Snow White star Rachel Zegler is currently the talk of the town since landing in hot waters for criticizing Disney’s 1937 animated feature for its portrayal of women in power calling it “extremely dated”. While the 22-year-old West Side Story breakout actress is unable to respond to the backlash due to the SAG-AFTRA Strike – an old video of the actress has some folks on social media under the impression the PR team is behind its release to set the record straight.
It’s fair to say Rachel Zegler has one-upped her Shazam 2 co-star Zachary Levi at causing a PR nightmare. The Snow White live-action project continues to receive criticism over the titular star’s old comments from her appearance at the 2022’s D23 Expo when the mouse house unveiled an exclusive first-look preview with Gal Gadot in attendance as well. While speaking to Variety, she said that 2024’s Snow White movie has a modern edge, detailing “I just mean it’s no longer 1937” and Gadot added to say, “She’s not gonna be saved by the prince”.
Zegler also states the Marc Webb-directed feature is stepping away from the original adaptation’s narrative which focused on Snow White’s love story with Prince Charming. “She’s not gonna be dreaming about true love, she’s dreaming about becoming the leader she can be”. Coupled with a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly where she doubles down on her earlier statement but also makes it clear, “I think I watched it once and never picked it up again” while also revealing she was scared of the original cartoon. Similarly, she also conveyed her feelings towards the original adaptation’s love story as “a guy who literally stalks her. Weird, weird. So we didn’t do that this time” to ExtraTV in October 2022.
Clearly, the backfire from her comment has not gone unnoticed, especially by ET since the outlet was quick to post on Tiktok featuring a compilation of Rachel Zegler clips and as Buzzfeed notes, “sharing how grateful she is” to have landed opportunities in Hollywood.
