Peter Dinklage shares outrage about Disney’s Snow White remake

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will be the latest Disney live-action remake following the successes of Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Dumbo.  Lined up to play the dark-haired princess heroine is Spielberg’s West Side Story‘s Rachel Zegler and Wonder Woman‘s Gal Gardot as the Evil Queen.  Filmmaker Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man, 500 Days of Summer) wants to take the Disney classic for a new spin while keeping the original storyline.

Disney may have been on the progressive side when giving Zegler the starring role as she is of Columbian and Polish descent, but the issue remains with the Dwarfs’ representation in the film.  While the seven Dwarfs were the ‘protectors’ of Snow White, the stereotype of how little people are depicted is very much evident, even if the movie was updated to today’s standards.

Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage, who has Achondroplasia himself, spoke up about Disney’s new project on the Monday night podcast episode of WTF with Marc Maron.

"“There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on.  Literally no offense to anyone, but I was a little taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White. But you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me.”"

The Emmy winner’s words ring a clear bell as minority representation in entertainment remains “stuck” with old stereotypes and nonprogressive troupes. While he did further praise Ziegler for obtaining the titular role, he believed that Disney continued the “backward” story of the Dwarfs and that the narrative should be improved on.

Disney heard Dinklage’s concerns and stated to Variety to have a more positive conclusion on the film.

"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.. “We look forward to sharing more as the film heads into production after a lengthy development period.”"

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released in 1937. While Snow White is a classic fairytale both based on a princess and ancient German folklore and published in the early 19th century by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (Grimm’s fairytales), making the necessary adjustments to have proper representation would be a step forward in media creation.

Do you agree or not with Dinklage’s claims?  Let us know in the comments.