Snow White ‘dwarfs’ spark backlash

AlArabiya English

Disney’s Snow White remake faces backlash, partly over its portrayal of the “seven dwarfs,” entertainment journalist Stephanie Takyi explains.  #SnowWhite #Disney

Transcript

00:00This film was hoping to ride the wave of some other classic movies that have been remade recently,

00:06but has really faced a number of controversies, one being about the dwarves in the movie.

00:13Is there any more you can tell us?

00:15Yes, indeed Leanne. This remake has attracted an avalanche of controversy,

00:21mainly primarily to do with the dwarves. It's in the title. The classic film that came out in 1937

00:28was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, which initially was the working title for this film.

00:33But Peter Dinklage, who's a Hollywood actor who suffers from dwarfism,

00:38came out and attacked Disney and said this film is going to be backwards, you know,

00:42depicting the seven dwarves living in a cave. How can Disney say you guys are progressive

00:48and still depicting the seven dwarves in this way? So Disney consulted with the dwarfism community

00:55as they wanted to not redefine stereotypes of people who suffer from dwarfism.

01:00So instead, what they've done now, they've gone to the extreme now, Leanne,

01:04and they've changed the title to Snow White and the Magical Creatures.

01:09And also they've actually got rid of all the human dwarves and now they've introduced all these CGI

01:17animated magical creatures. As you can imagine, for actors who are in the dwarfism community,

01:23the roles they get are very far and few. And for a beloved Disney title such as this

01:29to now be alienated and hasn't gone down well.

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