Disney is some $900 million in the hole thanks to a series of recent box office flops that featured ‘woke’ storylines about race, sexual orientation, and gender identity. And now it appears as though the entertainment giant’s latest live action remake is following a similar path.
Last week, pictures surfaced from the set of the forthcoming Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs remake showing just how much has changed for the 19th-century German fairy tale that was first adapted as a cartoon flick by Disney in 1937. The Mouse House initially denied the authenticity of the photos but later was forced to admit that they are, in fact, real.
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Christopher Rufo, author of America’s Cultural Revolution, to discuss the shocking pictures and just how far Disney’s cultural stock has fallen.
Snow White and the Seven… ‘Magical Creatures’?
The new and improved Snow White is set to hit theaters in March 2024, and Daily Mail obtained exclusive photos from filming in Bedfordshire, England. In the pictures, a stand-in for Snow White – who will be played by Colombian-American actress Rachel Zegler – is accompanied not by the traditional seven dwarves but by actors who appear to be of varying heights, genders, and ethnicities.
As it turns out, there will only be one little person in the updated film and the characters will be known as “magical creatures” to “avoid reinforcing stereotypes.” This is at least in part due to comments made by actor Peter Dinklage last year. He ripped Disney for “making that f–king backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together,” which led the company to acquiesce on the storyline.
Megyn couldn’t help but see the irony. “Great job, Peter,” Megyn said. “You made all your money, you became the most famous dwarf in America, and then you ruined the acting roles that were available for six other dwarfs who just want to work as paid actors like you did.”
Additionally, the new plot will reportedly be without Prince Charming. Instead, the Latina Snow White will be a “stronger” character, according to Daily Mail, who dreams of becoming a leader. “They felt that ‘the story needed refreshing,’ including getting rid of, I guess, the offensive white skin of Snow White, who is traditionally a fair German princess with ‘skin as white as snow,’” Megyn noted. “It’s fine to say that the white skin is offensive… Replacing a white woman in one of the classic roles that’s supposed to be a white person with a person of color – no problem.”
The DEI Checklist
Megyn called the photos yet another example of how diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) forces have taken over Hollywood. “In Disney’s latest offering, now there’s only one dwarf and like a bunch of DEI boxes checked behind the one dwarf… and Snow White herself is not white,” she said. “So, everybody’s been racialized to check every box they can – except for all the dwarf boxes because they’re offensive. I guess you can only have one dwarf. That’s not offensive, but the six more would have been.”
Rufo admitted that he initially thought the photos were fake (as Disney tried to claim) simply because of the absurdity of them. But then he started to see them for what they are. “I think it’s a perfect symbol… intersectionality – the idea that you can categorize and slice and dice people according to all of their characteristics of race, height, sex, body shape, sexuality, and others and then create a new hierarchy and apportion these things,” he explained.
Except in this case, he said, the logic seems more “internally incoherent” than usual. “You’re removing the dwarfs and redistributing them towards taller people who are higher on the hierarchy, but then you have some kind of gender people [and] you have a composition of racial minorities,” he noted. “It’s like, what is the formula? It’s impossible to make sense of… and it’s distracting from the story.”
This is certainly not the first time Disney has made updates to its classic films. Rufo said that, in some cases, it is possible to make changes without compromising the story. But, in other cases, it is not. “Some stories, it doesn’t really matter – you can have people interchangeable based on races and perhaps sexuality,” he shared. “But if you look at a lot of these stories, they’re actually rooted in specific folklore of specific traditions of ethnicities. Tell the story as it is to be told so as to not be distracting.”
Is Disney Done?
As evidenced by the plunging box office revenue and decreased wait times at domestic theme parks, Disney appears to be suffering financially for some of the decisions it has made culturally. “Disney is one of the biggest problems in the wokification of America,” Megyn said. “It’s a complete betrayal by a company that a lot of parents for decades trusted implicitly.”
Even so, Rufo said it might have to get worse before it gets better. “I’m at the point where I say: Acceleration – let’s let them reach new heights of absurdity, so people can really see what’s driving the company ideologically and then they can make better decisions,” he said. “If their stock price, if some of their recent mass layoffs, if some of the recent comments from the CEO admitting that he shouldn’t have waded into this fight with Gov. Ron DeSantis, if those are any evidence, they’re taking a hit from all these decisions.”
In the meantime, there is other programming for families to enjoy. “If they want to have magical gender people replace the beloved dwarves… let them do it,” he concluded. “I know my family canceled Disney+ many months ago, and my kids haven’t missed it one bit. There’s plenty of good content out there.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Rufo by tuning in to episode 589 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.