Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Once upon a time, I worked with the Seven Dwarfs. Ours was a fleeting relationship, during which time I mostly served them beer. It was the early ’90s, and I was doing bar work at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, which staged an annual pantomime.This particular band of actors were a fiercely guarded union, a brotherhood of little people who moved to different UK venues to play the Snow White dwarfs each year. The panto season was their biggest and most secure source of income: but many of the cast had had illustrious careers. Among the company were former Ewoks, Time Bandits and Oompa-Loompas: some were second-generation actors from the same family. They were tight, loyal, companionable — and fairly heavy drinkers. They were also calloused from a lifetime of being petted and patronised by well-meaning strangers: “Aw, aren’t you sweet,” my colleague would say to Grumpy, a man quite significantly her senior, in age and wisdom, as she served him pints that he would drink while standing on a plastic crate so he could reach the bar.A plastic crate was about the extent to which the venue considered inclusivity. Another crate appeared in the lift so the actors could get around backstage. At the time, these gestures were probably regarded as a kind expression of political correctness: a minority group getting more visibility in a world in which most access was barred. I wonder what those actors would have made of Disney’s new $270mn live-action remake of the Snow White story, which arrived in cinemas this week. The film, based on the animated classic from 1937, has premiered with not so much a heigh-ho but a ho-hum. Thirty years ago, it was already cringe-making that actors with dwarfism were only offered artistic roles in which their size was considered key. The decision to revisit the story, with all its associated issues, seems quite deranged in 2025. Peter Dinklage, the Game of Thrones actor who has a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia, put it bluntly when the film’s production was first mooted in 2022. In an interview, he described the fairytale as a “backward story of seven dwarfs living in the cave”. The dwarfs are the least problematic aspect of a production that has been both condemned for being too retrograde and lambasted as too wokeIn an attempt to stave off criticism, the Snow White producers have cast a diverse range of actors to create a band of “magical creatures” who represent all sizes and genders, to play the dwarfs, who have been manipulated further with the use of CGI. The reaction has been one of horror: the dwarfs are monstrous looking, a horrible mishmash of cartoonish exaggeration and real life. And yet, the dwarfs are the least problematic aspect of a production that has been both condemned for being too retrograde and lambasted as too woke. Things started going wrong when Rachel Zegler, the lead actress, accused the 1937 film of being “sexist” and reportedly refused to sing “Someday My Prince Will Come”. Her character was “not going to be saved by the prince”, she told reporters. “She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.” The Latina actress was considered a casting evolution for Disney, much to the irritation of far-right commentators who decried the choice. Zegler was quick to respond: “yes i am snow white no i am not bleaching my skin for the role,” she wrote in a now-deleted post. Her outspoken stance however has been criticised as unbecoming of a Disney princess and subsequent interviews have seen Zegler interrogating the need to modernise the film’s themes.I’m all for modern retellings of fairy tales: like Shakespeare, the stories are so fluid they can happily sustain fresh blood. I love The Brothers Grimm version of the tale, as first written down in 1812. I’m less enthused by Disney’s attempt to shoehorn a narrative, especially one, like Snow White, conceived in conservative, prewar Hollywood, into a remake that only amplifies dated ideals. Many have accused these latest Disney live-action versions as being too woke to work. In 2023, a live-action The Little Mermaid saw the Black actor Halle Bailey cast as Ariel. With a gross of more than $569mn at box office, it was considered a disappointment for Disney (which spent about $360mn on the film). But I would argue that wokeness was less the issue for that movie than the fact it was so asinine. If only Disney had done an honest adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen classic, in which the mermaid not only doesn’t get her prince, but dies mute and brokenhearted to become a “daughter of the air”. Likewise, this reimagined Snow White has tried to please too many people, and in doing so has neutered the story of any bite. Disney’s 1937 Snow White was the first film I saw at the cinema, taken by my grandmother, who herself had seen it as a child. I don’t recall much about the magical pastoral in which the princess makes her adventure but I was scared witless by the Evil Queen. The film did not come with trigger warnings, there were no cautions that the trees look “ominous” or that “characters drink alcohol briefly” as the film does now. It’s not the fairy tales that need updating, it’s Disney’s unimaginative, dead-handed grip. Give me the Grimm original. Give me the panto. But I wouldn’t watch this Snow White for all the poisoned apples in the world. jo.ellison@ft.comFind out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning
