Snow White: Rachel Zegler defends her character's skin color

In 2025, Disney will adapt another of its cult cartoons. After Dumbo, The Lion King, Pinocchio, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, it's the turn of Snow Whiteto pass under the effect of live-action shots. But like Rob Marshall's film with the young Halle Bailey, the next Disney is facing a big controversy: the choice to represent the heroine with a different skin color than the original. The main actress Rachel Zegler tries once again to put out the fire.

The question of skin color at the center of the remake of Snow White

When the big-eared company revealed that young Rachel Zegler (revealed in Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story) would play the lead role in the remake of Snow White, some accused Disney of racebending (the act of casting a white character as a role for an actor or actress of color). According to them, the studios are not honoring the original 1937 cartoon, which presented their heroine with a very white complexion, and which corresponded to the beauty standard of the 1930s, an animated film itself adapted from the Brothers Grimm tale from the early 19th century.

But we are in 2024. Rachel Zegler has come to the rescue of the project several times. She claimed this summer that the original work was  “dated”, notably provoking the anger of David Hand, a designer for Disney in the 1990s. While the pitchforks are still brandished by the many detractors, the American actress of Colombian origin returned to set the record straight at the microphone of Variety.

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Rachel Zegler returns to defend her character

“We went back to another version of Snow White that was told at the time, in which she survives a snowstorm as a baby. […] So the king and queen decide to name her Snow White to remind her of her tenacity. One of the main messages of our film to young women and young people is to not forget how strong they are.”

The actress therefore recalls the original meaning of the name Snow White, which does not refer to her skin color, but to a particular event.A name that echoes the young woman's pugnacity, and serves as an argument for Disney to serve a more feminist version, more anchored in our times. This is in any case what Rachel Zegler seems to imply.

For its part, Disney has previously defended itself by arguing that the choice to cast Rachel Zegler was due to her “extraordinary vocal qualities”, which “are only the first of her many gifts”. To give weight to its argument, the firm revealed a first trailer at D23, its convention that takes place every two years, and which emphasizes the vocal abilities of its young 23-year-old actress. Enough to put out the fire that started three years ago? Not really, judging by the number of dislkies that said trailer has generated.