Disney has recently come under fire for their upcoming Disney Princess remake, Snow White. The titular character will be played by Rachel Zegler, the 22-year-old American actress and singer who made her debut playing Maria in Steven Spielberg’s 2022 adaptation of West Side Story. The film’s casting choices, several comments made by Zegler, as well as leaked press photos, have given the public a glimpse as to what this remake will look like, and suffice it to say, the people are not impressed.
One of the most notable controversies is how Zegler is of Latin descent, the “total opposite” of the character she plays who supposedly has “skin as white as snow,” This is coupled with leaked paparazzi pictures that showed the ‘dwarves,’ a band of average height looking men and women of different races.
This is not the first time that Disney has gotten backlash for doing race swaps on characters. From Halle Bailey’s Ariel and her mermaid sisters in the 2023 remake of The Little Mermaid, to Yara Shahidi’s Tinkerbell in the 2023 Peter Pan and Wendy, to Leah Jeffries’ Annabeth in the upcoming Percy Jackson and the Olympians TV series, Disney has taken to casting darker skinned actors to play lighter skinned animated characters.
One thing is clear: the actors who will or are playing these characters do not deserve the racist backlash that they are receiving from ‘die-hard’ fans because of Disney’s casting choices – these actors are people, who are simply doing their job the best that they can.
And yet, the people are divided. On the one hand, audiences are overjoyed for this representation and argue that the characters’ whose races were changed did not have an ethnicity or culture vital for the plot to function, and therefore, such a small, aesthetic detail can be overlooked.
On the other hand, fans lament the changes race swapping will make to the original animation and their characters, and question why Disney could not create new stories with people of colour specifically in mind, instead of just changing the skin colour of an existing character.
Using diversity to seem ‘woke’ as a strategy is not new. That is to say, it’s a tale as old as time – well at least up until the modern century. For beauty companies like Dove, to sports companies like Nike, socially conscious marketing (SCM) has been the key to all their concerns: they know that the current generation cares more about social, political, and cultural issues, and so they seek to capitalise on it. So far, it has done them well. Through SCM, these companies were able to raise brand awareness, boost their reputation, bump up their sales, and generate brand loyalty.
This method serves as a cheap and simple way for Disney to…garner praise while doing the bare minimum.
However, it does raise the question: do these companies actually care for the messages they are preaching? Or is it all just for profit?
It can be hard to tell. By simply alluding to these socio-political issues in their products, companies are demonstrating their awareness of these problems, yet also absolving themselves of any responsibility to investigate and solve the underlying structural problems they are appropriating for their benefit. Though they are different industries, such a strategy is also present within Disney – instead of producing new stories centred around people of colour to address the scarcity of such films in the market, they resort to race swapping, which allows them to bring in more diversity into a film that originally lacks it. This method serves as a cheap and simple way for Disney to appeal to the masses and garner praise while doing the minimum.
So is incorporating diversity to be ‘woke’ bad and shouldn’t be done at all? Not necessarily. Including more people of colour, even through race swapping, does contribute more diversity to a film, and its respective market. Such positive representations can act as a strong vessel to empower people of colour. From the young to the old, being able to see yourself, your beliefs, and your culture reflected in popular media can bring great confidence, pride, and joy.
Nevertheless, when you can create new, original stories for new, diverse characters, instead of race swapping as a shortcut, imagine all the unique stories you can get.
