Rachel Zegler is simply the "fall person" for Hollywood going too far with "re-imagining" the old "classics"

 

OK, so there is no Packer game this week, so I’m going to ramble about this story concerning Rachel Zegler and the Snow White “controversy.” I admit I am one of those who is skeptical about Disney’s re-imagining the story lines of the old “classic” films to satisfy current gender and racial politics. Zegler had previously “starred” in the role of Maria in Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, which bombed at the box office, which I say “good” because once again we get a film that refuses to give any humanity to “real” Latinos—meaning those with full or mostly indigenous or “mestizo”  blood and heritage.

The film was “lauded” for its casting of “Afro-Latino” actors, which frankly was most of the non-white cast. Let’s be honest about this for just one second: “Afro” means African, which means the descendants of “Afro-Latinos” were not original inhabitants of this hemisphere, but Africans who just like Europeans (and Asians) came here without the consent of the indigenous peoples; whether they were brought here by choice or otherwise is irrelevant. We may also "suspect" that putting black actors (as white actors were in the past) in "Latino" roles is more "acceptable" to audiences who are naturally prejudiced against anyone who looks "Mexican."

Giving “Latino” roles to people who are not “indigenous” to this hemisphere means that people who are—and let’s be honest, the prejudice against Latinos is a reaction to those who are or part indigenous—the stories of the “real” Latinos continue to be ignored by both the entertainment and news media when not portrayed in stereotypical or negative ways.

Although Zegler is supposedly half-white, she sure looks more “black” to me; but unlike the “controversy” over a black actress with fake red-hair playing The Little Mermaid, the backlash was more intense in regard to the casting of a “Latino” actress (albeit with a non-Hispanic name) in the role of this upcoming "re-imagined” live action version of Snow White, with seven “dwarfs” who only one is an actual “dwarf,” and one is female. 

But what is even “worse” for “fans” of the original concept is Zegler’s reaction to this backlash, which is to disparage the Snow White story as not worth getting all worked-up about, and she personally has no investment in satisfying people’s expectations of the story, albeit in ways that offend people. She has thus become box office "poison" before the film has even gone into production. Let’s be honest about this: this shouldn’t be about Zegler, but about those who seek to use film to make “political statements” and put her in this unfair position to be hated on. 

Oh, and by the way, her co-star in West Side Story, Ansel Elgort, is having his own troubles with one of those typically opportunistic "MeToo" allegations. 

It seems to me that this idea to “re-imagine” and “revise” tales to suit current politics began in earnest with the play Wicked, where the Wicked Witch of the East was transformed into an object of “sympathy” because other witches made fun of her green skin—which of course people who are real victims of skin color discrimination should find offensive when white women hypocritically try to coopt their issues in society. Of course the “wicked" witch and the “good” witch are actually “frenemies” and the “wicked” witch doesn’t really “die” at the end—she just “melts” through a trap door, or something.

Thus we see Disney follow suit with the characters like Maleficent and Cruella, both evil and conniving white women in the original films that featured them, but now adding new story lines to change how viewers “perceive” them. These politically-correct changes turned these “evil” women into “sympathetic” characters who either had a “backstory” to “justify” their actions, or as in the Cruella character, created an “alter-ego” that wasn’t in any of the previous iterations, and actually “rewarded” her in the end. 

As for Maleficent—whose character is based on the Charles Perrault version of the Sleeping Beauty fable and whose only purpose was to bestow the curse on the princess before disappearing—she not only isn’t killed after transforming herself into a dragon as in the original animated film (and worse yet, it is her kiss that awakens the sleeping princess), she even gets a sequel and survives that.

Now how about this idea for “re-imagining” the Snow White story if you are not going to create an entirely different "fable" that doesn’t “offend” purists: a comedy that satirizes the concept of “snow whiteness” and "dwarfism" as black-heartedness and small-mindedness. Say there are two white parents who are racists who announce they will name their yet unborn daughter “Snow White” and even put it on the birth certificate which is promptly registered so it can’t be changed. 

However, when the girl is born she is distinctly dark-skinned to the shame and embarrassment of the parents. In an effort to rid themselves of her, they give her to the only people they know who will take her, a “family” of outcast “dwarfs” who are actually only “dwarfs” in the sense that they have certain “defects” that make them “little” in the eyes of others. After some trials and tribulations, “Snow White” overcomes prejudice and finds happiness and success that her parents to their chagrin are excluded from.

But instead we have the powers-that-be think they must satisfy the whims of feminists or on their own attempt to “change” societal norms by simply shoehorning in demographic “modifications” that clearly do not advance the “agenda” but put it up to ridicule and attack. The most recent “news” is that Disney plans to replace Zegler with a different actress, presumably one with lighter skin. Of course Disney and Hollywood in general has placed the blame on Zegler, who isn’t “black” enough for them to be accused of racism anyways.

One wonders, even without Zegler in the role of Snow White, what exactly does Disney have in mind. In the original Grimm fairy tale of Snow White, the evil stepmother dies when, after trying to kill Snow White yet again, the prince has her put in red-hot iron slippers and forced to dance until she succumbs. In Disney’s 1937 animated film, the stepmother is struck by lightning and falls off a cliff with a boulder falling on top of her. 

In a 2001 television film with Miranda Richardson as the stepmother (and in my opinion the best version), she is reverted back to an old hag after the destruction of the mirror, which frees dwarfs who she had turned into garden gnomes, and she is done away with when they form a mob and attack her. 

Perhaps in the “re-imagined” politically-correct version it will be an evil step-father who is the “villain.”