It was a big leap for the Disney Company and for Walt Disney himself, and it turned out to be a radical success. Not only was Snow White a cinematic achievement, so much so that the Academy Awards presented an Oscar to Walt Disney. They didn’t have a category for the film he had produced, but it was so spectacular they nonetheless created a special category, gave him the Oscar, and the Oscar was surrounded by dwarves.

In many ways, the real magic when it came to Snow White was the magic for the Disney Company. It enabled, just the cash coming in from this one movie enabled the company to build that big studio in Burbank, California. And then, well, lots of other good stuff happened for Disney, but there were some effective duds along the way as well. Pinocchio, for example, it’s a much-loved movie, but it didn’t make money for the studio. Fantasia, well, artistically, it might even be superior to Snow White, an even greater cinematic achievement, but Fantasia again really didn’t net much money for Disney Studios. The next big winner was actually much like Snow White. It was Cinderella in 1950. A similar kind of story told a similar kind of way.

And ever since then, of course, one of the things that has been interesting is how studios have tried to bring out some of their top-grossing films and redo them in order to have a new release updated for a particular age. But that’s one thing, it’s one thing if you’re talking about a story that might be set in many different contexts and with many different sets of characters and plot lines, it’s a very different thing if you try to fool with Snow White. And that’s exactly what Disney has done.

And as a matter of fact, even as Disney has been bringing out remakes of so many of its classic products, and frankly, putting some of its products behind even a warning statement given modern sensitivities, the fact is that all of the defense mechanisms were pretty much on full alert among Disney fans when it was announced that the studio would be remaking Snow White. The final verdict, it’s a disaster.

The Wall Street Journal was pretty nice about it. Its review by Kyle Smith simply said, “Disney’s live action Snow White is an awkward attempt to modernize the 1937 animated classic.” The New York Times decided to point to the updated part of the updating when it comes to morality and worldview. Its review was headlined, “Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, Ho-Hum. It’s Girl Power.” But the New York Times really got to the heart of the issue with a major article that appeared on the front page of yesterday’s business section, the headline, “Snow White and the Seven Kajillion Controversies.” The subhead in the article, “The Dwarfs. The Casting. The Politics of the Lead Actress. Is Disney’s Remake of the Classic Film Doomed by the Culture Wars?” Brooks Barnes is the reporter in the story. And the answer, just in case you wondered, is yes, it is doomed by the culture wars.

It’s being panned by critics. It is also falling apart because of internal problems with the movie, including with the two women cast as the lead. Most importantly, Rachel Zegler as Snow White and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. The two of them, by the way, are not only antagonists in the movie, they turned out to be antagonists when it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza. And for instance, you have Rachel Zegler who has taken a side against Israel and for the Palestinian cause. And then, you have Gal Gadot who has taken a very decided stand for Israel. Gal Gadot, by the way, is an Israeli citizen. Okay. The Washington Post’s Herb Scribner comes along and says this, “The film also has been wrapped into the online culture wars, drawing attacks from the right for its purported woke sensibilities, and from Peter Dinklage for its adaptation of the original film’s Seven Dwarfs. Even the Israel-Gaza War has cast a shadow over the kingdom.”

Controversy began early on with Rachel Ziegler’s choice to play the lead. By the way, is this an animated movie? Well, no. And well, wait just a minute, maybe yes, the answer is a little bit so, a little bit not. But a lot of the controversy is about Rachel Zegler. Some of the early controversy had to do with the fact that she is not European in terms of her background, she has Colombian ancestry, but the big issues are politics. And the big issue is the fact that she has been very loud about those politics at the very same time that Disney has been at least declaring in public it wants to step back from political controversy and out of the DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda. And Disney’s leadership has been saying, “We want to be non-offensive.” Well, you release Snow White even before the movie’s out there are people who are offended, and understandably so.

When it comes to the reference here to Peter Dinklage, that has to do with the fact that the movie has dwarfs. That has to do with the fact that the movie has dwarfs, but they’re not real dwarfs. Trying to get around controversy, they instead created animated characters who are going to play the part of the dwarfs, but there is also a band of bandits, and in some of the promotional materials things seem to get mixed up, and some people thought that the bandits were dwarfs and everybody was offended. And so far as I know, just about everybody still is.

Part II

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The Rewriting of a Classic Story: The Big Story of the Live-Action Snow White is the Major Changes to One of the Most Significant Films of the 20th Century

At one point, at a Disney fan event of all things, she called the Prince character, the heroic Prince from 1937, “A guy who literally stalks Snow White.” Also, even before the movie came out, Zegler referred to the original film in a comment with Entertainment Weekly as, “Extremely dated when it comes to women being in roles of power.” She also revealed that the original movie had scared her as a child. Yeah, she’s the obvious choice for the lead role.

In response to the concern about dwarfs, Disney released an official comment, “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.” And about a week later, it was reported that the producers had recreated the dwarfs as, “magical creatures.” But that offended some actors who had hoped to try out for the parts. And so, well, even from the beginning, it appears nobody’s happy.

The Huffington Post ran a review. The headline is: “Disney’s Live Action Remake Is A Hot Mess.” That kind of tells you where this is going and, “More than any of the other live action remakes that have been made in the last decade, this one feels particularly designed for a young audience.” She goes on to say, “This is what makes it so hard to judge, because as a parent, I’m part of the inevitable audience, but not the intended one. So, does it really matter if the film is perhaps the strangest, hottest mess out of all the modern remakes?” She says, “By modern, I don’t mean woke, even though the movie’s updates are of course being politicized that way. Instead, I’m referring to the practical updating that Disney makes in this version of Snow White in an attempt to honor the fairy tale’s legacy as its first animated feature-length film. The film also gives the princess an identity that is separate from her desire to marry a prince.”

The updated Snow White doesn’t make a wish for a prince. Instead, she’s hoping to become courageous and to be the kind of courageous leader that others expect her to be, including her parents. “She wants to end her stepmother’s fascist rule and make the world more fair and more equal for the villagers.” The Prince, by the way, in the new movie, falls in love with Snow White, and yet, it’s a more egalitarian thing than in the past. By the way, in the first movie, the Prince was actually the least developed character. As a matter of fact, there were a few close-ups because as it turns out, the Disney artists could not agree on what the face of the Prince should look like. Thus, a little bit of distance, not too much Prince.

Collin Garbarino of WORLD Magazine said that, “Disney’s attempts to update this film for a modern audience turn an already troubled production into an absolute dumpster fire.” He went on to say, “You see, before the Evil Queen showed up, Snow White lived in a perfect, utopian, socialist kingdom. Wait, how can you have a king in a socialist paradise where everyone shares? Nevermind those pesky questions,” he said, “what’s important is that the bounty of the land belongs to all who tend it.” There’s a quote from the film. “Snow White exhibits such naivete that it almost makes you want to root for the Evil Queen.”

Brooks Barnes at the New York Times tells us in the article that appeared Sunday, a massive article about the movie in the business section, by the way, we are told, “Over the decades Disney has tried to modernize her story,” that means Snow White, “to make her more than a damsel in distress, one prized as the fairest of them all because of her white as snow skin. Twice, starting in the early 2000s, screenwriters have been unable to crack it, at least not to the satisfaction of an image-conscious Disney.”

So, what does Disney think about this dumpster fire that they have created? Bob Chapek was the chief executive at Disney for a short time when the movie was announced, and he promised, “It’s going to be amazing. Another big win.” But the New York Times responds, “Instead, Snow White starring Rachel Zegler arrived in theaters on Friday as one of the most troubled projects in Disney’s 102-year history. The movie became a cautionary tale about relevance, how trying to strike the right cultural chord at the right cultural moment can turn a seemingly innocuous movie into a proxy battle for special interests.” The article goes on, “And just about everything that could go wrong did, resulting in a case study in the perils of big-budget movie-making in a volatile, fast-moving world, and the risks of trying to endlessly mine existing intellectual property.”

Well, I started out with Bruno Bettelheim and The Uses of Enchantment, the function of fairy tales, especially in the medieval world and beyond serving as morality tales, something like fables for children, but also warning about very real dangers, such as, the dangers in the wilderness, the dangers of walking alone in the forest, these kinds of things. And there were real dangers then and now. Disney already in the 1937/1938 make of the movie, their original, classic movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, they tried to sanitize the story somewhat, and so, there was no Snow White’s body falling out of a casket on the road. No, it was a much tamer story, but it was a story that very much reflected Disney in 1937, not Disney in 2025.

In terms of our worldview analysis, the most important thing we can recognize is that this certainly underlines fact that there is no neutrality in the world. There’s no safe place in a world in which you have such deep worldview divides and hot controversies. And that’s because even if you don’t always intend to take sides on these issues, telling the story a certain way, making this change, casting with this decision, all of these things inevitably bring either applause or condemnation, or sometimes both at the same time, or sometimes condemnation from more than one direction, also apparently deserved.

Also, in terms of worldview analysis, it reminds us that we live by stories. We have to have stories we live by. Children hunger for stories, and Christian parents need to be very careful about the stories they tell their children. And even as we understand far beyond what Bruno Bettelheim did with secular psychology about the importance of these stories, we do want our children to know certain stories, even to celebrate those stories. And some of those stories may be lighter, some of them heavier, some of them darker, some of them lighter in terms of the content, the kinds of messages that we want our children to get. But we are reminded of the fact there is no just simple passive entertainment. And it may look that way with a child just staring at a screen increasingly unblinkingly, and by the way, they’re now carrying the screens oftentimes or propping them up in the stroller rather than going to the cinema to see the movie on the big screen. That just makes the problem worse.

And as a matter of fact, one reviewer said the movie probably will sell a lot of tickets if only because many parents will be thinking about the Snow White they remember, and others will simply be looking for a way to babysit the kids for a certain amount of time. But Christians have to also recognize that if you’re going to make a serious point, any kind of point, frankly, any point of substance at all in this particular cultural context, somebody’s going to hate it. It may be true that somebody likes it and somebody hates it, or everyone may hate it. And it turns out that at least a lot of the reviewers of this movie are saying pretty much everyone’s going to hate it.

And you look at this, you see the Disney corporation seems to have been somewhat burned by taking sides in so many of the divisive issues, and they’ve already tampered with so many of the films and already to controversial effect, you would think that something like Snow White might be something that, well, Disney would decide not to mess up, but it looks like they’ve managed to find a way to mess it up. And I think Brooks Barnes at the New York Times is surely right when he says it’s about the money, at least it is for Disney, and it’s about the fact that Snow White really made Disney, about 90 years ago or so, and they were hoping that it might mean a lot of cash for Disney now. And you know, it still might. It still might.

The way the movie business goes now you have all these different streams of income. You have Disney, which has such a brand, and a lot of people will buy the product. You have international releases, you’ve got all kinds of digital releases. And even though this Snow White, this remake has cost a lot of money, over time, it might bring some real cash into Disney. But in terms of what they’ve done with the story, that itself is the big story.

Part III

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The Kinds of Stories We Tell: The Stories That Shape Our Culture Tell A Lot About Morality and Worldview – Just Ask James Bond

But next, staying on a theme, many of the most popular movies of all times, the most popular stories and tales of all time are stories of the contest between good and evil. And the Scripture tells us that we should expect that. In a fallen world where light versus darkness, good versus evil is very much being played out in history. It is, of course, being played out in an even larger sense in biblical theology. And it shows us that even people who don’t have much perception of reality, do perceive the reality of good and evil and of the contest between them.

One of the most famous franchises in all of the history of good versus evil is 007, James Bond. And it goes back to the original novel that was published in 1953, Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, who had a background himself in British intelligence. James Bond, 007, is a British Secret Service agent, better known popularly as a spy. He’s involved in espionage. And most of this has been in Her Majesty’s service, but of course now it is His Majesty, with the ascension of Charles III to the throne.

Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel set the stage for an entire series of stories, even a video game and a comic strip. Many people don’t remember the James Bond comic strip. It ran for several years. They know the movies far better, and of course, with a long list of leading men playing the part of James Bond. And as a matter of fact, if you want to get an argument started in some circles, argue about who is the best James Bond. But if you look at that and want to answer that question honestly, and by the way, I know the reality if you want to ask me, but the reality is that the movies got darker and darker, more complex. They were almost cartoonish in the beginning. Dr. No was the first film in 1962.

Now, they had some staple features that you’ll recognize, whizbang cars and special effects and all the other things, submarine helicopters, you just go down to it. But the stories actually became far darker over time, and at least a part of this was because the origins of the James Bond story went back to World War II, but all of this really developed further during the context of the Cold War and then the subsequent war on terror that seemed to follow the end of the Cold War. The stories in the newspapers and headlines got darker, and so did the Bond movies.

The Bond franchise, by the way, has made a lot of money. It ranks number five, we are told, in terms of movie franchises over time. That’s a lot of money, and that’s why Amazon just paid a billion dollars to buy the rights to James Bond, and especially the movie rights, $1 billion. That tells you they intend to do something with it. But this leads to a transatlantic controversy, because now Amazon, an American-based company with Jeff Bezos as its founder and chief executive, Amazon now has the James Bond franchise. And there are some British figures and not just secret agents who aren’t happy about that at all. What will the Americans do with James Bond? And of course, the most horrible thought of all to the Brits is they’ll turn James Bond into an American. Actually, I’ll make the argument that that would be likely to be about as successful as what Disney’s now done with updating Snow White.

James Bond, 007, is quintessentially a British secret agent, and it’s not a secret that it should continue that way. Otherwise, you end up with a different story, which means you have just discounted the franchise you paid a billion dollars for. And besides all of that, who wants a James Bond who sounds like an American? We want a James Bond with that British accent. But underlining this fact, once again, it’s not just children who need fairy tales, it is also adults who need fairy tales. We need stories. We are drawn to stories. We’re storytelling, we’re story-hearing creatures. God made us that way. But we’re responsible for the kind of stories we tell, and we are responsible for the stories that we find fascinating, the stories that tell a lot about us because we like them.

So, whether you’re thinking about Snow White or James Bond now owned by amazon.com, just understand that we’re going to continue to tell stories one way or another, and every one of those stories is going to come with tremendous worldview significance and with a morality all its own, even when supposedly it isn’t conveying any morality explicitly at all, it’s there because it has to be there.

By the way, I’m going to make one prediction here. I’m going to predict that at Disney World they’re not going to update Snow White much at all, and that is because all those little girls and their parents waiting in line, all those little girls dressed up like Snow White, they are there for the attraction of that original Snow White movie from 1938. They want that story. They’re dressed up like Snow White, and they want the story of Snow White being rescued and falling in love with a prince.

Looking at all those parents and all those little girls standing in line, you do think about the fact that even a lot of liberal parents who say they’re all critical of this, they’re very, very opposed to all this. They don’t like the stereotypes. They don’t like the simplicity. They don’t like how Snow White is presented. There’s their own little girl dressed up like Snow White, taking a picture with the actress as Snow White, and that’s just the way it works. So, again, I’ll just make the prediction, they’re not going to mess that up because it’s not so much about morality as it is about money. If they’re smart, they won’t mess that up.