A fairy-tale flop

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Friday, March 21st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Another Disney remake of an animated classic.

MAST: Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White has been plagued with problems from the very beginning. First, the pandemic delayed production.

Then came bad publicity. There were backlashes over casting decisions. Backlashes over how the film would represent the Seven Dwarfs. And backlashes over controversial statements made by the star Rachel Zegler.

Then on top of everything else, writers and actors strikes delayed the film for another year.

BROWN: So, in light of all the controversies and delays, is Disney’s Snow White worth the wait? Here’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino to let us know.

MAGIC MIRROR: A lovely maiden I now behold… Snow White is more fair than thee.

EVIL QUEEN: No!

COLLIN GARBARINO: Disney has been mining its classic intellectual property faster than the Seven Dwarfs can dig gemstones out of a mountain. In the last 10 years, the studio has produced more than a dozen live-action adaptations based on their animated classics. And out of all those films, it’s safe to say this new Snow White is the absolute worst.

In fact, it’s so bad that I’m at a loss for where to begin.

EVIL QUEEN: You know… I really don’t remember you being this… opinionated.

Much of the first half of the movie follows the familiar story from the 1937 cartoon. The evil queen becomes jealous of Snow White when the magic mirror suggests that perhaps Snow White has grown to be the fairest of them all. The evil queen tells the huntsman to take the girl out into the forest and kill her. But he has pity on her, and she flees into the forest where she meets up with seven idiosyncratic dwarfs. So far so good.

But then this movie starts to chart its own path. You see, this version of Snow White is something of a girlboss. Her father raised her to be a leader, and she’s not going to stand aside and let her kingdom suffer under the tyranny of her evil stepmother.

EVIL QUEEN: Fearless, fair, brave, true. How quaint.

There’s no prince charming in this story. Instead, Snow White meets another band of allies in the forest because seven eccentric dwarfs wasn’t enough. She finds seven equally eccentric bandits, led by a Robin Hood–like character, who help her save the kingdom.

Now, I’m not opposed to changing up the story some. In fact, I dislike the remakes that indulge in shot-for-shot recreations of the originals. But if you’re going to depart from the classic story, you had better make sure that the new story is good. This live-action Snow White is merely a disjointed pile of cliches.

SNOW WHITE: I feel they need some kindness.

The plot points are nonsensical. The dialogue is cringe inducing. And the action scenes are pathetic. Even the sets and costumes look cheap.

And Disney’s attempts to update this film for a modern audience turn an already troubled production into an absolute dumpster fire. You see, before the evil queen showed up, Snow White lived in a perfect utopian socialist kingdom. Wait! How can you have a king in a socialist paradise where everyone shares?! Nevermind those pesky questions! What’s important is that “the bounty of the land belongs to all who tend it.” Snow White exhibits such naivety that it almost makes you want to root for the evil queen.

SNOW WHITE: When I was young, my parents and I would pick apples. We’d take them and make pies, and go out into the village…

EVIL QUEEN: Pie? Pies are luxuries. They don’t need luxuries.

But I suppose Disney thought this movie would be empowering. Snow White teaches those she meets to stand up and use their voices. Tyranny can’t withstand a people united under the righteous cause of socialism! Especially since the evil queen only seems to have about 12 palace guards. With a budget of 270 million dollars, you would think the filmmakers could have afforded a few more.

If the preachy politics weren’t bad enough, the hypocrisy gets pretty thick too. In the original cartoon, Snow White tidied up the dwarfs’ cottage as a thank you for letting her stay. Housework is obviously beneath a modern Snow White. She’s a freeloader who gets the hardworking dwarfs to clean up their own mess. From an economic standpoint, her exploitation of these seven marginalized dwarfs isn't much different from the queen’s extraction of wealth from the kingdom.

Despite all these problems, this musical does contain a couple of entertaining original songs.

MUSIC: [“PRINCESS PROBLEMS”]

But even these catchy songs feel tonally out of place in this laughably bad disaster of a movie. I keep wondering, how on earth the studio let this film devolve into the mess it’s become. Perhaps the most charitable thing I can say about Disney’s Snow White is that it might be so bad it’s good. The entire movie is one big unintentional joke, and I must admit that the sheer stupidity of it all gave me a good chuckle.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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